#More money, less schooling and other commentary

“When schools shut down this spring, Congress sent them $31 billion,” most of which hasn’t even reached them — yet, The Federalist’s Joy Pullmann laments, “education special interests” are now demanding nearly $430 billion extra for “online math lessons” at schools that won’t even open in the fall. Remarkably, that’s “600 percent more than annual federal spending on K-12.” Even supposedly deficit-conscious Republicans are on board with spending $105 billion. Such “demands for gobs of money” without full reopenings have “nothing to do with even pretending to educate kids safely,” of course. The “obvious solution” is shifting “money from the education blob to individual families,” allowing non-wealthy parents to “design a small-scale education for their kids.” President Trump is “on their side,” but congressional Republicans “should be, too.”

Retired FBI agent: Stop the Anti-Fed Nonsense

Left-wing politicians’ claims that the federal agents President Trump sent to Portland, Ore., are acting like Guantanamo Bay guards and Nazi stormtroopers are “nonsense,” James M. Casey argues at The Hill. In ­reality, the agents are just protecting federal property against Portland ­rioters who now “flagrantly break the law,” even going so far as to assault the city’s federal courthouse, with the explicit sanction of Mayor Ted Wheeler. And “contrary to some media reports,” those agents wear vests clearly identifying them as “police” and have been making “probable-cause arrests, or arrests based on warrants,” not “rounding up ‘innocent protesters.’ ” In sum, federal law-enforcement agents are doing their jobs legally. The false parallels and moral equivalences have to stop.

From the left: The Key to Joe’s Veep Choice

Joe Biden is going to choose a running mate who can “help him not only win an election,” but also “govern in what promises to be a whirlwind,” predicts ex-Obama adviser David Axelrod at CNN.com. We already know “the candidate will be a woman,” and four of the top contenders are black — an important factor, as large “turnout among voters of color” will be essential to a Biden victory come November. Most important for the ex-veep, however, he wants “a loyal partner” who could also “make the best president,” if necessary. That’s why conversations with veep possibilities will matter more to Biden than “any political calculations.” Primarily, he wants “a partner for the years, and not just months, to come.”

Culture critic: Will They Cancel Duranty?

Last month saw the US release of the “must-see” movie “Mr. Jones,” Francis X. Maier raves at First Things. It’s based on the story of Gareth Jones, the hero British journalist who blew the lid on the terror famine inflicted on Ukraine by Joseph Stalin. That makes it especially “relevant” today, “when lying, bullying and violence seem to be making a comeback in the vestments of progress, equality and justice.” One of the villains is Pulitzer-winning New York Times reporter Walter Duranty, “an inventive, always-reliable flack for the Soviet regime,” who “led the ferocious, Soviet-prodded attack on Jones’s credibility.” “The ghost of Walter Duranty,” who died in 1957, “still has his Pulitzer,” sighs Maier. “It’s an obscenity that warriors of the cancel culture may want to address.”

From the right: Race-Based Fixes Backfire

Since George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis in May, observes Linda Chavez at RealClearPolitics, left-wing protesters have insisted that “systemic racism infects everything.” Yet “attempts to eradicate” racial disparities “are likely to lead to bad fixes that end up doing real harm.” ­Racial preferences in college admissions, for example, are meant to help African Americans and Hispanics, yet they have “real costs,” including to minority groups themselves, whose achievements are subtly questioned. Similarly, “calls to defund the police . . . hire more black police officers” and “insist on diversity and implicit-bias training” might not only be “ineffective, they may exacerbate other serious problems.” To bolster race relations, Americans must believe we’re “one nation and one people, no matter our color,” says Chavez. We will “either achieve greatness together or fall into permanent divisions that doom our future.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board