Time to Retire Public Schools?

The Weekly Standard has an excellent article by David Gelernter, professor of computer science at Yale, that examines "A World Without Public Schools."

Public schools have been the dominant tool for educating children for a long time in America. But should it be that way? Does it have to be that way? Is the public school system the best way to educate our children? Or are we stuck in a way of thinking that is, as the author says,

like a broken child's toy we are too sentimental to throw away?

With academic performance lagging, and considering the moral wasteland many public schools have become (not to mention the dangers, such as Columbine, and the incendiary device at Central High School in Rapid City yesterday, and a host of incidents in between), certainly we owe it to ourselves and our children to ask ourselves: Are public schools the best way to educate our children? Are public schools the only way to educate our children?

Gelernter envisions a system not unlike what we have now, except that everyone would have an education voucher they could use where they wanted:

In the system I am picturing, education would continue to be free and accessible to every child, and all taxpayers would continue to pay for it. Parents would be guaranteed access to "reasonable" schools that cost them nothing beyond what they pay in taxes. It would all be just like today--except that public schools would have vanished.

There are few areas where government can do better than free-market competition (with national defense being one of them). Free market competition has a lot to do with what has made America such a great, productive and powerful nation. The same could be said of the West in general. Competition tends to motivate producers of goods and services to try and produce the product that consumers will want over their competitors. This usually means more innovation, more solutions, and a better product.

If you hear that a certain mechanic in town does lousy work, you're probably not going to bring your car there, are you? If you hear a certain homebuilder makes crummy homes, you're probably not going to hire them to build your new house, are you? Of course, there will always be crummy mechanics and crummy homebuilders, but many mechanics and homebuilders work hard to prove to you that they're not like the crummy ones.

And if there was only one mechanic in town, or one homebuilder in town, how hard do you think he'd be working to get your business? Where would be his incentive for excellence if he could say, "Tough. Where else are you going to go?"

Which is where many people are stuck with the public school system. Many people believe, whether it's true or not, that they can't afford to take their child out of public school. But if everyone had an education voucher, suddenly the playing field is level. And what happens to the schools?

People just won't "buy" the bad ones, and the competition should motivate schools to compete for education dollars (just as construction or landscaping companies compete for business) by working to prove they can do a better job of educating your children.

The article also examines the education system not only from the standpoint of academic performance, but regarding what kind of people schools are turning out. It points out that for about the first 150 years of public education in America, there was consensus on the kind of people we wanted our children to be. That was back in that time that liberals pretend never existed: when America was clearly, demonstrably and undeniably a Christian nation. Even people of other faiths wanted their children to grow up with a moral standard that was in harmony with Judeo-Christian values. We might have disagreed on who God really was, but we all believed in the reality of absolute truth, and all agreed that murder, lying, homosexuality, premarital sex, etc. was wrong.

During these years there was broad agreement on skills-teaching and character-building (or the teaching of worldviews and moral frameworks). The two areas were intertwined. Since the 1970s, consensus in both departments has fallen apart. Both areas are important, but not equally. Disputes about the teaching of skills can be patched up or compromised. Disputes about morality, worldviews, and character-building make public schools untenable.

In our socialist-promoted infatuation with "diversity," our old national motto of "e pluribus unum" ("Out of many, one") upon which this great nation was founded has become "e unum pluribus".

On this vein (and hopefully not digressing too much), the author makes the case that liberalism is a religion (it's close relative "secular humanism" has already been recognized by Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black as a religion in Torcaso v. Watkins). As such, the liberal ideology heaped upon children in public schools is unconstitutional under their own interpretation of the inviolate relationship between religion and government:

So we reach another disqualifying problem with America's public schools. They are teaching our children religion. The apostles and propagandists of American left-liberalism speak of their new faith as blatantly and aggressively as public schools of bygone ages ever spoke about biblical religion or Americanism. And thus our public schools blatantly, aggressively violate the Constitution.

But back to the issue of the future of education itself, and the prospect of retiring the public school system...

If you believe your child should be educated in a private school that carries the secularist bent to the hilt, you could do that (though our public schools are already about 90% of the way there). If you are a Hindu and want your child educated in a private school that reinforces your Hindu worldview, you could do that. If you are a Christian and want your child educated in an environment that reinforces your values, you could do that. Or if you want your child educated in a values-neutral environment (if such a thing is possible), then you could send your child to one that was trying to provide that kind of environment.

A "free" education would still be accessible for all, regardless of religious affiliation or lack thereof. And since the taxpayer-funded vouchers would be available to all, without regard for religious affiliation or lack thereof, there is no way whatsoever to logically argue that the First Amendment is being violated by respecting one religious establishment over another, which was essentially the intent of the First Amendment with regard to religious establishments.

Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? Of course, the social engineers who depend on the public schools as their engine to manufacture good little socialist drones won't like it. And neither will education establishment bureaucrats. And neither will the teacher's unions.

But those aren't "real people," anyway. They aren't the ones with "skin in the game," other than feathering their own nests. They aren't the ones who have to watch their children get a poor excuse for an education, where they can graduate into the adult world barely able to read and knowing nothing of history. They aren't the ones who have to watch their children go off to a secular institution that will work systemically to sanitize their child of any faith or moral values they try to instill in their offspring.

I don't think privatizing the education system would be a magic bullet for the moral and academic confusion plaguing many children today. That, for the most part, starts at home and can only be fixed at home. But at least parents who want the best for their children wouldn't have to subject their children to schools that aren't adequately educating their children. And they wouldn't have to send their children to a school that would undermine every value they are trying to teach their children.

I have to think that even most parents who do a poor job of building up their children at home would be able to see the difference in a lousy school and a good school, and send their child to the better school if it didn't cost them anything to make the better choice.

We're long overdue for having this debate. And we shouldn't let a bunch of social engineers and entrenched bureaucrats stand in the way of getting a good education for our children.

HT to the World Magazine blog for a good article.