...is that Andy Rotherham is giving advice to Republicans. On education, he thinks they should "promote sensible middle of the road ideas and rhetoric," as President Bush did during his 2000 campaign. In other words, New Dem Rotherham likes it when Republicans adopt New Dem ideas. You don't say?
Furthermore, he warns the GOP from embracing "the slash and burn and culture war approach of the 1990s" by promoting "a lot of ideas to effectively eviscerate the federal role in education, cut spending, devolve authority to the states and so forth." Hold on, Andy. It's true that the Republicans are always tempted by "culture war" politics, but calling for a more workable federal/state relationship in education is hardly akin to gay-bashing or pushing school prayer.
He then calls Fordham's idea of flipping the federal role in education a "moonshot" which has "little chance of becoming policy." I don't know; a law like NCLB would have once been considered unlikely. But more importantly, shouldn't we think tankers judge education policies by their effectiveness, rather than just their popularity? The Great Society was awfully popular in its day, yet it didn't turn out so well in the end. Democrats will always best Republicans when it comes to happy-talk and aspirations. But someone has to be the grown-up who brings some realism to the conversation. No Child Left Behind is hampered by an unalienable fact: the federal government doesn't run the schools. So any federal action in education is bound to have unintended consequences. Republicans used to worry about such things, and now, with Bush on his way out of office, I suspect they will do so once again.
