The presidential candidates on education

Newsweek, with assistance from education "experts" Jeanne Allen and Thomas Toch, summarized Clinton's, Huckabee's, McCain's and Obama's positions on education, and then gave each candidate a grade.

It's hard to know how Newsweek decided on the grades, because it depends entirely on one's perspective — it's not like there's a clear right or wrong. I'm not inclined to trust the judgment of a reporter whose education coverage I haven't followed. For the record, Newsweek gave Obama and McCain each a B+, Clinton a B- and Huckabee a D+. (Charter school fans, McCain's your guy.)

Newsweek's two-person panel of education experts covers a span from center to far-right, too — not exactly inclusive. Thomas Toch is an academic whose work I've run into when I was following Edison Schools closely; he's Mr. Centrist. Jeanne Allen is an anti-public-education firebrand closely linked with the Bush administration, head of the Center for Education Reform, which promotes privatization, charters and vouchers — part of the previously discussed conservative infrastructure.

Read the candidates' views and decide for yourself.