As Theodore mentioned in his pithy ranticle from earlier today, the government does try to get involved in parenting from time to time.

But among jackbooted thuggery are some good programs, and those, naturally, are also opposed by conservatives.

Michael Salmonowicz at True/Slant points out  that the Heritage Foundation opposes a Chicago program called Parents Too Soon (reporter Stephanie Banchero at the Chicago Tribune, on the other hand, is a fan). It seems like a smart program–low-cost home visits to help young inner-city parents give their children the best start possible in life. Building stronger families, with healthier kids: why would the family-values crowd oppose that?

Salmonowicz thinks he found the answer:

A somewhat tedious check through the bios of the Heritage Foundation’s 80 “policy experts” (75 of whom are white, and none of whom are black, for what it’s worth) resulted in this interesting finding: Of those experts who deal with education, health, or family issues, only one has been a teacher (though Jennifer Marshall taught at an American school in France, which isn’t exactly Compton or the south side of Chicago), and none of their bios included anything relating to working with parents and children in low-income communities (which makes me wonder how the HF can call them “experts” in these areas). Then again, after conservatives spent a year maligning President Obama for doing this kind of work in his post-college years, they probably would have deleted that part of their resumes in order to keep up their never-been-anywhere-near-the-street cred.

These are the people who would control our education policy…