ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the educational accomplishments of the two terms of George W. Bush, and the first term of Barack Obama, who was elected to a second term in November of 2012. American Education attention to education in the 2012 presidential campaign suggests that the educational messages from Washington, DC will be more similar to the immediate past than different from it in the second Obama term of office. The chapter argues that both common core standards and charter schools are continuous with movements from the 1990s and that both have little real promise to improve American education significantly. American Education described how it imposed serious consequences on teachers, administrators, and students at the same time that it was rife with problems. Pre-twenty-first century educational philanthropy largely supported proposals that came from educators and educational researchers who represented a variety of interests, programs, and policies.
