One of our two major political parties has taken a hard right turn against education, or at least against education that working Americans can afford.


Remarkably, this new hostility to education is shared by the social conservative and economic conservative wings of the Republican coalition.


This comes at a time when American education is already in deep trouble.


State support for higher education has fallen 12 percent over the past five years, even as the number of students has continued to rise; in California, support is down by 20 percent.


Cash-strapped educational institutions have been cutting back in areas that are expensive to teach — which also happen to be precisely the areas the economy needs. For example, public colleges in a number of states, including Florida and Texas, have eliminated entire departments in engineering and computer science.


Rick Santorum made headlines by declaring that President Obama wants to expand college enrollment because colleges are “indoctrination mills” that destroy religious faith.


Mitt Romney’s response to a high school senior worried about college costs: "Don’t expect the government to forgive the debt that you take on.”


Don’t they have a stake in America’s future economic success, which is endangered by the crusade against education? Maybe not as much as you think.



After all, over the past 30 years, there has been a stunning disconnect between huge income gains at the top and the struggles of ordinary workers.


You can make the case that the self-interest of America’s elite is best served by making sure that this disconnect continues, which means keeping taxes on high incomes low at all costs, never mind the consequences in terms of poor infrastructure and an undertrained work force.



And if underfunding public education leaves many children of the less affluent shut out from upward mobility, well, did you really believe that stuff about creating equality of opportunity?











http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/09/op...ngth.html?_r=1