To the editor:
To read last week's editorial offering, "Why Obama's stimulus plan may retard education reform" (January 9, 2009), was to be catapulted from vigorous head-nodding to equally vigorous finger-wagging in a span of but several paragraphs. We begin our sail on placid seas of sense ("Education, then, cries out for a good belt-tightening") but are soon broadsided by unwelcome, wastrel winds ("For starters, make the summers of 2009 and 2010 into ???Summers of Learning.' Invest billions to keep schools open from June to August across the land."). I understand that the editorial's authors were trying to make a bad situation--i.e., government's squandering of hundreds of billions--less so, but along the way they ceded the high ground on K-12 spending; swallowed stories about that mythological creature, the "one-time investment" in education; and proffered suggestions that, frankly, sound as if they were scribbled out on the Metro ride to work (Public school "Summers of Learning"? We've enough problems with fall, winter, and spring.). Neal McCloskey, of the Cato Institute, raised similar concerns last week, which Mike Petrilli dismissed on the Flypaper blog as the musings of "loopy libertarians." I wouldn't call McCloskey's anxieties the exclusive property of libertarians; they are--at least, should be--worrying for all conservatives and other sensible folks. And if the past is any guide, such concerns certainly are not loopy.
Liam Julian
Managing Editor
Policy Review