Talk about bizarre piggybacking and ahistoricism.
Ronald Reagan didn't make many missteps, but one blunder that's widely acknowledged by just about everyone who follows education was the White House's bungled initial reception of A Nation at Risk in 1983. The "vision" that the President laid out on that occasion had just about nothing to do with what the Excellence Commission said or recommended. It was ships passing in the night.
After dawn broke, Reagan and his team (including Ed Meese) realized that the Commission's report had struck a nerve--even though it had absolutely nothing to do with school choice or with reducing the federal role in education. Whereupon the President began gallivanting around the land with Education Secretary Ted Bell--18 joint events in 11 weeks, it says on page 99 of my book.
But as he traveled he sang from the Commission's hymnal (higher standards, tougher courses, better teachers, etc.), not the one that our good friends at Heritage (and Senator DeMint) are trying posthumously to place in his hands.
