The campaign for the 2008 presidential election is underway earlier than ever. With nine months until the first primaries and caucuses, candidates from both parties are emerging, and each has made education issues part of their platform.
Looking at Democrats first, "improving our schools" is one of the main issues of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's campaign, with his own campaign website offering it as a mid-level priority.
The first legislation he introduced in the Senate was the HOPE Act, which would have increased the maximum limit on individual Pell Grants from $4,050 to $5,100.
Obama also joined the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions as part of the Democratic takeover of Congress.
Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, who sits on the same Senate committee, has a history of supporting students, both through funding and teacher testing.
When her husband was governor of Arkansas, Clinton sat on the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee and enacted more stringent testing standards on new teachers in public schools.
She has come out in favor of ways to find more money to spend on education, even at the expense of current policy. At the 2006 Take Back America Conference, Clinton said, "All we have to do is cut all the tax breaks for oil companies, pharmaceutical companies and billionaires and put it into student aid."
Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina has been quiet on educational issues, focusing much of his campaign strategy on universal health care and fighting poverty.
The former vice presidential candidate has also used the phrase "Two Americas" to describe what he perceives to be an ever-widening gap between different classes in American society and to buttress his poverty-fighting stance.
While he was in the Senate, however, he received favorable ratings from the National Education Association, which rates legislators on their support of public education.
Edwards has previously applied his "Two Americas" idea to education; he has said that economic status directly relates to how good of an education American children receive.
Looking at Democrats first, "improving our schools" is one of the main issues of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's campaign, with his own campaign website offering it as a mid-level priority.
The first legislation he introduced in the Senate was the HOPE Act, which would have increased the maximum limit on individual Pell Grants from $4,050 to $5,100.
Obama also joined the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions as part of the Democratic takeover of Congress.
Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, who sits on the same Senate committee, has a history of supporting students, both through funding and teacher testing.
When her husband was governor of Arkansas, Clinton sat on the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee and enacted more stringent testing standards on new teachers in public schools.
She has come out in favor of ways to find more money to spend on education, even at the expense of current policy. At the 2006 Take Back America Conference, Clinton said, "All we have to do is cut all the tax breaks for oil companies, pharmaceutical companies and billionaires and put it into student aid."
Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina has been quiet on educational issues, focusing much of his campaign strategy on universal health care and fighting poverty.
The former vice presidential candidate has also used the phrase "Two Americas" to describe what he perceives to be an ever-widening gap between different classes in American society and to buttress his poverty-fighting stance.
While he was in the Senate, however, he received favorable ratings from the National Education Association, which rates legislators on their support of public education.
Edwards has previously applied his "Two Americas" idea to education; he has said that economic status directly relates to how good of an education American children receive.
