THE WEEKLY JAMES has uncovered another example of Orwellian P.C., this time in the New York schools. And he’s saying that it makes homeschooling look more attractive. I’m hearing more and more stuff like this.

In fact, I’m hearing more and more criticism of the public schools and their bureaucracy from non-usual suspects. For example, Jesse Fox Mayshark (who could, and probably should, write for The American Prospect, or at least its cooler online version) is endorsing charter schools with this observation:

I don’t agree with Van Hilleary about many things. Or Lamar Alexander, for that matter. I’m not impressed with the campaigns the two Republican blowhards are running for their respective offices—governor and U.S. Senate—and I think it will be too bad for the state of Tennessee and its citizens if either man gets elected.

But having said that, I can’t help agreeing with both of them on one thing: charter schools. For a variety of political reasons, most of them connected to the influence of teachers’ lobbies on the Democratic party, an issue that should be a natural rallying point for progressives and liberals has been ceded in Tennessee almost entirely to Republicans. . . .

I hate to be cynical, especially since I have a lot of friends and family members who teach in both public and private schools, but the biggest reason for institutional resistance to charter schools appears to be simple turf protection. Charter schools by their nature are supposed to exist somewhat outside the current public education hierarchy. They are public schools, but they are not entirely part of any public school system. People who run public school systems don’t tend to like that idea.

The educational bureaucracy has managed to disconnect itself so thoroughly from reality that it’s getting attacked even from the Left now, making real reform much more likely. Hey — maybe there’s hope for reforming the FBI, too!

UPDATE: See this post by Patrick Nielsen Hayden, too.