Any major presidential contender has an “education policy” in the same way he or she can be counted on, if called upon, to have an “energy policy,” a “Mideast policy,” a “trade policy” and so forth. Which is to say campaign staffers distill the prevailing policy prescriptions of the prominent wonks who roughly align with their candidate on any given topic and churn them into 30-second elevator speeches. Whether the candidate ever actually uses them depends on whether a subject in question turns out to have a following and becomes a talker on the campaign trail.

Accordingly, President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign website spells out his platform on public education-it makes several references to school choice, among other things-and he doubtless had it boiled down to talking points for use on the fly, as well. Yet, it doesn’t seem he has consulted those references very often, and that’s not just because he’s not one for sticking to the script. In general, education hasn’t been one of his signature issues, and you don’t recall him going to that well very often in his stump speeches.  His infrequent public pronouncements on education have been mostly vague. As a result, his actual degree of commitment to various facets of his education platform remain unclear.

Now that he is the chief exec of the U.S. government, however, he won’t be able to avoid the subject for long. He will have to address the state of the nation’s schools at some point, and the question arises as to what kind of an education president he will be. More to the point, what will his education policies bode for Colorado, by many measures an innovator on the nation’s public-education landscape? Fortunately, we have an excellent local resource in Chalkbeat Colorado to help us read those tea leaves. Chalkbeat’s Nicholas Garcia posted a helpful overview the other day of what the Trump presidency could mean for our state’s schools.

Some insights:

Trump has said little about his education priorities. But what crumbs he has dropped along the campaign trail have local Republicans intrigued – especially those who want more flexibility when it comes to the nation’s new education law.

…Steve Durham, a Colorado Springs Republican who won reelection to the state board this week, said he believes Trump’s education department will provide the state even more freedom when it comes to accountability, teacher quality and testing.

“It fits right in with Colorado’s model of local control,” said Durham, the board’s current chairman. “So we should take advantage of any opportunities.”

Durham, along with other members of the state board and officials at the state education department, cried foul when the Obama administration released proposed guidelines to ESSA. They pointed to several instances where they believed regulations overstepped the letter and spirit of the law.

While Republicans may see reason for hope in Trump’s as-yet-ill-defined education agenda, some others see cause for worry:

Some education reform advocates worry that a Trump administration might turn a blind eye if states either fail to meet portions of the law or subvert it.

“While the law is very clear about states reporting how different groups of students perform on standardized tests, I’m very concerned that the department of education isn’t going to enforce it,” said Van Schoales, CEO of A+ Colorado, which champions reform policies such as teacher evaluations and charter schools.

Schoales said Trump’s jarring language about African Americans, Latinos, immigrants and women leave him worried that the federal education department will lose its muscle to protect those students.

“One of the most important roles of the federal government is to ensure that states are making sure the rights and protections for any group of kids, regardless of background, are protected and we have data and information around them,” he said.

Of course, a lot of it at this stage is informed speculation.

It could come down to Trump’s level of engagement. For example, will he fan the flames of burning debates like that over federal common core education standards? Or, if it turns out that, as president, Trump is disengaged from education, will his administration default to standard GOP Education Department policy a la the administration of George W. Bush? Or, even that of the Obama administration?