In the never begun quest to figure out why our children isn't learning, George Will hits upon the answer:
Unfortunately, powerful factions fiercely oppose the flourishing. Among them are education schools with their romantic progressivism — teachers should be mere "enablers" of group learning; self-esteem is a prerequisite for accomplishment, not a consequence thereof. Other opponents are the teachers unions and their handmaiden, the Democratic Party. Today's liberals favor paternalism — you cannot eat trans fats; you must buy health insurance — for everyone except children. Odd.
His argument would be better if he could find some representative liberal making that argument. But alas. Perhaps honesty is just too much to ask.
UPDATE: here's a more enlightening discussion of the same piece.
Pure idiocy–children are among the only ones who get health insurance from the government (SCHIP), and banning trans fats presumably takes that crap out of the mouths of both adults and children. I’m not detecting horrible inconsistency here, no hypocrisy with respect to “paternalism”…
It’s strange to see Will describing this world turned upside down by crazy liberalism…at the end of 8 years of Republican control no less…he’s flashing back to 1997…
“Chavis’s teachers come from places such as Harvard, Dartmouth, Oberlin, Columbia, Berkeley, Brown and Wesleyan.”
Right, this seems like an easy-to-replicate model, finding Ivy-Leaguers to take over our failing schools…