Some years ago, a wise (and decidedly cynical) poli-sci professor explained to a class of idealistic and attentive undergrads that the job of a politician is to get elected. As one of those students and a cynic-in-training, that lesson stayed with me.
Flash forward 25 years and while I’m not a world-class cynic, I devised my own corollary to my professor’s lesson: Politics is about what happens rightnow, but education policy is about what happens five or 10 years from now.