Why isn't our serious problem with "education" a major issue for Presidential candidates?

Is is unsolvable? Is it too touchy a subject? With the extroidinarily high drop-out rate, lack of interest and motivation, poor test scores, non-English-speaking students, uninvolved parents, and reduced financial aid for schools, it seems to be an insurmountable problem, but it is the future of our country! Why are none of the candidates seriously addressing the problem?

Very interesting and important question, and I'd add the dangers of falling behind the rest of the world in science. It is an extremely difficult problem, but surely not unsolvable - other countries are managing to maintain good educational systems. My best guess is that they don't want to alienate voters by proposing educational reforms that would cost money. People always want more services but lower taxes, lots of people always vote for whoever is proposing lower taxes, and running on a plan for universal health care is perhaps as much risk as the candidates feel they can take for now in terms of proposing social programs that might raise taxes. I might also guess that it's hard to get out a clear message if you try to make too many points at once, and that people feel the war and the economy are more pressing issues. Finally, someone above made an excellent point that these are problems that mostly need to be solved at the state and local level.

"Governator" - love that. I do remember seeing a great public school system decimated by funding cuts when I lived in Oregon in the 90s; hope it doesn't get that bad where you are! Report It

The educational problem is pretty much unsolvable. Democrats try to solve ALL problems by throwing money at it. That has not helped in education. George Will pretty much hit the nail on the head in yesterday's column.
The problem is not so much the educational system, but broken families. Children need both fathers and mothers. The decrease in success of the educational system correlates very well with the destruction of the family unit. How are the Democrats going to handle that? They had a greater part in the destruction of the family than Republicans.

The biggest problem with our educational system is that they have quit teaching the kids and have instead become parental substitutes. Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic are secondary to Sex Education, Morales training, violence prevention, sensitivity training, and monitoring of outside activities such as student MySpace pages. It will be very difficult to lower drop out rates and improve interest, motivation, and test scores with this as the priority. The economic slowdown (or recession) will make it diff