The Drum Major Institute for Public Policy has been deeply engaged in the debate over New York's proposed congestion pricing plan. We invited London Deputy Mayor Nicky Gavron to give a first-hand account of her city's experience with a congestion charge, as part of our Marketplace of Ideas series. We analyzed the New York proposal and concluded it would benefit the city's current and aspiring middle class. When the New York State Assembly issued a misguided critique of congestion pricing, we argued against it.

Now DMI has the opportunity to become more closely involved in setting a just and sustainable transportation policy for New York City with the appointment of Executive Director Andrea Batista Schlesinger to the New York City Traffic Mitigation Congestion Commission.  Andrea was appointed by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and will serve on the 17-member commission alongside MTA Director Elliot Sander, Kathryn Wylde of the Partnership for New York City, and Assemblyman Herman Farrell Jr., among others. The commission will study both Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan and alternate ways to mitigate congestion and will make recommendations to the City Council and state legislature by the end of January 2008.  

This is the fourth installment in an ongoing series on DMIBlog on where the candidates stand on education.

Next on our list, we have Senator Barack Obama.

Senator Obama has promoted a long list of educational reforms he is in favor of, ranging from increased access to Advanced Placement courses to expanding summer school programs.  Generally, the common thread in his educational positions is his belief that school funding must be increased in all aspects of education.

Sen. Obama is in support of expanding the Head Start preschool program for low-income children, and voted to reauthorize the program earlier this summer.  Obama was also in the Illinois State Senate when its preschool program for low-income children was instated. Unlike other Democrats, though, universal preschool is not in his platform, nor has he publicly spoken, to my knowledge, about universal pre-k.

Sen. Obama was not yet in the Senate when No Child Left Behind was authorized, but has claimed, alternately, both that it should not be reauthorized and that it should be substantially reformed, with funding increased.  For the most part, though, Obama says that NCLB should continue to demand accountability from states, but should increase funding and define success more broadly.  Sen. Obama has said that he will produce a detailed education plan that will deal with these issues; if so, the issue of how to reform No Child Left Behind will likely be addressed.  Even without this document, though, his position on NCLB will likely become more clear soon, as the Act is up for reauthorization very soon.

Teacher pay is a tricky issue with Senator Obama.  It seems that he would like to institute widespread merit pay (where teachers are paid for performance, as opposed to the pay schedules that are typical in most states) and hazard pay (where teachers in low-performing schools are paid more).  These stances, however, aren't very popular with teachers unions, who believe that merit pay uses poor measures of teacher quality (like standardized test scores) that discourage high-quality teachers from teaching in low-quality schools and also allows principals to play favorites.  As teachers unions are major players in the Democratic Party, some have accused Senator Obama of softening his stance on these and other school reform issues in order to keep their support (free subscription needed).  Senator Obama does propose increased pay for all teachers, though, which is more likely to win him union favor.

Senator Obama's educational theme seems to be a push for innovation.  Thus, he is for charter schools (which he feels support change and progress) and is against vouchers (reasoning that they take resources away from public schools). One of Senator Obama's pet educational ideas is what he calls innovation districts.  The innovation districts plan would let school districts apply for grants to institute education reforms, and 20 districts across the country would receive the grants.  The innovation districts bill would appropriate $1.5 billion yearly for these districts, or about $75 million per district.  Theoretically, those districts will then be viewed as models for educational innovation in other districts, although there are no guidelines in place for assisting replication of these programs in his plan.  Senator Obama introduced the innovation districts bill both in 2006 and in 2007 in the Senate, and it is still in committee.  

Other education bills that Obama has introduced in the Senate include a plan for increasing the maximum Pell Grant and instituting a mentoring program for women and minorities in educational programs sponsored by the Department of Energy.  The first died in committee, and the second has been passed by the Senate.  Additionally, Obama introduced two bills that passed the Senate within the Higher Education Amendments of 2007 that propose to establish teaching residency programs and increase funding for predominately black colleges.

It will remain a bit nebulous what Obama would do with education until (and possibly after) he produces his detailed education proposal, whenever that may be.  Right now, though, it seems his solution to our country's educational problems would be to dramatically increase federal funding for education, which may be possible if he can build widespread support for the suggested programs (though it will be an uphill battle).

For those of you who, like me, where shocked the somewhat nefarious tales of student loan improprieties at our nation's finest institutions, we reached a triumphant victory on Wednesday when the House passed a bill that will cut government subsidies to lenders, increase need-based grants, and cut interest rates on loans.  The bill, once reconciled with the Senate version, promises to reduce the burden of affording a college education (the cost of which has risen 40% over inflation in the last five years) on middle-class families.  

I don't know much about student loans, though I should--I am currently enrolled at Teachers College, Columbia University.  I can't tell you the amount of money my one year of graduate school at Columbia will actually cost me, though I assure you that I could buy a 2008 Jaguar S-Type midsize sedan with the money I'll end up spending on my graduate degree.  

I made it to the age of 22 without obtaining any debt through Georgia's HOPE scholarship program, which allows all students in the state who maintain a 3.0 or higher GPA to attend public Georgia universities for free.  Despite that state's low SAT scores  and abysmal graduation rates, the state has been aggressively trying to improve its education system for the last 14 years.  Georgia now leads the nation in the percentage of undergraduate students receiving state grants, with 79.4% of students receiving state financial aid.  Besides increasing the opportunity of every student to attend college, the scholarship has increased the quality of the state's colleges and increased African American enrollment in Georgia colleges by 70%.