Ronald Reagan Was Right (Part Two)
By John A. Tures
Associate Professor of Political Science
LaGrange College
August 18, 2008 — In a previous column, I documented Ronald Reagan’s crusade against the Department of Education and problems with the “No Child Left Behind Act,” and how the government can’t wait to impose it upon higher education. “American higher education does not need a barrage of new regulations imposing new costs so someone in Washington can try to figure out how to improve the Harvard Classics department and Nashville Auto Diesel College—both of whose students are eligible for federal grants and loans…I believe the overregulation of higher education is the greatest deterrent to maintaining its quality and that autonomy, competition and choice are the greatest incentives to excellence.” These remarks were delivered by former Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander. He’s now a United States Senator from Tennessee, running for a second term, and clearly one of those traditional Republicans, instead of the new breed of “big government conservatives.” Yet the supporters of more government regulation have picked up an ally: USA Today. This newspaper’s August 1, 2008 editorial “Our View on Helping Students Compete: Higher Education Slumps” beats the drum for more standardized testing and government control. Though they claim that United States’ higher education is worsening compared to other countries, America’s universities are flooded with students from all over the world, eager to come to the United States. They all cite the quality of our higher education as a major reason for leaving family and friends at home. Let’s assume that problems in higher education stem from affordability and graduation rates, as USA Today argues. How is a standardized test going to make your college cost cheaper? How is mandating a Federal SAT at the end of four years likely to boost graduation rates? Ronald Reagan had a better solution: an education tax credit allowing parents to deduct some of their private school tuition payment from their tax bill, according to The National Review. Republican Congressman Pete Hoekstra has introduced such a bill, which also allowed deductions for corporate donations for scholarships. A Cato Institute study claimed that such a plan would raise $6 billion in $2,000 scholarships for three million of low-income students. It would ease overcrowding at public universities, enabling private education to pick up the slack. But why stop there? By that math, if we eliminated the Department of Education, it would be enough to provide those three million low-income students with $23,333 in college scholarships. What do parents want: college scholarships or government bureaucrats? You might think that because I’m a college professor that I’m opposed to all of these changes because I don’t want the extra work. Nothing could be further from the truth. A “No College Student Left Behind Act” would make my job easier than ever. I could simply write up the easy multiple choice questions provided by the standard book on political science, which would take less than two minutes to grade. I wouldn’t have to worry about those long detailed essay questions that would force me AND the student to really think about the answers. Nor would I probably have to worry much about grading papers and presentations. But I didn’t choose this career because it was seen as easy. And I’m not convinced that America is going to have a world-class workforce in a dumbed-down college environment. |
