The Phantom Pro-NCLB Anti-Public Education Conspiracy

Following up on the post below about the notion that NCLB is just a stalking horse for a broader conspiracy against public education.

Over the last six years, the Bush administration has supported a whole range of radical and/or deeply conservative policies, and in many cases they've managed to spin these ideas as sensible and/or moderate. But it's never been hard to figure out their true intentions, because the originators and prime supporters of the ideas have always been right out in the open for everyone to see. The 2001 tax cuts were pushed by anti-tax zealots like Americans for Tax Reform; the Iraq war was supported by people with dreams of a 21st Century Pax Americana; the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage was backed by religous fundamentalists with deep antipathy for gay people; etc., etc.

None of this was a secret. You could call Grover Norquist at any time, day or night, and he would happily explain the grand plan to cut taxes every year until government was small enough to strangle in a bathtub. The same was true for pepple with imperial ambitions, people who want to force gays and lesbians back in the closet, people who want to drill for oil in national parks, privatize Social Security, and so on and so forth.

Moreover, these weren't people who just happened to share a political ideology or party affiliation with the Bush administration. These were the actual people directing or implementing the policies, either through regular consultation with the White House, or by being hired into the appropriate positions within the government.

Where were the members of the vast anti-public education conspiracy hiding during all of this? The early years of the Bush administration were a heady time, a historical moment where conservatives could finally put their true intentions on the table for all to see, because they were finally in charge. You could say some crazy stuff back then--let's abolish Social Security! and rule the world!--and people would actually take you seriously.

But instead of leading the charge for a national voucher system, the President passed a bipartisan education bill with the cooperation and support of leading Democrats. Instead of putting someone who wants to destroy public education in charge of public education--which would have been a pretty typical maneuver for this administration--he appointed an urban school superintendant to be Secretary of Education. Then he replaced him with the former chief lobbyist for a state school boards assocation.

There are anti-NCLB / anti-public schools folks like Cato, and pro-NCLB / pro-public schools groups, like the Education Trust. There is also a large group of people who are anti-NCLB and pro-public education, like the NEA. But that doesn't mean that the opposite must therefore be true. The coalition of conservatives who are both pro-NCLB and anti-public education doesn't exist, at least not in any meaningful sense.