Flashback 1979. When the New York Times Editorial Page Was Against the Creation of the Department of Education

Professor Richard Veddar has the article of the week on education. Vedder reminds us of that the New York Times and other liberals were against the Department of Education in the late 1970's before its creation. Here's the NYT from May 22, 1979 editorial “Centralizing Education Is No Reform”:

The idea [of the Department of Education] remains as unwise as when it was first broached in a Carter campaign promise to the National Education Association. ...

It has always been American policy ... to deliberately avoid centralizing education in a way that requires direction and financing by a national ministry. ...

We believe that diversity of direction has served American education well and that it will continue to do better without a central bureaucracy, even a benign one.

Those NYT editorial writers, in the 1970's, sure were sensible fellows.