K-12 Issues Will Await President

At the end of a presidential campaign in which education received some attention but never emerged as a top-tier issue, analysts were trying to look beyond the week's election to the K-12 issues awaiting the next president and gauge where they might fit as a new administration prepares to grapple with a global economic crisis. While education never registered high in surveys assessing the issues that would sway voters in the 2008 election, the American public wants the country's schools to improve and would rally around a president who set out to help them do so, one pollster said. But others suggest that education's low standing as an issue in the latest election cycle foreshadows four years in which the next president won't make it a high priority.