The Right Has a Lofty Vision for Schools. Where’s Ours?
The Right is selling a vision of classical education that promises to build character and nurture wonder. Liberals are stuck aiming for higher test scores and employability. Public education defenders need our own inspiring take on the meaning of school.
Conservative classical schools promise wonder, virtue, and the life of the mind. Liberal education pundits want higher test scores. The Left needs to articulate its own expansive vision for public education — before the Right claims that territory for good. (Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)
On a January webinar for Chalkbeat, Lindsey Burke, a senior education official in the Trump administration, faced an audience question about the administration’s rationale for moving K-12 programs to the Department of Labor — part of its ongoing effort to dismantle the Education Department.
“Arguably schools have broader purposes — civic, moral, and social — rather than just preparation for employment,” read Chalkbeat national editor Erica Meltzer. “Can you speak to some of these broader purposes of education and how they might be safeguarded?”
“You know, I actually couldn’t agree with that more,” Burke, who authored Project 2025’s education section, replied with a smiling glance at the ceiling. “Education really is about forming human souls, right? And about preparing individuals to inherit the blessings and liberties of a free society.”
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