So I’m in my usual Republican Debate position, cringing in front of the TV as four white men attack women’s access to birth control (Husband: “Isn’t there a Law and Order on?”), when the unexpected happens: an audience member asks Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, and Paul to discuss their views on education reform. Wowza! They’re actually going to talk about this?

Well, sort of. Romney touted Massachusetts’ test scores and his support for charter schools, adding, “We have to stand up to the federal teachers’ unions and put kids first and unions behind.” [Note: I don’t have a transcript so I’m going off my notes.] One might also recall his comments at a debate last October when he said, “education has to be held at the local and state level, not at the federal level. We need to get the federal government out of education.”

Santorum apologized profusely for his vote in favor of No Child Left Behind: “It was against the principles I believe, but when you’re part of the team, sometimes you take one from the team for the leader, and I made a mistake.” He then added, ““Look, I’m a home-schooling father of seven; I know the importance of customized education for our children; I know the importance of parental control of education; I know the importance of local control of education.”

Gingrich attacked LA Unified: “It’s increasingly clear they care about protecting bad teachers. If you look at L.A. Unified, it is almost criminal what we do to the poorest children of America. If a foreign nation did this to our children, we would declare it an act of war because they are doing so much damage.” He also bashed a perceived emphasis on “learning how you learn,” all that liberal malarkey, and had no kind words for national “bureaucratized” standards. “All kids are unique!”

Paul slammed Santorum, his current whipping boy, for treating Senate votes like a “team sport” and reiterated his call for less government intrusion: there’s “no authority for the Federal government to be involved in education.”

Takeaway: they all hate No Child Left Behind and the U.S. Department of Education, and all genuflect towards States’ Rights. Nothing can compete with local control.

It seems to me that this “local control” business is a matter of convenience. We’ve certainly seen this sort of posturing in New Jersey, and it’s not just a GOP narrative. Sure, there’s Sen. Mike Doherty, blazing red and urging adoption of his flat school funding plan where every kid, regardless of circumstance, gets the same amount of money for education. There’s Gov. Christie, vainly attempting to extract himself from the awkward position of vetoing a civil rights bill by harrumphing, “we need to have a public referendum on gay marriage.” But there’s also SOS-New Jersey, using the same argument for local referenda on charter schools: each district should get to vote on whether or not it wants school choice! Local control!

Certainly the Republican candidates on the stage last night in Mesa, Arizona, where Mormons comprise 25% of the population, found a friendly audience for their united advocacy for the reduction, if not outright elimination, of the federal government’s role in education. But how does that square with the bipartisan understanding that our public schools don’t adequately prepare children for a global economy, our infatuation with Finland (where there’s no local control), and with the general derision expressed towards locally-controlled teacher evaluation systems?

Maybe there’s a Law and Order on.