Summer is here. I don’t know if I will teach for the rest of my career, but I have grown accustomed to the rhythm of the school year. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, with a built-in sabbatical at the end.
The Trump era is also a marathon. As Nick Catoggio of The Dispatch wrote in a mailbag post last month, “not since FDR has American politics revolved more tightly around a central figure than it does now.”
It’s an exhausting reality. Even as I try to temper my news consumption to avoid getting “triggered” by the latest transgressions, I am consciously aware of the elephant I’m trying to avoid.
I did scribble some political thoughts here on Substack Notes, for those who aren’t numb to the situation yet.
In this post, I will address another topic related to education: The internal tension within the Republican Party about whether to take education into the future or back to the past.
What is it that makes education great?
Republicans are juggling two impulses on education. The first is to lean into school choice and innovation — to go boldly where education policy has never gone before. The second is to fight back against progressive ideas within the existing public school system — to make education great again, which is to say, to return it to some idealized version of what it was like before things changed.
The school choice impulse claims to be agnostic as to the substance and style of the learning experience. Innovation and choice are a fundamental good, an end in itself. Therefore, it doesn’t matter if students are sitting in front of an A.I. machine for two hours a day or attending a rigorous classical school. Once the policy of universal choice has been achieved, the mission is complete. The market will provide what it will provide. Parents will choose what they think is best.
Jeb Bush, former Republican governor of Florida, captures this mindset in an article praising the newly passed ESA program in Texas:
The country is standing at the brink of an era when education funding finally and truly follows students. Parents in the nearly 20 states that have adopted ESAs are empowered not just to access a quality school for their kids, but to customize that educational experience in a way that felt unattainable just a decade ago.
…
Advocates should celebrate the incredible progress that school choice has made in recent years and recognize that how these programs are built matters just as much as generating the support to create them. The passage of Texas’ ESA program marks a new chapter, not just for Texas students, but for the future of education choice across America.
If policymakers get this right, the next generation of ESA programs will be faster, smarter and more parent-friendly than ever before — guaranteeing that every family, no matter where they live, can access a customized education that unlocks their child’s full potential.
This sounds great, assuming you aren't judgmental about what people do with their educational choices.
Other voices on the right have very strong opinions on what education should look like.
The anti-progressive impulse is exemplified by Daniel Buck, a conservative education activist who criticizes all the new educational fads. Look at the series of articles he’s written for National Review. Here’s a sampling of titles:
Get Tech Out of Schools
How to Combat Gender Ideology in Schools
Schools Discover that Consequences Work
The Decline and Fall of the Classroom Novel
We’re Making Teaching Miserable for Teachers
Buck is partisan over the smallest details of education. On social media, he can be found railing against … bad classroom decorations:
You know those elementary school classrooms that look like a unicorn sneezed neon colors all over the walls? Turns out, they're pretty detrimental to student focus and learning. Can't focus on spelling and a lame motivational poster at the same time.
So what’s the solution? Create a free market of education so that you can send your kid to a school with or without neon posters on the walls? Or reform the public schools so that we rip down the neon posters once and for all?
Granted, it’s not a contradiction to support choice and also be an advocate for what you think is the better choice. That’s standard stuff in a republic.
But MAGA is the establishment of the Republican Party, and “liberty” does not seem to be their animating principle.
According to Jeb Bush, Texas is now a school choice paradise.
But that didn't make education great again. Just weeks after passing the ESA law, Texas lawmakers passed another law requiring all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments.
It’s hard to square the school choice impulse with the impulse to require Bible posters (not in neon) to be plastered on the walls of public school classrooms.
If students can take tax-dollars and enroll in a religious school, what’s the point of requiring the Ten Commandments in public schools? It’s clearly an attempt to encroach, culturally, into a public school system that’s perceived to be occupied by political enemies.
In Arizona, we see the same impulses being juggled. For example, even though we have an expansive school choice environment, and enrollment is dropping in the district schools, we still see right-wingers seeking school board positions in order to fight the culture wars there.
And of course, we still see conservatives attacking the public school system for not measuring up on state tests, while at the same time recruiting families to enroll in private schools that don’t administer state tests at all.
The most common liberal critique of the Jeb Bush doctrine is to argue that, by creating a school choice paradise, you do damage to the foundational, default option for most families, which is the local public school.
It will be interesting to watch these educational debates play out in the upcoming elections. I think Democrats need to cede a bit of ground to the school choice impulse. Or do something like go big on civics education. What are Democrats offering that will improve the education system?
Republicans are offering reform and reaction at the same time. The slogan “Make Education Great Again” doesn't make any sense, but it fits. Without a persuasive educational pitch from the other party, it might be enough.
Quote of the Month
“I know that many of my former Republican colleagues understand the need to speak up.” - Jeff Flake, still calling for conservatives to do the right thing after all these years.
Links and News
The Dispatch, a center-right online newspaper, published profiles of two potential Democratic national leaders: Ruben Gallego and Josh Shapiro.
Knowledge Building in the News. Even though information is freely available on the internet, Natalie Wexler thinks it’s important for students to learn knowledge in the traditional way. In this post on her Substack, she discusses recent news coverage of the knowledge-based approach.
Chatbots Aren’t Geniuses. The comment section of this post descends into a funny argument about grammar. Adds a nice touch of humanity to the article, which is a defense of human thinking.
$1.3B south Phoenix light rail expansion opens in a week. What to know.
Summer Reading
I’ve gotten into the habit of reading a biography of a Founding era figure or an American president each summer leading up to Independence Day. This summer I’m reading Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham. I’m tentatively planning to write a July 4th reflection for next month, including some takeaways from this book.
What are you reading this summer?
What are your thoughts about where we are right now, as a country, in the context of our upcoming 249th birthday?
Feel free to leave a comment on this post, respond to this newsletter by email, or send me an email directly at billyrobb@protonmail.com.
Great post. Thx for your service.