How Trump Could Have Education Both Ways

I've been saying that Trump can't have both of his education dreams--if he sends federal education money to the states in stringless block grants, he can't also use the threat of withholding funds from schools that don't follow his education decrees (never mind that the second option would be illegal).

I was wrong-- and it too Corey DeAngelis to show me how.

DeAngelis (current gig- the American Culture Project) is in the pages of the right-tilted New York Post, arguing for the shutdown of the Department of Education "for the sake of the kids," and it's filled with all the usual baloney. The teachers unions are a "money-laundering operation for the radical left" and the department was a payoff from Jimmy Carter. The department is an "unconstitutional waste of time and money" and Trump should go ahead and turn all that funding into block grants--

Except that some states, the block grants wouldn't be used the right way. DeAngelis proposes a solution:

To solve this problem, any legislation Congress passes to shut down the Department of Education must say that a state can only receive block-grant funding from the shuttered department if it has a robust school-choice program.

That would solve Trump's problem. Give piles of unregulated money to states that have already adopted his preferred policy, and keep your hands on the purse strings for states you oppose in order to punish them for not privatizing their education system. "Robust" is a nicely vague word that he could define any way he wanted to (prediction: non-robust systems would be found in blue states). 

Of course, some agency in DC would have to be in charge of managing those purse strings, but any functionary can be used to implement Dear Leader's will.

So there it is-- one more way that the party of local government can extend federal control. If you comply with Dear Leader's will, you get the money, and if you don't, you have to dance through his hoops for it. 

You know, I'm old enough that I can remember when conservatives were mad at the Obama administration for playing similar games.