Opinion Blog


Rick Hess Straight Up

Education policy maven Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute think tank offers straight talk on matters of policy, politics, research, and reform. Read more from this blog.

Federal Opinion

What Conservatives Should Be for When It Comes to Education

By Rick Hess — January 14, 2021 3 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

This is a low point for those who take conservatism seriously. We’ve just watched a Republican president provoke an assault on Congress after two months spent promoting fabricated, seditious conspiracy theories. Even as Donald Trump’s ravings were debunked time and again, scores of Republican lawmakers stood by his side as he sought to overturn a democratic election. It’s been a horrifying, craven display.

With Trump, his apologists, and his Capitol Hill henchmen claiming to be conservatives, it’s a tough time to make the case for conservative ideas. That just makes it all the more important for those of us who reject Trump’s poisonous faux-conservatism to make clear what we actually stand for—to speak to shared values, essential truths, and how we’d seek to improve the lives of Americans.

In the realm of education policy, we have our work cut out for us. One of my persistent frustrations, during the course of more than two decades in the education policy debates, is that—except when it comes to school choice and campus free speech—conservatives are much better at explaining what we’re against than what we’re for. That needs to change, particularly since education is ultimately about opportunity, community, and empowerment, and nothing should resonate more deeply with the conservative heart.

That’s why I’m pleased that AEI Education, where I’ve been director since 2002, has just published Mike McShane’s new essay, “Where Conservatives Should Lead on Federal Education Policy in 2021.” McShane, the director of research at EdChoice and an adjunct scholar at AEI, draws on our ongoing AEI Education series, “Sketching a New Conservative Education Agenda,” to offer a broad view of what conservatives should be fighting for in early-childhood, K-12, and higher education during the Biden presidency and beyond.

When it comes to early-childhood education, conservatives should recognize that improving education for our nation’s youngest learners requires supporting parents, as well. As McShane puts it, “It is tough to raise children in America today. It is tough to gain the skills and knowledge needed for a good job without accumulating debt. It can be made easier.” He suggests that policy should accomplish three things:

  1. Provide relief for working families by subsidizing and promoting lower-cost early-childhood-education options.
  2. Create nurturing and supportive child-care environments in partnership with employers and civil society.
  3. Directly support families to maximize their flexibility in finding workable child care and early education options.

To improve K-12 schooling, McShane argues for reforming Title I “by simplifying it, deregulating it, and broadening its eligibility to allow new and different models of schools to access it.” When it comes to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), he urges a vision that starts from the simple premise that “parents need more help”—and seeks to give them more tools to work with than bureaucratic Individualized Education Program processes and the threat of litigation. McShane writes, “Parents need the option to exit schools that are not serving their children and take the funding that has been appropriated to pay for their child’s education with them. Making IDEA funding flexible and not tying it to a traditional district school is one way to help.”

On higher education, McShane suggests that conservatives work from three guiding principles: rigor, continuity, and flexibility. He argues that a college degree needs to mean more than it currently does; that graduates should have a command of history, science, art, and literature; that universities should be “dedicated to preserving what we have learned, sharing that with the next generation, and expanding what we know;” and that traditional college education is not for everyone, suggesting the need for policy that supports more varied “paths for people pursuing different goals.”

In a matter of days, the Trump Show will move from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to an off-brand cable news network. It’s past time for conservatives to set aside the distractions of the Trump era and get back to things that matter. Offering a principled vision for education is a productive place to start.

Related Tags:

The opinions expressed in Rick Hess Straight Up are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

Events

Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Privacy & Security Webinar
Navigating Cybersecurity: Securing District Documents and Data
Learn how K-12 districts are addressing the challenges of maintaining a secure tech environment, managing documents and data, automating critical processes, and doing it all with limited resources.
Content provided by Softdocs

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Federal Biden Calls for Teacher Pay Raises, Expanded Pre-K in State of the Union
President Joe Biden highlighted a number of his education priorities in a high-stakes speech as he seeks a second term.
5 min read
President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol on March 7, 2024, in Washington.
President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol on March 7, 2024, in Washington.
Shawn Thew/Pool via AP
Federal Low-Performing Schools Are Left to Languish by Districts and States, Watchdog Finds
Fewer than half of district plans for improving struggling schools meet bare minimum requirements.
11 min read
A group of silhouettes looks across a grid with a public school on the other side.
Vanessa Solis/Education Week via Canva
Federal Biden Admin. Says New K-12 Agenda Tackles Absenteeism, Tutoring, Extended Learning
The White House unveiled a set of K-12 priorities at the start of an election year.
4 min read
U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona participates in a roundtable discussion with students from Dartmouth College on Jan. 10, 2024, on the school's campus, in Hanover, N.H.
U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona participates in a roundtable discussion with students from Dartmouth College on Jan. 10, 2024, on the school's campus, in Hanover, N.H.
Steven Senne/AP
Federal Lawmakers Want to Reauthorize a Major Education Research Law. What Stands in the Way?
Lawmakers have tried and failed to reauthorize the Education Sciences Reform Act over the past nearly two decades.
7 min read
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., left, joins Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., left, as Starbucks founder Howard Schultz answers questions about the company's actions during an ongoing employee unionizing campaign, at the Capitol in Washington, on March 29, 2023.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., left, joins Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., left, at the Capitol in Washington, on March 29, 2023. The two lawmakers sponsored a bill to reauthorize the Education Sciences Reform Act.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP