Criticism of Democratic Educational Policy

I don't think that me saying I believe Republican education proposals lack merit will shock anyone. I taught in a public school through the "No Child Left Behind" debacle, and I recall Mitch Daniels' imposition of "right to work" on teachers long before it was imposed on the Indiana economy as a whole. 

However, I do plenty of pieces on this blog beating up on Republicans. Suffice it to say, I believe that their education proposals are terrible. However, when it comes to education, Democrats are only a little bit "less bad."

Case in point:

The bad news for Democrats who found DeVos’ performance appalling is that these principles have been a crucial part of their party’s education policy for 17 years. Broadly speaking, the regime of compelling competition between schools by creating charter-school or school-choice programs and by rewarding those whose students do well on standardized tests was launched at a federal level by the No Child Left Behind Act; the NCLB was co-sponsored by Ted Kennedy and passed the Senate in 2001 with 87 votes. When Barack Obama became president, he created the Race to the Top program, which the Washington Post described at the time as a “competition for $4.35 billion in grants” that would “ease limits on charter schools” and “tie teacher pay to student achievement,” i.e. direct extra funds to already-successful schools.

Of course, this piece was published today in response to Sec. DeVos' disastrous 60-minutes performance. However, just because Sec. DeVos is clueless should not excuse those who have supported these awful policies over the course of the last generation. We see it in Indianapolis as well, with the rhetoric surrounding "failing schools" and characterizing public schools as "government schools."

Without addressing the merits of NCLB or Race to the Top, there can be no doubt but that the only difference between Democractic and Republican educational proposals has been that Republicans want to dismantle teachers' unions and public education more rapidly than do Democrats. 

That's about it.