Benevolent overlord Rick Michigan's Big Government approach to education

by: Eric B.

Sat Jan 21, 2012 at 12:45:55 PM EST

The intellectual roots of the modern conservative movement grew up as a counterargument to the idea that came into fashion during the Great Depression and World War II (as well as the post-war period) that the great ills of society could be addressed through government intervention starting with experts at the top. Conservatism grew out of the idea that societal's ills were not solved by technocrats who could engineer solutions through the machinery of government, but by individuals using whatever resources -- including those made available by government -- to do it themselves. I give you modern conservatism's answer to its own intellectual genesis.

"Our intention is, from where we were last year, is hopefully to invest more in education," Snyder said. But he stressed he wants to "invest more, not just spend more," and funding would be tied to "best practices" and measurable results.

What are these best practices, who determined them using what criteria, and will anyone consider whether they ought to be applied equally to every school district in the state? These are the sorts of questions that real inheritors of conservatism would be asking. Unfortunately, those sorts of questions don't fit in to the modern Republican Party's real agenda, which is busting unions to maintain power in the state Legislature. As has been noted before here, modern conservatism has become a bankrupt intellectual force, co-opted and corrupted by lesser persons in the pursuit of wealth for the few. Instead, ironically, the people questioning the efficacy of this sort of top-down Big Government planning are labor unions, Democrats, and other assorted riff raff from the left.

What is the Right arguing? We go to Magic Frank, whose response to the governor's suggestion that we need to invest more money in education demonstrates impeccable timing.

Snyder's plan isn't perfect in that it appears to create yet another layer of state bureaucracy with his proposed "Michigan Office of the Great Start — Early Childhood," an idea that has "more spending" written all over it.

This comes towards the end of an entire column devoted to lauding the idea of attaching education money to things with a demonstrable record of success in educating children. That would be early childhood education, which Magic Frank objects to because it means spending money on it.

Additionally, the governor's proposed initiative to require a "post-secondary degree or skilled trades credential" for all Michigan residents represents an unwelcome intrusion on individual freedoms, and unenforceable without the threat of penalty.

Kind of like requiring kids to stay in primary schools through the age of 16? Keep in mind that these are the same people who endlessly bitch about having to take care of people who lack the education and skills to compete in today's workforce -- people who never graduated high school, or people whose education stopped when they got a job on an assembly line -- through welfare, but insist that it's their right to be so. Is it incoherence? That's giving Magic Frank a lot of credit in the first place.

Keep in mind that Magic Frank just last week insisted that Newt Gingrich could no longer declare himself a conservative because a super PAC supporting  him attacked Mitt Romney's community-destroying approach to making money as anti-capitalist. Now, he's okay with Big Government ordering schools what to do in order to qualify for state money.

But, it's not just Magic Frank. It's also members of the state Legislature, and it's not just primary education but also the state's university system.

Rep. Bob Genetski (R-Saugatuck), the chair of the House Appropriations Committee on Higher Education, is an outspoken critic of university spending practices. In an interview with Bridge’s Ron French, published last week, Genetski talked about whether Michigan has made a conscious policy choice to have individual families shoulder more and more of the cost of an education.

“We’re not saying we don’t care about higher education. … But there are so many places we can cut, and higher education happens to be one of those. It happens also to be one where, as soon as you cut it, (universities) can turn around and, instead of looking inward for legitimate cuts, increase tuition. … Parents tell me universities don’t make a strong effort to make cuts. Taxpayers deserve better.”

One doubts that he has actually heard from many parents complaining that universities are making too little effort to make cuts. In fact, considering the complex nature of how universities operate, and the fact that they are getting more complex, it's doubtful that many parents -- outside those employed at a public university -- can actually make a statement like that from an educated standpoint. But, again, if your goal is to force changes from above -- a decidedly different approach than what the intellectual lights of the conservative movement would have argued fifty years ago (well, except that loon Ayn Rand) -- then this is what you say.