"It's school desegregation, stupid": arguments over education policies have played an important role in presidential elections since the 1960s

In most 2016 election post-postmortems the role of education as a political issue has received relatively little attention. DeeAnn Grove argues that party positions towards school desegregation are actually key to understanding the white vote in the 2016 and past elections. She finds that since the 1960s, moderate white voters have had both a strong commitment to equal opportunities via education, while also ignorant of the extent of racial inequality in the US. Both the Republican and Democratic parties, she writes, have since crafted their political messaging on education in ways which make white voters feel good about racial politics either by supporting school choice or voucher-based policies.