Liberals should welcome efforts to make the federal government, whose role they rightly defend, more effective. On education, a useful debate is possible only if some mistaken ideas that are held to as a matter of high principle are abandoned. Republicans are stuck on the notion that national education standards are a grave threat to local control of education. They have thus been wary of national action on an issue that is so clearly of national urgency. They would do better to admit that education is inescapably a national problem and then to argue over the best ways to structure the federal government's response.
National standards are essential both for equal opportunity and for excellence.
This should be the starting point of the debate, which then needs to take into account two insights, one from liberals, the other from conservatives. The conservative insight is that many of our big city school systems are failing and that experimental and private schools are often doing better. Conservatives will make a better case for experimentation if they acknowledge the problem of inequality. Liberals will make a better case for providing more resources to poor children if they are more open to experimentation, including vouchers. Finally the election might usefully remind the Republicans that the tax cut issue ain't what it used to be.