The New York Times’ Sam Dillon mostly plays it straight today laying out the "downright terse" education plan of John McCain. McCain wants to make it easier for private tutoring companies to infiltrate public schools. He wants some sort of federal performance-pay program, but argues for a decreased federal role in schools. And he half-heartedly bashes Barack Obama for getting the endorsement of those oh-so-evil teachers’ unions.

But the article’s gist is a quote by a McCain adviser: "Education is obviously not the issue Senator McCain spends the most time on."

That’s a statement — and here’s why Understanding Government is blogging this — that should send shudders through every Dept. of Education civil servant. Your next boss has declared that your work is not a priority. You may never be more to him than an anonymous bureaucrat, and — at worst — an example of the need to "shrink the size of the federal government."

These bosses can be a real bummer. The Bush administration showed that they can also contribute to already understafed agencies — like the Consumer Product Safety Commission and Environmental Protection Agency — not doing their jobs.-MB

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