Why are conservatives so hellbent on dismantling public education? Project 2025 calls for the Department of Education to be eliminated. It further suggests that education policy should “follow the path outlined by Milton Friedman in 1955, wherein education is publicly funded but education decisions are made by families.”
As Jennifer C. Berkshire and Jack Schneider reveal, the assault on public schools “has never been just about education.” Rather, it connects back to resistance to the integration of schools and a long-running war on unions. And in our interview, Jennifer and Jack examine how the attempted privatization of schools would essentially mean returning to an unequal education system from hundreds of years ago.
Jennifer is the Bloch Lecturer in Education Journalism and a lecturer in Education Studies at Yale. Jack is the Dwight W. Allen Distinguished Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Individually, Jennifer and Jack’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and many other publications. Together, they’re the co-hosts of the education policy podcast, Have You Heard, and the coauthors of two books, including most recently, The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual.
The Origins of the Assault on Public Education