Will Biden Turn the Education Department over to the Teachers Unions?

David BoazPresident ‐​elect Biden is rumored to be consideringa  teachers union head to be his secretary of education. Since the Education Department was essentially created by the National Education Association, this is basically just confirming their control. It ’s understandable that Biden would promise to name a teacher for this post. After all, who knows education better than teachers? It no doubt sounds good to voters. But imagine a candidate promising to name a defense contractor as secretary of defense, an oil company CEO as secretary of energy,  or a real estate developer as HUD secretary. For each of those the candidate could plausibly raise the same argument, that few others would know more about the subject. But there would be a lot more public skepticism about naming a provider of the service to run the federal department in those ca ses.We didn ’t always have a federal Department of Education, of course. It only goes back to 1979. Education was historically a matter for local communities, with increasing state‐​level involvement over the years. What happened in 1979? As the Oxford University historian Gareth Daviesexplains,[President Jimmy] Carter would not have fought for the bill, and most likely would not even have endorsed it, had it not been for the unprecedented influence that the National Education Association enjoyed within his White House. In earlier years, education client groups had come to enjoy great influence within Congress, ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs