President Obama laid out his plans for reforming American education today in a speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. In his brief time in office, the President has overseen the largest increase in federal education spending in history. But this morning he announced that, “What’s required is not simply new investments, but new reforms.”

That’s not to say there won’t be even more spending hikes. Preschool programs and Pell Grants will get even more money under President Obama’s plans.

This will be billed as a speech about reform. But don’t get your hopes up — the president missed his biggest opportunity to support reform today by avoiding the D.C. voucher issue.

He spoke in general terms about his plans for reforming No Child Left Behind, but left the details for later this year when his administration plans to take up reauthorization. President Obama also used his speech to call for merit pay for teachers and for more charter schools weighed in on a number of education reform topics. This has already earned him credit for “taking on the unions.” But we should recognize that these are only baby steps in the education reform debate. For example, it is unclear what type of merit pay system President Obama supports. Will he support real performance-pay bonuses for teachers who lift students’ test scores? Or will he provide bonuses for those who put in extra work through training and mentoring — the bureaucracy’s version of “merit”? President Obama deserves credit for calling on states to open new, innovative charter schools. But this is something that President Clinton was calling for throughout the 1990s.

Unfortunately, President Obama ducked an opportunity to really challenge the status quo. He avoided taking a position in the debate over the future of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. Last week, Secretary Duncan made headlines by declaring that voucher recipients should get to stay in their school. Today, the Senate is scheduled to vote on an amendment to strip the Omnibus of language that would put the program on track to end next year. President Obama has remained silent on the issue.

In the highlight of this morning’s speech, he challenged American families to take responsibility for their children’s education. He spoke about the quality education he received and his mother’s commitment to his education — including early morning tutoring sessions before school: “And it is because she did this day after day, week after week, and because of all the other opportunities and breaks I had along the way, that I can stand here today as the President of the United States. And I want every child in this country to have the same chance my mother gave me…”

He should remember that among those opportunities and breaks was a scholarship to attend an elite private school in Hawaii. If President Obama really wants every child to have the same chance he did, he should call for all families to have the power to choose the best school for their children– starting with 1,700 low-income kids in Washington, D.C. When he does that, President Obama will deserve real credit for “taking on the unions.”

— Dan Lips is senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.