How Conservatives Should Lead On Education Reform

If conservatives want to appeal to more minority voters, while offering education reform to the current apparatus for the benefit of our children, then they need to do better than the incoherence they have exhibited in the past. The Republican Party, as a matter of policy, has praised top-down standardization, while placing an even greater emphasis on school choice.

Historically, conservatives have ceded the work of education reform to progressives. But, as Congress begins to consider proposals to reauthorize NCLB/No Child Left Behind (the latest iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act), education is ripe for conservatives to offer an alternative.
Rather than talking about what conservatives are against, conservatives should be talking about what they are for. By identifying what the federal government has the potential to do right, we can begin to sketch a principled, coherent approach to education, one which allows Washington to promote the kind of great schooling that America’s kids need.

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