Clinton's vice-presidential pick could raise profile of K-12 issues in presidential campaign

The selection of Sen.Tim Kaine, D-VA, could raise the profile of K-12 education issues in the presidential campaign between now and November.

So far, preschool education has gotten the most attention. 

That's in part because of Hillary Clinton's lifelong interest and attention to the issue. In addition, she has also made lowering costs of higher education a major part of her education platform, echoing the debt-free proposals put forward by her major rival, Bernie Sanders.

But so far neither Clinton nor her GOP rival Donald Trump have said much about K-12 education. She has expressed support for the Common Core in a pro forma way (reiterated by her chief domestic policy advisor Ann O'Leary at a conference in Philadelphia this week) but beyond that has said little.

Trump has said he is opposed to the Common Core, labeling it "education through Washington D.C." (a claim that PolitiFact rated "false") but little beyond that.

But Kaine was an activist governor on education in Virginia. On Capitol Hill he was the co-founder of the Career and Technical Education caucus. 

And, perhaps more significantly, his wife, Anne Holton, is Secretary of Education in Virginia, and has had a long history of involvement in education at all levels.

Her father, Gov. Linwood Holton, was a former Republican governor, and played an important role in integrating the Virginia schools. Both his daughters attended previously segregated schools, and in one instance he actually escorted Anne's older sister Tayloe to an all-black school, a moment documented in a classic photo from the civil rights era.

Kaine and his wife in turn sent all three of their now adult children to Richmond public schools.

That's unlike both Clinton and Trump, who enrolled their children in private schools (although as the Clintons noted at the time, Chelsea attended public schools in Arkansas before their parents moved into the White House). 

It seems clear that both Kaine and his wife favor strategies very different from the top down, test-heavy, high stakes reforms of the No Child Left Behind Era.

In an op-ed piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch in December 2013, Kaine criticized "over-testing" of students, especially in the elementary grades. Rather than sweeping reforms like No Child Left Behind, he pushed the idea of "personalized learning," praising the individual education plans required for special education students.  

He also challenged the national focus on promoting more rigorous evaluations in order to weed out "bad teachers." This problem, he wrote, "pales beside the larger issue of how to keep good teachers." He sympathized with teachers' low salaries, testing pressures, and the lack of esteem in which they are held. "We need a robust debate about how to value and attract good teachers," he wrote.

In a more recent article in the Washington Post Holton went after excessive testing even more strongly, describing how Virginia had eliminated several end-of-course tests. She criticized "multi-hour tests that measure students' endurance more than their learning," and suggested that the emphasis on testing had done nothing to close the achievement gap. "Teachers are teaching to the tests," she wrote. "Students’ and teachers’ love of learning and teaching are sapped." 

It's impossible to predict now how many of these ideas will filter into the presidential campaign this fall -- or into policy making should candidate Clinton be elected in November. 

But given that Clinton herself has been largely silent on these issues, they and others around the country who have been questioning the reform strategies of the No Child Left Behind era, appear to have an opening to fill in the noticeable blanks on the campaign trail so far.