[throwawaymaths]

> Which made it easier for Republicans to continue to go after public education. They've been pushing for the voucher system for decades as a backdoor way to dismantle the public school system, reasons for wanting to do so vary but it all converges on this point.

in practice, republicans are perfectly happy with public schools when the schools are are "good enough" for their kids. so this caricature seems incorrect. there's a lot wrong with USA public schools, so something must be done. some very not-for-profit voucher schools have been doing excellent work where the public school systens have utterly failed, for example green dot animo in inglewood, or, dramatically, green dot locke in watts.

what is not a caricature: the vast majority of policymakers who want to keep status quo in the public school system send their kids to private schools.

[no_wizard]

> Republicans

Short hand for 'elected officials of the republican party', which have been systematically targeting public education for decades

[throwawaymaths]

you can make an evidenced argument that elected officials of the Democratic party have been systematically destroying public education for decades (for example cancelling algebra in California, repeat child abusers not let go in LAUSD, see "mark berndt" for an example of a multidecade offender that bounced between schools)

really, Republicans arent helping, but they arent necessary to destroy American schools thats happening just fine in ~one-party democrat states like California and hawaii.

[watwut]

Republicans are not perfectly happy when public schools are good enough ... they seek to defund them and vilify them anyway. Their complains have very little to do with reality of those schools and a lot to do with the project of privatization. Plus, you see conservatives who send their kids to private schools or home school to attack libraries in public schools.