Ravitch’s colleagues sure don’t think Obama is Bush lite.
Efficiency! Productivity! You ungrateful wretch!
While Diane Ravitch was calling Barack Obama the third term of George Bush, her colleagues at the Fordham Institute were singing a different tune.
Writing in the National Review, Checker Finn and Mike Petrilli were acting Mr. Bumble:
In the course of a generally frank and direct speech, one might expect the president to explain honestly why American education is lagging. It doesn’t need “more investments,” it needs more efficiency and greater productivity — like our health-care system. It’s no accident that our schools aren’t producing enough well-educated graduates; that’s because the system has been designed to place the needs of adults over the needs of kids. But saying any of that would put him at odds with the education establishment, which he doesn’t appear to want to cross.
There’s the “starve the beast” theory of the Bush administration. Stop throwing money at schools. They don’t need investments. They need efficiency! Productivity! Why Charles Dickens couldn’t have written it better.
Says Finn and Petrilli:
In other words, for all the “pain” he’s asking Americans to share, where’s the pain for the education system?
What a couple of sweet guys. Just don’t let your kids anywhere near ‘em.
