Time and again the position of Secretary of Education has been filled by individuals who lack: training, experience, common sense and virtue. Most, however, share a common strength. They commonly are consummate bullshit artists who preach a lot.
The Reagan administration first set out to utterly eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. But when the quality of public schooling unexpectantly became a national concern, that plan was dropped. Still determined to cripple this Department, they quietly halved Federal aid to education. Still concerned about a possible public backlash, however, the administration needed to make it look like they still really cared. Bennett, as Secretary of Education, a blowhard, self-styled conservative who could sell sand to dumb Arabs, was just the ticket. He blossomed into public prominence.4
This is not the place to describe Bennett's demagogic fulminations in detail. Suffice it to say he repeatedly charged that the National Education Association was a major villain in his school decline fantasy. Let's just recount a typical Bennett move.
In the November 1988 Readers Digest, Secretary Bennett wrote an article praising a particular principal who took over and 'reformed' a troubled inner-city Washington, D. C. school. On the very first day, writes Bennett, this remarkable "educational leader "assembled the student body and, "... with practiced eye, chose 20 potential troublemakers to help enforce her tough new standard of discipline." And, according to Bennett, this goon squad soon solved the school's troubles. The school is out of control and the principal's solution is to put the trouble-makers in charge! And the U.S. Secretary of Education choses to single out this misbegotten tactic for public praise!
There is an uncomfortable similarity of the principal's move to Nazi concentration camp practice? Hitler's S.S. henchman routinely used bully-boy inmates, called "Kapos," to wield a whip hand over other inmates. Their job was to starve or work them to death then herd the survivors into gas chambers. It worked, too. At least until liberation, when the inmates took revenge.
Even someone as inexpert as a typical Secretary of Education should understand how extraordinarily wrong-headed such a policy is. Imagine the possible abuse! Perhaps Bennett was simply doing his job. Namely, doling out bullshit to convince the broad masses that the Reagan administration really cared about public education when it didn't.Let's next consider the Obama administration's record. Was it any better? Well, President Obama didn't set out to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. Nor did he slash Federal spending on education. He actually upped it $100 billion to bolster state school budgets. But what about Obama's Secretary of Education? Let's look at who he appointed and what this individual accomplished.