The GOP Has a Better Plan for Schools
If there were an education commentary award for the greatest display of arrogant disregard, a recent column at Hechinger Report would certainly earn a nomination. Everything from how our schools frame American history to debates over gender, the author, Conor Williams, considers only a matter of “culture war vibes.” Where he is a “very serious researcher,” if you care about those things, well you’re just a knuckle-dragging neanderthal. Tsk tsk.
Such questions, to him, are distractions meant only to anger conservative rubes with no promise of improving the academic outcomes of American students. Phrased differently, he considers these debates unimportant—beneath him even. Quite the contrary, these debates deal with some of the foundational questions of any education system.
The question of gender, for example, cuts down to whether teachers can affirm basic biological truths or at least retain their religious conscience; gender transition policies involve the interchange and relationship between parents and schools and the responsibility and role each carries; bathroom, sport, locker room, and even overnight field trip policies determine whether young women must disrobe in the presence of men or deserve the dignity of playing in their own sports leagues.
Similarly, the call to “defund certain curricula” isn’t just a culture war distraction. Such calls address the central message we communicate to students about their own country. Is America a good society that has failed to live up to its ideals, or is it hopelessly corrupt and rotten to the core? Dare I say that how we choose to answer that question is at least (if not more) important than a student’s results on this year’s reading test?
More specifically, when it comes to conservative policies, Mr. Williams, the self-proclaimed “expert,” may disagree with them, but they’re far from substanceless.
The recommendation that has fostered the greatest debate is over the abolition of the Department of Education. I’m of the opinion that politics is the art of the possible, and it’s improbable that a sufficient number of congressmen would ever sign their name onto a bill that would gut this department; the optics so disincentivize such a bill that it’s guaranteed to fail.
That being said, I’m sympathetic to the idea. There are countless examples—School Improvement Grants and the entirety of Title I to name a few—of its spending providing no academic benefit. There’s mounting evidence that other federal education programs such as Head Start are equally ineffective. And many of the department’s policies such as Obama’s Dear Colleague Letter on discipline and recent changes to Title IX are actively harmful to schools and the children within them.
The same goes for vouchers. A conservative, I confess that I am skeptical that universal school choice will bring out some Edenic state of American schooling. Even so, much research finds that school choice policies (especially in the form of charters) improve student outcomes—both academic and social. Williams may contest the research (he is an “expert” after all, unlike you, dear reader), but it’s far from substanceless as he suggests.
I could accuse his recommended policies of the same faults. They are vague (affordable early care?) or largely substanceless (Spend, baby! Spend!), but I won’t because I realize they are earnestly held positions regardless of what I think of them.
A chronic pessimist, I’m actually quite hopeful for Republican governance, especially at the state level. Science of reading laws, stronger discipline policies, knowledge-rich curricula, accountability and standards, and parental rights laws—these are real, actionable policies that will nudge American education in the right direction.
And while Messr. Williams dislikes them, such policies are quite popular with voters. In recent years, Republicans have surpassed Democrats as the trusted party on education. Regarding specific policies, on the question of transgender athletes on sports teams, the large majority of adults think that trans athletes should compete on teams that match their biological sex. The same can be said of school choice policies. Again, Williams may disagree, but it’s hard to ignore the opinion of the majority.
At the federal level, I find Rick Hess convincing: There isn’t sufficient political will to affect much change nor does the federal government have the right levers to do so.
Williams laments that we cannot survive four more years of “this.” What exactly “this” is remains left to the imagination. But I see that the Republican agenda means returning authority to parents, applying market pressure to improve outcomes, holding schools accountable to those outcomes, and pushing more control to the local level.
I have never called myself an expert, but I have almost a decade under my belt as both a school teacher and administrator. When I see the left asking for more blank checks and little else, I don’t think I could have afforded four more years of “that.”
