CURMUDGUCATION: Can Conservatives and Unions Play Nice?

CURMUDGUCATION: Can Conservatives and Unions Play Nice?:
Can Conservatives and Unions Play Nice?

Andy Smarick is a partner at Bellwether Partners and a senior fellow at Fordham Institute, two reliably reformy right-leaning thinky tanks, so it's safe to say that he favors the reformster view of the education debates. But I also find him to be thoughtful and intellectually honest, particularly when it comes to considering the role of conservatism in the reform movement.

I've been saving a Smarick piece from last week's Weekly Standard to mull over (it's show week, and my close reading time has been replaced by rehearsal time). In "Don't Scoff," Smarick considers the possibility of collaboration between conservatives and unions, particularly in light of two events-- the passage of ESSA and the Friedrich's case. Granted, the Friedrich case is not looking quite so game-changing now that Scalia has shuffled off this mortal coil, but Smarick's points are still worth considering. I do recommend that if you want a fuller understanding of his argument, you read his piece.

Where he sees the "key overlap in the conservative/union Venn diagram is a respect for local custom and knowledge." Both conservatives and teachers wanted the feds out of the education business, and so ESSA-- a sort-of rejection of Big Government and a extra-rare example of a federal agency being stripped of powers.

The corollary is that cocksure D.C.-dwellers not only lack the right answers; they also inadvertently CURMUDGUCATION: Can Conservatives and Unions Play Nice?: