WASHINGTON

Democrat Barack Obama reached for middle ground on education this week, opening a debate with John McCain over who would do more to put good teachers in classrooms and help parents find alternatives to bad schools.

Conceding that both parties have worthy ideas, Obama set out to prove that he's not captive to teachers unions, as his rival claims, and that there is more talk than action in McCain's plans for schools.

McCain tossed red meat to Republicans at their convention last week, saying Obama wants schools to answer to unions and entrenched bureaucracies, while he would hold them accountable to parents and kids.

A look at where the presidential candidates stand on some key education issues:

SCHOOL CHOICE

For years, "school choice" has meant giving taxpayer dollars vouchers to parents to send kids to private school if their neighborhood schools were bad. Charter schools are in the mix too; they are publicly funded but operate independently, free from some of the rules that constrain regular schools.

McCain says he's for school choice, and he got big applause when he talked it up last week at the Republican convention.

"Parents deserve a choice in the education of their children," he said. "And I intend to give it to them."

But McCain is not proposing a federal voucher plan. Instead, he wants to expand a voucher program in the District of Columbia only.

The Arizona senator did propose a federal voucher program when he ran for president in 2000, but his advisers say President Bush's No Child Left Behind Law, enacted in 2002, is aimed at giving parents more choice. McCain would make improvements to that; for example, he would expand children's access to tutoring services.

No Child Left Behind lets parents transfer their children from failing schools to better-performing public or charter schools assuming there is a better school in the area, which is not always the case. Obama doesn't think vouchers are the answer; many Democrats agree. On Tuesday, the Illinois senator gave his answer to the school-choice dilemma: Create an array of new public schools, and double the federal money for charter schools to more than $400 million.