The present general decline in American education was underway well before the covid pandemic, and surely, the pandemic worsened school outcomes. The harm done to students will not fade for some time. Those circumstances, one might think, call for debate and discussion in the 2024 general election.

In previous presidential elections, education has been an important question. Candidates have made public school support major planks in their platforms. George H.W. Bush wanted to be the “education president.” And to improve reading readiness, to increase high-school graduation rates, and to put the U.S. in first place in math and science. Bill Clinton also wanted to increase school readiness and to set high goals for American schools. President George W. Bush eventually introduced the concept of “no child left behind” and wanted accountability enforced by increased testing. Barack Obama’s education policy wanted schools to “race to the top” by offering money to schools for innovation and reform. All of these efforts produced few, if any, results.

There’s more bad news: The 2024 presidential candidates have had little to say about education. Donald Trump has vowed to abolish the Department of Education, but not said much beyond that. The United States’ educational needs did not appear in the Harris-Trump debate. In the vice presidential debate, Walz and Vance spoke of school safety, but not much else.

The Democratic Party platform does argue for universal pre-school and for reducing absenteeism. It argues against schemes that divert public school funds, such as vouchers and tuition-tax credits. Harris and her party do support increased funding for career and technology education, believing that a four-year college education is not the only path for young people to succeed and to contribute to the economy.

Angela Alsobrooks, currently Prince George’s county executive and candidate for Maryland senator, may have, as a local government official, immediate connection with educational needs and problems. One of her efforts created a public-private partnership to build new and rebuild old schools. This first-in-the-nation program, according to one report, builds schools much faster and more inexpensively than in the ordinary way. She also allocated $15 million for a career and technical education center in Temple Hills, Md. However important buildings and facilities may be, most in the education industry know that research shows what is most important in education: teacher quality. Excellent teachers may well be drawn by high pay. According to the Alsobrooks campaign website, she “funded the largest salary increase in a generation for all Prince Georges County school system employees.”

Common Sense readers will not be surprised to read that the two major teacher unions (National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers) have endorsed Harris and Alsobrooks.

But teachers who follow education in the national press may be surprised and perhaps disappointed that the media has not much looked into an important national issue, let alone an educational one: outside efforts to control curriculum content. A September National Public Radio report tells of school book bans and bans on divisive concepts: “Between July and December 2023, PEN America recorded more than 4,300 instances of school book bans, a big uptick from the previous year.”

The book banners tried to replace those people in the schools, the teachers and administrators, who have the training and experience to choose reading and other curricular material. Assuming that one of the major purposes of schools is to prepare students for citizenship in a democracy, then what is taught and how it is taught counts for a great deal.

However one might sympathize with parents’ desire to oversee their children’s education, censorship, or perhaps less powerful control over curriculum content, amounts to government censorship of free speech. When that constitutional right is violated in schools, children, more knowledgeable than many adults will grant, will face a contradiction. On one hand, they know that they and the press have freedom of speech. On the other, their schools prohibit the freedom of speech and the press. In her speech to the AFT, Harris said, “While you teach students about our nation’s past,” she told the crowd of teachers, “these extremists attack the freedom to learn and acknowledge our nation’s true and full history, including book bans.”

As one might expect of two Democrats, their positions on education are similar. The public schools may not be as prominent a campaign issue as the economy, employment, or immigration, but surely the education of young citizens plays a great role in the nation’s economy, employment, and democratic government.

Jim Block taught English at Northfield Mount Hermon, a boarding school in Western Mass. He coached cross-country and advised the newspaper and the debate society there. He taught at Marlborough College in England and Robert College in Istanbul. He and his wife retired to Chestertown, Md., in 2014.