The big news over the past week was this announcement from two of the nation's leading educational philanthropists, Bill Gates and Eli Broad. The two are joining forces on an unprecedented, $60 million campaign to make education a front and center political issue in the 2008 presidential election through use of paid TV and Radio advertisements in battleground states, an internet appeal for activists, and a national network of on-the-ground political operatives from both parties.

By first glance, one certainly has reason to be encouraged by this announcement. Two of the most prominent single issue spenders during the '04 presidential campaign, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the AARP, spent just $22.4 million and $7.8 million respectively. So the $60 million could go a long way towards compelling politicians to think seriously about their education positions and to talk more frequently about possible improvements, both of which are unqualified positive developments from within both political parties.

At second glance, the strategy that it seems like the "Ed in '08" campaign will undertake, to encourage ordinary citizens to get involved in the calls for greater attention to education, appears to be a strong one as well. It would be easy for the group just to run commercials demanding responses from candidates on key issues (the group has identified three core issues of focus: national standards, lengthening the school day, and merit pay for teachers) and then do little to follow up, but engaging parents and citizens in the process will make the initiative fuller and more effective as a whole.

But the concern that one could rightly express about the initiative is the risk that it may end up being a $60 million investment in a lot more talk, but the same amount of action, which is to say little to none. While none can contest the problem that Broad and Gates have identified--an insufficient level of discourse between candidates and the American people on big problems in our schools--this problem is actually only a precursor to a second, more significant problem: an insufficient level of action by the same candidates once election outcomes have been decided. The short legacy of NCLB might be a perfect example of this: both Governor Bush and Vice President Gore put forth significant proposals on education in 2000 (Bush more focused on accountability and choice; Gore more focused on expanding pre-K access and public school choice), but the problem has been the post-legislation follow through over how to successfully implement NCLB.

In other words, once we choose a president in 2008, how will the Gates / Broad initiative empower the citizens it has engaged on the education issue to continue holding whomever is elected to the fire over their promises? It's unclear to me whether this is a part of the "Ed in '08" campaign's plans, or whether the two philanthropists view the initiative as a short-term, one-time investment. If that is the case, they may have spent a great deal of money to buy a major increase in high-fallutin' promises by the major candidates... but little in the way of actual action.