The candidates for the 2008 presidential nominations have not been as detailed about education policy as in some recent elections. But that doesn’t mean the stakes of the Democratic and Republican races aren’t high for K-12 schools. ...

As the campaign edges closer to the stage when votes are cast, candidates will start answering those questions in more detail, suggests Marc Lampkin, the executive director of Strong American Schools, a nonpartisan effort aimed at encouraging the presidential candidates to lay out their plans for K-12 education. The Washington-based effort is financed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation.

"They know the electorate is starting to look a little deeper at them,” said Mr. Lampkin, a Republican who worked on President Bush’s 2000 campaign and has worked for GOP members of Congress.

But others believe that school issues will continue to be eclipsed by other concerns.

“It’s hard for education to get a lot of attention in this climate,” said Sara Mead, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation, a [nonpartisan] think tank in Washington.

What little policy debate over education has occurred so far has focused on prekindergarten and college.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who has emerged as the Democratic front-runner, according to national opinion polls, has proposed spending $10 billion a year to expand pre-K programs for 4-year-olds and expand existing tax credits to offset the costs of college tuition so low-income families can take advantage of them.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del., wants to provide $5 billion in state grants to double participation in federal Head Start preschool programs and quadruple the number of students in Early Head Start. He, too, would expand tax credits and financial aid to help make college more affordable.

Two other Democrats, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, also have proposed major expansions of the federal role in early-childhood education.

By contrast, the Republican candidates generally haven’t put forward proposals on early education or college aid. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is an exception. He wants to establish a federal program that would pay the tuition costs at in-state colleges and universities for high-performing students. The program would be modeled after one he helped create in Massachusetts. ...

For the complete article, please visit the Education Week website.