I expected this to feel better.
I’ve been a Never Trumper for over a decade, and Tuesday’s overwhelming repudiation of Trump, Trumpism, and MAGA is what I’ve been craving all these years. Yet now that it finally happened, I find myself with a pit in my stomach.
To be sure, I’m happy that our country pushed back strong against Trump’s illiberalism, cronyism, and egocentric disregard for the concerns of everyday Americans. And I certainly don’t feel sorry for all those Republicans who tried to go along and get along all these years, accepting a hostile takeover of their party (and to some degree their country) so that they could stay in power. Good riddance.
But I worry, as many others do, that we are in for a rocky period. It’s a good sign that Trump is accepting the election results, but I am skeptical that he and the people around him are going to respond to this shellacking by looking for common ground with their political opponents and moderating their positions on issues like immigration or the war in Iran. I buy the argument that a lame-duck Donald Trump could be quite dangerous.
Nor am I thrilled about an ascendant hard-left progressive wing in the Democratic Party—one that has its own problems with illiberalism, especially in the form of antisemitism.
But I’m also deeply concerned about the next few years of education reform. It is simply a truism that the teachers unions remain a powerful force within the Democratic Party and are opposed to many of the promising reforms available to governors and lawmakers who want to improve their schools. That certainly includes high-quality charter schools, but also accountability, merit pay, and much else. Trifectas in states like Arizona, and blue supermajorities in states like Colorado, are going to be challenging to say the least. And expect some major budget fights in Washington over reform priorities like the federal Charter Schools Program.
And then there’s Texas. Elections have consequences, and it is quite clear that one consequence of Gina Hinojosa beating Greg Abbott in Texas is that education commissioner Mike Morath will soon be packing his bags. (Hinojosa said so in her victory speech.) That’s an enormous loss for the children of Texas and for all of us in education reform. While you may not know it based on the reporting from much of the national press, which has been obsessing over the culture war stuff in the Lone Star State, Morath has been working diligently (and frankly technocratically) for ten years now to put in place policies that are the very definition of student-centered.
My favorite example is the Texas Teacher Incentive Allotment, a merit pay program that is dramatically boosting salaries for great teachers in the state’s neediest schools, and one that should be a model nationwide. But also Morath’s appointment of Mike Miles in Houston and decisions to intervene in other low-performing districts around the state. Plus his recent introduction of the “Bluebonnet” curriculum, which has arguably the best reading list in the country—and even expects students to read complete novels!
