During her tenure as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton certainly made headlines. However, despite all of the negative publicity she may have attracted, she did not have to take a position on divisive domestic issues. Now that she is back in the spotlight of presidential politics, all that is about to change.
Once she officially announces her candidacy, Clinton will be forced to take a position on the issues that she was able to ignore as secretary of state. While the political spectrum is full of divisive issues, most can be solved in one of two ways, providing Democrats and Republicans with relatively “safe” positions for them to take. However, education reform is not a bivariate issue and therefore does not provide politicians with such a luxury.
Although nearly all Americans agree that our public education system must be reformed, there is widespread disagreement on how to accomplish the desperately needed changes. Seemingly everyone, from parents to teachers to the unions, has a plan to solve America’s education crisis.
The problem for Clinton is that, as the presumptive leading Democratic candidate, she needs the support of the entire Democratic Party’s base in order to mount a successful campaign. This places her in the undesirable position of being squeezed between the two sides of education reform: the teachers’ unions, and the wealthy democratic donors. The teachers’ unions, whose support Clinton enjoyed during her last presidential run, act as an opposing force to the wealthy donors who support charter schools and changes to teachers’ tenure policies. The problem for Clinton is that she needs both the support of the teachers’ unions and wealthy donors.
Faced with the imminent political danger of alienating a key constituency, Clinton has chosen to take the opposite approach of her likely Republican opponent Jeb Bush, who has publicly supported the Common Core. Instead, Clinton has not articulated any position. The politically savvy decision to delay her announcement for as long as she can allows her to maintain the political and monetary support of both sides of the argument on education reform. With little serious competition in the Democratic Party primary forcing her to make a decision quickly, Clinton likely has plenty of time to maneuver before arriving at a final decision.
By choosing to upset no one, Clinton has essentially chosen to maintain the status quo in American education, which is a fate our country cannot afford. Our education system has long been underfunded and unprepared to properly educate America’s youth. It must be overhauled drastically in order to ensure that America is competitive in the 21st century global economy. The longer we wait to reform our education system, the farther we will fall behind our European counterparts. Our politicians must understand that shortsighted political gains are not worth our country’s future.