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After the midterm elections last week, President Obama for the first time pledge bipartisanship and cooperation in a conciliatory note. Higher education was highlighted as an issue by Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education a day after the elections. He stressed on finding a common ground in the next couple of years to ensure that the efforts initiated so far does not go in vain.

This situation has again woken up the education policy observers. They have started indulging in their second favorite pastime namely to speculate and handicap the implications of the election results in Federal policies.

There are many questions raised due to the Republican surge including fiscal crisis presently faced by the states, Race to the Top program implementation and Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization. One of the major questions in the minds of many is the way in which education policy will shape up in the years to come.

According to observers, midterm election results have reduced the opportunity of promoting bipartisanship through education policy.  This process will be severely hindered by the polarized and ideological Republican and Democratic caucuses. Whatever is actually possible in education policy will now be circumscribed fundamentally by the Republicans who are sure to call action to reduce deficit by freezing discretionary spending.

House of Representatives is now in control of the Republicans after their resounding victory. There are clear indications that the deficit cutting platform will not be preferred by the newly elected Republican majority. They will certainly not back any large scale expansion plans for Federal education policy.

Secretary Duncan said when asked whether the Democrats and Republicans could unite through the education issue, he said that tension in other areas could significantly be reduced if they could work together through education. He went on to say that some of the hurt feelings could probably be soothed by working together.

Traditionally, common ground has always been found in the education policy ground by the Democrats and Republicans. However, bipartisanship is something entirely different where members of both the parties have to fundamentally agree on something.

As we see, moderates occupying the ground are very few and the parties have always been polarized ideologically. This definitely makes the process challenging. Traditional ideological divisions have always been transcended by education policy. However, role of government and a strong necessity to bring about a fiscal discipline dividing parties are issues that are in broader debates in the last couple of years.

Now, this is the situation. Chances of correcting flaws in the No Child Left Behind program are slim and the prospect of successfully reauthorizing ESEA through a bipartisan education bill is practically nil with the all time high Federal budget deficit, rise in ideological polarization and 2012 Presidential elections just a couple of years away.

For any significant and beneficial progress in this front, it is critical to ensure bipartisanship and this has been made extremely challenging and difficult with the recently held elections.