A mini-history of the politics that made education reform possible
Back in the day, both parties were fighting for the center, with their more moderate, more technocratic factions ascendant. George H. W. Bush promised a “kinder, gentler” nation (and GOP) after eight years of President Reagan. Bill Clinton branded himself a “New” Democrat and embraced a “third way.” George W. Bush promoted “compassionate conservatism” to distinguish himself from Newt Gingrich and the Congressional Republicans of the 1990s.
I will leave it to historians and political scientists to explain why this era in American politics was so conducive to centrism. Certainly, Clinton made the case that the Democrats had no choice, given that they had lost five of six presidential elections from 1968 through 1988, a period during which “liberal” became a dirty word. His successful run in the 90s—the first two-term Democratic president since FDR—solidified the centrist Democratic strategy. And perhaps that in turn encouraged Republicans to quickly coalesce around Bush the Second—a relative moderate—as well.
Whatever their underlying causes, these macro-politics were fantastic for education reform—for putting the needs of students (especially disadvantaged students) over the needs of adults working in the system. Most importantly, it allowed Clinton and the Democrats to break with the teachers unions on key issues—not all of the time, or on everything, but certainly on standards-based reform and public-school choice, including charter schools. That trend continued under President Obama. The unions endorsed Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries, leaving him a free hand to disagree with them. He famously called for merit pay for teachers at a speech at the National Education Association conference—while running for president. When in office, he appointed uber-reformer Arne Duncan, supported charter schools, and pushed for tough-minded teacher evaluations.
Choice and accountability were an easier sell to Republicans, but President George W. Bush was also able to convince the GOP to back his call for an aggressive federal role and a focus on racial achievement gaps in the form of No Child Left Behind. And at the state level, Republican governors didn’t fight too hard against increases in spending, and in some cases welcomed it. Had Mitt Romney won in 2012, he likely would have kept the good times rolling, considering his successful, centrist tenure on education as governor of Massachusetts.
So what changed? The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and especially the financial crisis and the resulting Great Recession, sparked a populist backlash. It started on the right, first with the Tea Party movement and then with the nomination of Trump. The failures of the Bush years ruined the neo-conservatives’ reputation as the “adults in the room” that cared about governance and institutions. Conservative populists were eager to burn it all down.
Progressives on the left soon became restive, as well. Disappointed that the Obama years weren’t bringing as much change as they’d hoped, angry over police brutality toward Black men, and alarmed by the GOP’s rightward turn, they started pushing the Democrats away from the center, too.
Education as an issue wasn’t the cause of these tectonic shifts but did play a minor role. The Common Core became a bête noire of the Tea Party movement. Test-based teacher evaluations helped the unions spark a testing backlash. The 1619 Project and schools’ handling of transgender issues were conspicuous parts of the “woke wave” of the late Trump era.
But mostly education policy was on the receiving end of these larger cultural and political changes. By the time Hillary Clinton ran in 2016, she was cozying up to the teachers unions, talking about progressive favorites like universal pre-K, and generally downplaying the reform efforts of her husband’s long-ago administration. Donald Trump obviously didn’t care much about education or make it a priority, though he was happy to participate in the brewing culture wars. Joe Biden embraced his self-image as the “most union-friendly president in history,” including the teachers unions, bragging that he slept with a member of the National Education Association (his wife Jill) every night. Now we’re back to Trump, and reformers’ exile continues.
Or does it?
