After McCain refrained from saying anything about NCLB at the Republican convention Laura challenged me to write about McCain’s education policy. So I dutifully tried, but found it hard not to seem more partisan than I actually am. However, I had a good look at both candidates’ websites, so I was more or less unsurprised by McCain’s answer to the final question in last week’s debate. (Just in case that sounds like a complaint that it was not until the final, rushed, question in the final debate that education was asked about, it isn’t: I can’t imagine anyone’s vote hinges on what a presidential candidate says about education; given how little influence presidents have over what happens in schools that is probably sensible; and anyway all candidates have proven extremely adept at not answering questions).
The reason I’ve got nothing to say about Obama on education is that Paul Tough’s article in the Times is excellent on the tensions in the candidate’s platform and maybe in his own mind. Practical-minded readers will simply read Tough: the remainder of this post is relevant only to the possible world in which McCain becomes President, which is some distance from the actual world (barring some as yet unknown fact about this world coming to light such as that Obama was an active member of the Weather Underground or a Yippy or something like that when he was a pre-teen, or that his great friend Dick Lugar is a closet Muslim Trotskyist and transvestite to boot, or that Sarah Palin is the lovechild of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, or Jimmy Stewart or..well, you know, some revelation equally unlikely).
I don’t have that much more to say about McCain, except to point out that he doesn’t have much to say either. His answer to the education question was quite disappointing (and I’m not talking about his apparent confusion of Down syndrome with Autism, which is an easy mistake to make) but also quite revealing. McCain focused entirely on choice. This reveals that he doesn’t really have anything to say; something his website confirms.
This is the most comprehensive statement I can find of McCain’s education platform. It does not reveal a great deal of thought or anything very original. It’s basically a laundry list of boilerplate Republican issues, plus a few million dollars to invest in virtual schooling (as if the Feds need to do anything here: the market, the districts, and the States are moving ahead with this, and it is, if anything, regulation not money the Feds need to be providing).
Don’t get me wrong. I agree with a good deal of what he says in principle; in fact in some cases I am probably more radical. “John McCain Believes We Must Empower School Principals With Greater Control Over Spending”. Sure, and let’s allow them (rather than school districts) to hire teachers while we’re at it; and, better still, let’s hire principals who know something about budgets, teaching, and learning rather than, for example, athletics.
But once you get beyond the vague generalizations that characterize McCain’s platform, you find yourself asking whether he has any actual plans. How, exactly, is he going to give more control to principals over spending? Is he going to sidestep school districts and State’s departments of Education? How would he do that? The details are what are interesting here, and what would show up a difference with the reform side of Obama’s brain.
Even on choice, which he focussed on, irrelevantly, in the debate, he is vague. DC apart, the impulse for choice has all come from State level legislation and, to a much lesser extent, the courts: is he proposing a Bill that will create vouchers in all the inner cities? I doubt it. Charters: well, they are already all over the place, and again all of the impulse and regulation comes from the states. For Republicans being pro-choice on schooling is almost but not quite compulsory, but doesn’t tell much of anything about what you actually think about the important policy issues. (Again, for people who don’t read the blog that often, I’m pro-choice on schooling – written a book about it – so this isn’t snarkiness). On the big issue over which he would have some real say as President and would have to negotiate in great detail with a Democratic majority in both houses – NCLB, its revision and re-authorization – he is completely silent.
The most interesting thing on the platform is that he offers a total of $500 million for virtual schooling initiatives. I take it that these will be initiatives in public school districts and consortia of districts. This is one area where the market is already creating massive pressure, and school districts are trying to work out on the ground how to respond to those pressures. My guess is that a lot of that $500 million would be wasted, as districts would either take it to do what they would be doing anyway, or use it to develop programs that nobody may end up wanting to take. (I also guess that a lot of it would end up in the pockets of Bill Bennett whose virtual schooling materials seem to be widely used by public school virtual schooling consortiums).
{ 29 comments }
HH 10.20.08 at 8:06 pm
McCain is a fortunate son who believes in hereditary aristocracy. (His biography is called “Faith of My Fathers.”) Why would we expect him to have any credible program of educational reform? The “conservative” Republican approach to public education is “the Devil take the hindmost.” Give the rabble some vouchers and let the clever ones scramble out of poverty. The rest will be fed into the war machine or incarcerated.
Republicans favor social Darwinism for the children of the poor and hereditary aristocracy for the children of the rich. They believe that educational discrimination is a legitimate means of punishing and rewarding children according to the status of their parents. You can expect as much education “reform” from John McCain as you could expect bread from Marie Antoinette.
Ben Alpers 10.20.08 at 8:26 pm
Lugar’s a Muslim Trotskyite?!? That explains so much…wait till Confederate Yankee finds out!
You can expect as much education “reform†from John McCain as you could expect bread from Marie Antoinette.
Does that mean we’d get cake? America likes cake!
John Quiggin 10.20.08 at 8:30 pm
Harry, I’d be interested in a more general post on schools policy in the light of the failure of private operators like Edison and (what I perceive as) general disappointment with the outcomes from charter schools. It seems to me that, in the US, school choice is pretty much equated to privatisation/charters a lot of the time, and that the partial or complete failure of these policies is gradually changing the terms of debate. But that’s a view from a long distance, and I’d be interested to see what you have to say.
Stuart 10.20.08 at 9:19 pm
You can expect as much education “reform†from John McCain as you could expect bread from Marie Antoinette.
Seeing as the phrase you are alluding to appears in a book 20 years before she was born, it seems fairly unlikely Marie Antoinette said it.
Caroline 10.20.08 at 10:24 pm
“Republicans favor social Darwinism for the children of the poor and hereditary aristocracy for the children of the rich. They believe that educational discrimination is a legitimate means of punishing and rewarding children according to the status of their parents. You can expect as much eduyears of adulthoodcation “reform†from John McCain as you could expect bread from Marie Antoinette.”
Friday, I happened to be in downtown Lowell Mass. at the same time as the Lowell High School let open their doors to release students for the weekend. Never in my 20 some odd years of adulthood have I ever been surrounded by such a foul mouthed, rude, narciscist crowd of teenagers. Here, in Marty Meehan’s home town, the Democrat for the working man ( who is now president of the University of Massachusetts) you can find proof that the Democrats approach to education is broken. Somehow the idea of Parental responsibility and Personal Responsibility have gone completely out the window. Unfortunately, I do not have the answer, but I have seen proof that the throw more money and no child left behind programs do not work. At some point, probably sixth grade, these kids need an attitude adjustment at schooling very much like adults look at going to work each day. It is necessary for living, not obligatory. That change in motivation has to come into our society, or we are left with the very few getting ahead, and the rest being stuck in mid stream.
Harry 10.20.08 at 11:24 pm
John –part 2 will be a very small part of an answer to that. But, sure, I’ll try a more comprehensive discussion.
Caroline — I’m often inclined to agree with your basic sentiments, but i) there isn’t really a Democrat approach to education and ii) why would we expect a culture which rejects any kind of ideal of personal responsibility in public life to produce children who embrace it in their private lives (and how can we expect schools, which have children for a rather small proportion of their waking lives to succeed in undermining the values of the public culture)?
HH 10.21.08 at 12:35 am
why would we expect a culture which rejects any kind of ideal of personal responsibility in public life to produce children who embrace it in their private lives
Quite so. Now that our government is a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs, we can marvel at how cleverly the former masters of the universe clean up their own mess at taxpayer expense. Decadence is an equal opportunity affliction.
laura 10.21.08 at 2:35 am
It’s all about virtual education, isn’t it? But it’s happening so quietly. The conservatives have their loud mouths talking about vouchers and distracting everyone, while they quietly fund and create virtual schools. Unlike vouchers, virtual education really has some political chance of working. There are actual constituencies that want them. Homeschoolers, people out in Northern Wisconsin and North Dakota who don’t want to put their kids on school buses for two hours, and then all the public education/teacher haters.
Michael Bérubé 10.21.08 at 5:22 am
his apparent confusion of Down syndrome with Autism, which is an easy mistake to make)
Well, OK, but only for people who aren’t familiar with Down syndrome and/or Autism. Otherwise McCain sounded like someone saying “Sarah Palin knows a lot about genetics and molecular biochemistry because her son can see Mongolia from his crib.” Or, more generously, like someone who understands “autism” as shorthand for “developmental disability in general.” Because in every other register — including the registers that are most relevant to debates about prenatal screening and abortion — there are no meaningful similarities between Down syndrome and autism. (By which I mean that although both conditions involve a developmental disability with a wide range of functioning, you can’t do a prenatal screen for autism. ) Actually, if memory serves, I once said on another blog that comparing DS and autism was a little like comparing apples and file cabinets.
Dick Lugar is a closet Muslim Trotskyist and transvestite to boot
Of course this sounds silly, and Ben @ 2 is right to laugh. But in reality, Dick Lugar has long been a fan of Bob Avakian, and (iirc) signed the Engage! statement late last year. Which is not surprising, given Lugar’s history of serving with Avakian on revolutionary zoning boards in the greater Indianapolis area. You should probably ask McLemee for the grainy details, though — he keeps more careful track of this stuff than I do.
dsquared 10.21.08 at 6:34 am
I agree with Michael; it’s really not an easy mistake to make.
Never in my 20 some odd years of adulthood have I ever been surrounded by such a foul mouthed, rude, narciscist crowd of teenagers.
this really does sound a bit “hey you kids, get off my lawn”. How many times in the last 20 years have you been standing outside a high school at 4pm on a Friday?
I happened to be in an train station once with about a dozen Royal Marines who were on their way to a rugby match. Their behaviour and language was absolutely abominable, but I really would hesitate to make any more general judgements about the character, personal responsibility, etc of the entire Army on that basis and no other.
Lex 10.21.08 at 7:02 am
@10: not least, of course, because Royal Marines are not any part of the Army [no more than Marines are in the USA, and boy does it get up their nose to say otherwise.]
dsquared 10.21.08 at 8:03 am
I refer the hon. gentleman to my discussion of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in the Economic Sciences in Honour of Alfred Nobel.
chris y 10.21.08 at 9:03 am
the possible world in which McCain becomes President, which is some distance from the actual world
Stop it. Obama is 7% ahead in most polls. Allow 2% for Bradley, 2% for the known effect (can’t remember what it’s called) that elections tend to close up in the last week, and 1% for fraud/voter intimidation and you’re well within the margin of error.
Katherine 10.21.08 at 9:04 am
I’m not quite sure why mixing up Down syndrome with autism is an easy mistake to make. I have experience of neither, but I know that they are not the same. I can even say off the top of my head that Down syndrome involves an extra chromosome and autism doesn’t. And could probably come up with a few more differences than that if I thought about it.
This is because I read books, newspapers and magazines and, y’know, exist in the world. If I came across someone who mixed the two up, I’d have to conclude that they were extremely ignorant and/or stupid.
ejh 10.21.08 at 9:08 am
Or maybe that they were ill-informed on these subjects, but perhaps better-informed than you in other areas.
Katherine 10.21.08 at 9:32 am
My point was that I have no special knowledge in these areas. I don’t have a child with Down syndrome or autism, or know anyone personally who does. I didn’t have social contact with any such children when I was growing up. On this subject, I think I’m the very definition of lay-person. In those circumstances, I think it takes some special level of ignorance to know less than me.
Lex 10.21.08 at 10:05 am
@12: yes, but the Sveriges Riksbank are so much less likely to take offence in a way discommodious to your future love-life…
dsquared 10.21.08 at 10:15 am
I think that the suggestion that either US Marines or Royal Marines would commit a criminal assault on a civilian for making an amazingly common mistake over service branch distinctions on a blog is really quite insulting to those various Marines; it’s an implicit suggestion that they’re undisciplined, violent criminal thugs. All the evidence is otherwise. And even if they did, it wouldn’t alter the empirical fact that nobody cares.
Unless you’re trying to suggest that my wife is a Marine, in which case I’m happy to confirm that you’re mistaken.
Lex 10.21.08 at 11:11 am
Umm…Ummm…. Yo mama wears army boots!
OK, I give up.
engels 10.21.08 at 11:24 am
Never in my 20 some odd years of adulthood have I ever been surrounded by such a foul mouthed, rude, narciscist crowd of teenagers.
So in 20 odd years of adulthood you have only had such a bad experience once? Sounds good to me…
Harry 10.21.08 at 12:12 pm
Michael, Daniel, and Katherine — good grief, I was being sarcastic. My usual earnestness deserting me for once. Lindsey, did you notice?
dsquared 10.21.08 at 12:44 pm
In retrospect it is pretty obvious! sorry
Walt 10.21.08 at 1:15 pm
Remember, kids, every time someone makes a joke on the Internet, and someone else doesn’t get it, an angel has his wings ripped off.
laura 10.21.08 at 1:25 pm
I got it, harry.
Barry 10.21.08 at 2:33 pm
Caroline 10.20.08 at 10:24 pm
“Friday, I happened to be in downtown Lowell Mass. at the same time as the Lowell High School let open their doors to release students for the weekend. Never in my 20 some odd years of adulthood have I ever been surrounded by such a foul mouthed, rude, narciscist crowd of teenagers. ”
“Somehow the idea of Parental responsibility and Personal Responsibility have gone completely out the window. ”
By any chance have you read the news from our federal government for the past 8 years? Can’t imagine from whom those kids got their attitudes.
Barry 10.21.08 at 2:35 pm
Another: “You can expect as much education “reform†from John McCain as you could expect bread from Marie Antoinette.”
Stuart: “Seeing as the phrase you are alluding to appears in a book 20 years before she was born, it seems fairly unlikely Marie Antoinette said it.”
Not at all; however I would agree that it’d be fairly unlikely Marie Antoinette *originated* it.
Harry 10.21.08 at 2:53 pm
Sarcastic, but also unfair, apparently — someone on Laura’s blog says that Sarah Palin’s nephew has autism/is autistic, so McCain does know the difference. Good job I was only being sarcastic, and wasn’t actively complaining…
lindsey 10.22.08 at 12:47 am
Actually, I thought you were serious. And I was baffled. And then I read your response on 11D, and then I felt silly. Of course you were sarcastic, but sarcasm slyly slipped in with earnestness is very tricky indeed. I think that instead of foregoing sarcasm altogether, you should forgo earnestness all together and just be sarcastic. At least for one post. It’d be great.
Michael Bérubé 10.22.08 at 3:30 am
My apologies, Harry — I was remarking on McCain’s disability-illiteracy, and (I thought) underscoring your point. Damn these Internets to hell! Damn them! Until these “blogs” with their “comment sections” came along, human beings understood each other just fine. Sorry for getting all pedantic about this and spelling out the differences (wrt prenatal testing, e.g.), but I’ve actually had conversations with people who, like McCain, think of “autism” as a term that covers all children with developmental disabilities.
And I should add, just as a political cheap shot, that if Sarah Palin were truly McCain’s “soul mate,” he’d be capable of naming little Trig’s developmental disability properly.
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