Hypocrisy, thy name is “education establishment”

You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Matthew 7, verse 5.

Those who know me know that I don’t quote bible verses in this space very often, but I couldn’t help but think about it when I saw this story from the Washington Post and this shrill response from the New Mexico Democratic Party.

The Post blogger relying on a story from the left wing “In the Public Interest” attempts to paint a picture of Gov. Martinez and Sec. Designate Skandera “carrying water” for some big corporate players in education reform. The Democrats, of course, jumped all over this, but seem to have forgotten their own reliance on teachers unions for cash and political support.

In other words, when you have government officials exerting control over education policy, it is inevitable that you’ll have interest groups attempting to get a piece of the action. The point that needs to be made and the question that needs to be asked is: Unions and their friends in the Democratic Party have controlled education policy in New Mexico for decades and our performance is at the very bottom. If another group wants to try something new, isn’t it time we gave them a chance?

Sure, I’d like a genuine free market where we got government out of the business of owning and managing schools themselves returned education decisions to parents and their kids. That isn’t on the table right now. Is it really a shock that private businesses who think they can do better than the unions and their friends are putting up the funding to get a foot in the door?