There’s more funding (for teachers and charter schools); more standards (to improve achievement); and more choice (for local “innovation” programs and open source classrooms).

Obama speaks at an Ohio school on Tuesday.

These policy events present something of an alternative campaign universe in targeted states. While the national press and political websites go gaffe-gorging, local papers cover Obama’s working class agenda. Take these headlines from this week’s Dayton Daily News, for example:

OBAMA ON EDUCATION: PARENTS MUST HELP
OBAMA TALKS WITH ABX WORKERS ABOUT JOBS
SUPPORTERS WAIT FOR CHANCE TO HEAR OBAMA

Local voters gain information by attending events or learning about them through their circle of friends. At each stop, I’ve watched campaign organizers ask attendees to sync their cell phones with Obama’s text message network. The campaign is also furiously registering new voters in red states like Virginia to buck the region’s Republican foundation. (It hasn’t gone blue since 1964.) Jay Newton-Small reports the early returns of that effort, in a new article today for Time.com:

Virginia is one of 10 states that went for President Bush in 2004 but that the Obama campaign believes will be [tight in November]… Since January alone more than 3.5 million new voters have been registered in 17 of the 23 states tracked closely by the Obama campaign where information is available…. [I]n 14 of the states at least half of the new voters are under 35, a key demographic for Obama. (emphasis added)

Obama’s education speeches have been depicted as an appeal to women voters, but they also resonate with young voters in general, whose priorities include education, along with Iraq and the economy, and could be crucial to Obama turning the tide here.

“Don’t tell us that the only way to teach a child is to spend most of the year preparing him to fill in a few bubbles on a standardized test,” Obama said, to a smattering of applause. “Let’s finally help our teachers and principals develop a curriculum and assessments that teach our kids to become more than just good test-takers!”

Obama was most eloquent while imagining what American public schools could look like in the future. Channeling Jimmy Wales, he floated a more open source approach to learning.

“Imagine a future,” the Democratic nominee said, where students “don’t just do book reports but design PowerPoint presentations; where they don’t just write papers but build websites; where research isn’t done just by taking a book out of the library but by emailing experts in the field, and where teachers are less a source of knowledge than a coach for how best to use it.”

After summarizing his entire education plan, Obama conceded that it “sounds like a lot.” Yet, he told voters, all the funding and accountability is doable.

“We can do it all. We can increase the number of students taking college-level courses; expand innovation and school choice; invest in the schools of tomorrow, and put a quality teacher in every classroom – all for the cost of just a few days in Iraq. And we’ll pay for that cost by carefully winding down the war in Iraq; by ending no-bid contracts, and by eliminating wasteful spending,” he added, to some of the loudest applause of the morning.

The crowd, made up of supporters, local volunteers and about 25 students from an AP government class, chanted “Obama,” “Yes, We Can” and, in one spontaneous riff, “No More Pitbulls!” — a reference to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, also campaigning in Ohio today.

A new poll has Obama trailing by seven points in Ohio, suggesting a post-convention bounce for McCain here. Though both campaigns consider the state a toss-up.

Sen. Barack Obama is making his eighth visit to this key swing state since he clinched the Democratic nomination, At a local school, he is unveiling a new education plan to help students compete in a “global economy.” About 30 miles away, Sen. John McCain is holding a rally outside a restaurant in Lebanon with Gov. Sarah Palin, who has greatly increased his crowds recently.

Obama’s aides dished the first preview of his plan to a local paper, The Plain Dealer, which leads today with a measured article about how Obama would boost federal spending on charter schools by $200 million.

To hammer home this policy contrast, Obama released a new ad blasting McCain for fighting education funding and trying to abolish the Dept. of Education.

“John McCain doesn’t understand,” intones the narrator, echoing Obama’s stump speech, which argues it’s not that McCain is insensitive to working-class problems — he just doesn’t “get” them.

Today, standing before five American flags at Stebbins High school, Obama applied this critique to education: “After three decades of indifference on education, do you really believe that John McCain is going to make a difference now?”

Obama also outlined his record on education:

Giving our parents real choices about where to send their kids to school also means showing the same kind of leadership at the national level that I did in Illinois, when I passed a law to double the number of charter schools in Chicago. That is why, as president, I’ll double the funding for responsible charter schools.

Now, I know you’ve had a tough time with for-profit charter schools here in Ohio. That is why I’ll work with Gov. Strickland to hold for-profit charter schools accountable; and I’ll work with all our nation’s governors to hold all our charter schools accountable…. Charters that aren’t will get shut down.

And we’ll help ensure that more of our kids have access to quality after-school and summer school, and extended school days for students who need it.

Obama is also proposing an “innovative schools fund,” that would provide federal funding for school districts to experiment with a range of school forms — not only charter schools, but also nonprofit academies, career-training schools and Montessoris, as his policy advisers explained in a media conference call on Tuesday.

The federal government plays only a small role in charter-school funding, of course, so even Obama’s proposed increase would still constitute a sliver of overall funding.