Today, Kevin Williamson has written a column arguing that we actually could use a Department of Education — among other reasons, to combat the rising threat from China.
I would advise reading his whole piece to consider his argument. But to be clear, Kevin acknowledges that, “The actual Department of Education we have exists primarily to service the interests of the largely unionized public-school personnel who do irreplaceable work funding and staffing Democratic political campaigns. It also maintains a sideline interest in Kulturkampf.” And he laments that it has devolved into a jobs program rather than one that actually invests in educating children.
Yet all of those things that Williamson imagines we could remove from the department are endemic to any large federal agency. Saying we need a Department of Education, but a less wasteful and more effective one, reminds me of the old argument that communism was a great theory, but just wouldn’t work in practice. (Not that I am accusing Kevin of being a closet commie.)
