Moving Beyond "Horserace and Gotcha Politics"

Tonight, Donna Brazile came out swinging at the kickoff general session of ASCD's LEAP Institute, the Association's annual advocacy conference. She charged attendees to elevate education as a national priority during this presidential election cycle.

Brazile said that education should not be a partisan issue and added that politicians need to stop the "blame game" and sit down and broker solutions to problems affecting our education system. She emphasized that together politicians need to turn No Child Left Behind "from a slogan into workable legislation." 

ASCD's LEAP attendees are scheduled to meet with their lawmakers in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, but Brazile reminded them that their advocacy efforts don't end with the conclusion of their meetings on Capitol Hill. When you go home, she said, the first thing you need to do is publicize the discussions you had with your elected officials.

Then, she urged them to better tell their stories as educators and encourage the media to report on substantive issues and not politicians' personality traits.

"We can fix government; government is not broken. The will of politicians to work together is what's broken."

In countdown to November 4, what can educators do convince politicians to work together on improving this country's education system?