School kids get lesson on education reform

MADISON, WIS. -- President Obama marked the anniversary of his election Wednesday by speaking in unusually personal terms with schoolchildren and educators in a politically friendly state, far from the partisan fray in Washington.

His decision to come to James C. Wright Middle School, an innovative and ethnically mixed charter campus, was made weeks ago. But for Obama, the day served as a respite from the Afghan war, the health-care scrum and the post-election punditry in Washington that he disdains.

Obama used the occasion both to pitch his education reforms and to speak about his life in the White House -- as a father helping to oversee his daughters' studies, as a former community organizer who is now president -- a year after his election and a day after another one, which carried potentially ominous implications for his agenda.

He stepped into a gymnasium packed with several hundred people, including students wearing Obama T-shirts designed for the visit. In the flash of a hundred digital cameras, Obama told the audience that his "Election Day was a day of hope, it was a day of possibility."

"But it was also a sobering one," he said, "because we knew even then that we faced an array of challenges that would test us as a country."

The sobering moment he faces now is no longer the prospect of a collapsing economy; in states such as Wisconsin, the outlook is improving and even showing signs of job creation. But Tuesday's off-year election has made the politics ahead more difficult.

Gubernatorial election results in Virginia and New Jersey showed the fragility and uneasiness of a coalition that a year ago made Obama the first African American president. That, in turn, could complicate his most important domestic and foreign policy initiatives: the impending congressional votes on health-care legislation, and his decision about whether to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan.

Those events will converge in the coming weeks, and each is likely to unsettle important elements of Obama's support just as Republicans are feeling the first wisps of a tailwind heading into next year's midterm elections.

In a hint of the anxiety about the president's plans among Wisconsin's progressive left, demonstrations outside the school Wednesday held up signs demanding "Fund Schools, Not Wars" and "Books, Not Bombs."

Although the president traveled here to talk about his public-education reform initiatives, there was evidence that politics were on his mind. Along on the day trip was Patrick Gaspard, the White House political director.

Obama also brought Education Secretary Arne Duncan to discuss the administration's "Race to the Top" grants, billions of dollars designed to encourage states to adopt reforms such as measuring teacher performance by student achievement.

The president's speech moved from a brusque defense of his time in office to a turgid review of his education proposals, replete with terms such as "firewall laws" and four-point measures for reform. Students yawned.