President Barack Obama’s proposal to give millions of students free tuition at community colleges made a big splash on Friday, as the administration had intended.
But the moment also exposed the limits of Obama’s power on education, as his ambitions for big, legacy-defining initiatives run smack into a buzzsaw of opposition from across the political spectrum.
Congress is highly unlikely to approve a new entitlement with an estimated price tag of $60 billion over the next decade. Republicans quickly dismissed the college proposal as a political stunt. And leading Democrats expressed, at best, polite support.
In the K-12 arena, too, Obama can command the spotlight when he lays out his vision — but his clout doesn’t extend much beyond that at this point.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan is preparing to deliver a major policy speech Monday outlining the administration’s goals for revamping the No Child Left Behind law that governs some $78 billion in annual federal education spending. Yet the administration’s education policies have proved so toxic on both the left and the right that it has little leverage on the Hill, according to analysts from across the political spectrum.