Education is a Majority (not Minority) Issue

Yesterday, I talked about political strategy and ways to frame education to help each party win the presidential election by making it a priority issue. But I think it's also important to point out that while most voters will rank education in their top tier of issues, for some groups of voters, education comes in as the most important issue.

A new poll from the Pew center shows that education is hands down the single most important issue to Latino voters in the 2008 presidential election, far ahead of health care, Iraq, and the stereotypical Latino issue of immigration.

I'm not surprised by these results. Many families immigrate in order to give their children a better life, and after all, education is the key to the American dream. (Something to think about for the candidates who will be participating in the Univision debate on Sunday.)

Latinos are projected to be a formidable bloc of voters in this election, and that Latino voters have made education an election priority is great news. But here's what I don't want to see happen - candidates pivoting to education only in context of minority issues. In the recent CNN/YouTube debate, or even back at the debate at Howard University (a historically black university) last summer, education was only raised in connection to issues of inner city crime, reparations for slavery or other minority-centered concerns.

Let's make this clear - education is an American issue, deserving of much more than tangential comment. Clearly education matters to African-Americans and Latinos since they're getting the least of it (they have the highest dropout rates and are far less likely to be taught by effective teachers), but as the recent PISA results show, American students as a whole aren't faring so well, especially in comparison with students (minority ones included) elsewhere in the world.

All American students deserve a quality education, and all American parents want to be sure that that's exactly what their children are receiving. To designate education as a "minority" issue misses the point, and is a disservice to America's other students, parents, and educators. Of course I'm looking forward to some serious ed talk in Sunday's Univision debate. I'm just hoping that talk continues into the debates that follow.