Texas Gov. George W. Bush's handling of the education issue has been the centerpiece of his effort to cast himself as a "compassionate conservative." During the presidential primaries, he selectively co-opted the Democratic Leadership Council and Progressive Policy Institute's school reform policies, while adding on an incompatible private school voucher plan. Some journalists began wondering aloud whether Bush or Vice President Al Gore was the real New Democrat on education.

In a major speech on April 30, Gore leapfrogged Bush and reclaimed his superior New Democrat credentials on education. The Vice President called for a comprehensive effort to link more investment in schools with greater accountability for results, including public school choice. More significantly, Gore got the New Democrat message on education exactly right:

Investment without accountability is a waste of money. Accountability without investment is doomed to fail. And public school choice and competition are essential if we want to push schools to the highest possible levels of excellence in education.

Gore did far more than pay lip service to accountability. He reiterated his support for tough national standards and testing (including exit exams for high school seniors). He endorsed shutting down consistently low-performing schools with no exceptions. He called for the removal of incompetent teachers and principals. And he pledged that under his leadership, narrowing the "achievement gap" between the best and worst schools would become a national goal and the linchpin of federal education funding.

Gore recognized the important role choice and competition play in making public schools accountable to parents and taxpayers. He called for tripling of the number of charter schools to more than 5,000, and for universal public school choice in America's 100 lowest-performing school districts.

The Vice President's full-throated support for educational accountability put him on much stronger ground as he battles against Bush's education agenda. Some liberal Democrats have attacked Bush for demanding too much accountability from schools, teachers, and students. In contrast, Gore's main line of attack was that Bush is undermining his own accountability effort by supporting vouchers and tax breaks for parents who send their children to private schools, which would be accountable to no public authority. As Gore noted:

[Bush's] answer for failing schools is to take away a major portion of their funding, and allow it to be used for private schools through vouchers --giving parents a fraction of what private tuition really costs, and giving taxpayer dollars to schools that are accountable to no one.

Bush's campaign responded to Gore's speech by claiming he was stealing Bush's ideas on accountability. Since Bush purloined a New Democrat accountability proposal and then grafted vouchers and other private school subsidies onto it, this is a bit like the burglar shouting "Stop, thief!" But this is one campaign fight that can produce winning ideas for the country.

Even as the presidential campaign produced the right debate on educational and investment and accountability, the Senate lost an opportunity to enact the right legislation: the Lieberman-Bayh-Landrieu "Three R's" bill. Their measure would consolidate the huge array of federal education programs into a small number of performance- based grants, offering flexibility as to means in exchange for accountability for results. The bill, modeled on a PPI proposal, would also significantly increase the federal investment in school improvement, promote public schools choice and charter schools, and target funds to schools and students in need more narrowly.

Most Senate Republicans want to toss most federal education spending into no-strings-attached block grants that pretty much tell states to deal with education as they wish, with no expectations of tangible results. Most Senate Democrats want to pour more funds into the current patchwork of narrow, categorical grants focused on micro-managing school expenditures. The Three R's bill, which would provide more funds, flexibility, and accountability for results, is the obvious bipartisan compromise. But so far, the kabuki theater of partisanship continues. The Senate New Democrat Caucus did unite in support of the Three R's legislation, and it remains on the table for such time as Congress decides to get serious about fixing America's schools.