The White House Dreams Of Ending Radical Stuff

So this week brought us the executive order "Ending radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling." We have seen this movie before--twice, even. Which version will it be this time?

The State Version

The executive order is a federal version of the anti-critical race theory parental rights laws we've seen passed in various states, with an extra side of faux patriotism.

Like those laws, it is vague and ill-defined. There are three possible explanations.

1) It is vague because the offenses are vague in the minds of the proponents, who just want to wave disapprovingly in the general direction of race and gender stuff that makes them sad,

2) It is vague because saying exactly what they have in mind would be so nakedly racist and hateful that they would face backlash that made them sad.

3) It is vague because by being unclear about where the line is drawn, the proponents can achieve a maximum chilling effect as local authorities fall over themselves trying to comply in advance and in the process take the clampdowns further than the proponents could have dreamed.

Take your pick of any combination of the three.

The third option comes with another process attached. After someone takes it way too far, the folks who created the law can express outrage about the overreach and/or blame it on people trying to make them look bad. We have already seen this one, as the Air Force removed material about Black and female service persons from their training over some DEI content, followed by Defense Secretary Hegseth blowing a gasket and declaring, "Don't do that!" Last year in Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis claimed that it was his opponents that were trying to make him look bad by banning books willy nilly (it was not).

There are scary things in here. Teachers may not directly or indirectly support or subsidize the social transition of students, which could include something as simple as using the student's chosen name. Heck, when I was a yearbook advisor, we ran the chosen name of seniors, but I guess that would be a no-no.

Of course, all of the various restrictions and rules would need an enforcement arm. That's part of the edict--the Secretaries of Education, Defense, and Health& Human Services are to figure out how to punish schools for violating the edict. I wrote a few months ago that Trump couldn't both eliminate the Ed Department and also use it to force his will on local districts-- it looks like he has made up his mind. Once again, local control comes with an asterisk--you can have it if you agree to do what Dear Leader wants you to do.

But this brings to mind another old movie...

The Federal Version

The federal government decides to use all the levers (and money) at its disposal to force state and local education to teach what it wants them to teach the way it wants them to teach it.

That would be the opening act of The Saga Of Common Core. That was followed by Act II: Conservative Supporters of Federal Power Grab Are Surprised When Grass Roots Conservatives Lose Their Damn Minds and Turn on the Core. The movie comes to a sort of anti-climax when federal authorities discover that trying to micro-manage classrooms from DC is a lot harder than they thought it would be.

One new plot twist-- I'm betting that scrutiny over this edict will vary depending on whether the state is red or blue.

After the trailer

Right now, the edict amounts to nothing more than a preview of coming attractions. So much depends on the regime's ability to figure out how to work the levers of power and figuring out ways to track "federal sources and streams" of money all the way down to a local school districts.

If they're going to do that, then the whole plan of turning Title I and IDEA funds into block grants to the state will have to go out the window as well. So the whole "states know best" thing is dropped. And, as has been usual, parental rights are only for parents who want what Dear Leader and the Heritage Foundation want them to want.

In the end, this eo really only settles one thing-- would Trump throw his weight behind the Libertarian dream of smaller government, or behind the theocrat's dream of a nation forced to follow their preferred values. In education, it looks like the theocrats win this round. Local control, shmocal control.

America loses. No matter how imperfectly, this eo will drop a chilling blanket over schools and empower some awful people to be extra awful in their local district. In states that already have installed repressive China-style cultural revolutions, the impact will be minimal. But in other states, this, like the bill to implement school vouchers everywhere, means that state rights be damned--they get the policies they never asked for.