In case anyone required more proof that Mike Huckabee is, to put it in the oxymoronic and twisted terms common parlance seems to require today, a social-conservative liberal, just watch this video of Huckabee pandering speaking earnestly to the NEA. No wonder the New Hampshire chapter of the NEA endorsed him.

At the Univision debate, Huckabee proposed that “the federal government launch ‘weapons of mass instruction,’ including enhanced art and music to help motivate students and stimulate their creativity.”

Right … the problem with K‑12 government education is that the kids who can’t read or add don’t have enough time with finger paints and cymbals. I guess we know how he’d like to update No Child Left Behind, which he called “the greatest education reform effort by the federal government in my lifetime.”

Huckabee supports government school choice, but opposes efforts to expand educational freedom and reduce the massive tax-funded financial discrimination against independent and homeschooling.

He claims to be a friend of homeschooling, and indeed supports protection against government intrusion. But what about tax discrimination against homeschoolers? How can he expect private forms of schooling to thrive when he worked to massively increase taxes and give much of that money to government schools, and supports more of the same at the federal level?

Huckabee’s education policies are incompatible with expanding freedom in education. And where he does support existing freedoms, his position conflicts with his general preference for state coercion over individual freedom and civil society.