Foundations Wind Down Effort to Put Education Improvement on Political Agenda

Strong American Schools, the charity that sought to make improving education a front-burner issue in the 2008 presidential race, is likely to wind down next year after spending less than half of the $60-million that the foundations backing the campaign originally expected to provide.

The campaign, which began in April 2007 and goes by the brand name “Ed in 08,” has been supported by two of the most-influential foundations in education — the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.

The campaign uses television, radio, print, and online ads to promote its agenda: a strong set of national standards; more time in school; and improving teacher quality through merit pay and other measures.

The two foundations have contributed a total of $24-million to the campaign, but education never became a central issue in the presidential race. Education was overshadowed throughout the campaign by the Iraq war and the economic crisis. In an interview with CNN shortly before the election, President-elect Barack Obama listed education fifth among his priorities.

Mission Accomplished

Karen Denne, a spokeswoman for the Broad Foundation, which spent about $7.6-million on the campaign, says she thinks the foundation’s money was well spent, and that “Ed in 08″ did a good job of getting the presidential candidates to grapple with the problems facing American schools.

“Was it the top issue? No. Are we disappointed with that? Sure,” Ms. Denne says. “But none of us could have forecast the economic crisis, which clearly supplanted every other issue.”

She described the initial talk of spending $60-million on the campaign as “an estimate.”

“The two foundations funded the campaign at a level that accomplished what needed to be accomplished,” she said.

Marie Groark, a spokeswoman for the Gates foundation, which spent about $16.4-million on the campaign, referred questions about its effectiveness to Strong American Schools. Marc Lampkin, a deputy campaign manager for George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign, is the organization’s executive director. Former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, a Democrat, is its chairman.

At a conference this month announcing the Gates foundation’s new grant-making approach in education, Bill Gates acknowledged during a question-and-answer session that the campaign had failed to live up to the foundation’s initial hopes.

“We didn’t end up spending the amount of money that we had available for the advocacy because most of what we were causing people to do was to mouth platitudes,” he said.

Mr. Lampkin points to comments by President-elect Obama to show that the organization had an impact.

Mr. Lampkin believes Mr. Obama made clear during the debates that education was among his priorities, including during the final debate, when Mr. Obama said: “I think it’s going to be critically important for us to recruit a generation of new teachers, an army of new teachers, especially in math and science, give them higher pay, give them more professional development and support in exchange for higher standards and accountability.”

Mr. Lampkin says such statements show that the “Ed in 08″ campaign was effective.

“Our goal was to make sure that the next president, whether Republican or Democrat, embraced the issue of education reform, embraced the issues that we thought were the priority issues, and built an education-reform program that actually puts some meat on the bone,” Mr. Lampkin says.

But some other education advocates don’t believe the campaign made much difference.

John I. Wilson, executive director of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, says Strong American Schools was not able to get out a message that appealed to Americans, despite spending $28-million, which puts the foundation effort among the most expensive ever in a presidential race.

“The lesson learned from this is that you can’t buy your way into the conversation,” Mr. Wilson says. “It has to be something that is really at the top of the agenda for the American people.”