That's the title of my editorial in the brand-new Education Gadfly. You might give it a look, though discerning readers will notice that it pulls heavily from Wednesday's Flypaper post, as well as this one (from over the holidays). Let me spare you the suspense and get right to the point:
Scott Brown's remarkable victory in Tuesday's special election has turned American politics upside-down, and is already reshaping debates around health care, energy, and spending. But might it also foreshadow a major shift on federal education reform?Up until Monday night, it seemed likely that Uncle Sam's role in education would continue to grow larger ad infinitum. With states desperate for cash, the feds capable of borrowing it from China, and the apparent success of the Race to the Top in pushing a broad reform agenda, a new era of federal dominance in education appeared to be upon us.
But...
The odds of an ever-expanding federal role are a whole lot lower today than they were last week. That's because Brown's election could be the leading edge of a widespread backlash to big government, and in particular big, costly federal government. And federal education spending--and the prescriptive, top-down Washington-knows-best rules that tend to come along with it--could become a big fat target for wanna-be Representatives and Senators looking to ride taxpayer anger into office.
Which, as I explain, wouldn't be such a bad thing.
Read the whole thing here.
-Mike Petrilli
