Politicized public schools have forfeited their right to exist

Discussions of school choice and vouchers nearly always assume that public schools are permanent parts of the American educational scene. Increasingly I wonder why. Why should there be any public schools?

I don't ask merely because the public schools are performing badly, although (as usual) they are. Pamela R. Winnick discusses science teaching in a recent issue of Weekly Standard. One survey found that a whopping 12% of graduating U.S. seniors were "proficient" in science. Global rankings place our seniors 19th among 21 surveyed countries.

Agreed: The national interest requires that all children be educated and that all taxpayers contribute. But it doesn't follow that we need public schools. We need military aircraft; all taxpayers help pay for them. Which doesn't mean that we need public aircraft companies. (Although if American airplanes ranked 19th best out of 21 contenders, the public might be moved to do something about it.) Schools aren't the same as airplane factories, but the analogy is illuminating.

What gives public schools the right to exist? After all, they are no part of the nation's constitutional framework. Neither the Constitution nor Bill of Rights requires public schools. And in one sense they are foreign to American tradition. Europeans are inspired by state institutions. Americans are apt to be inspired by private enterprise, entrepreneurship, choice.

I believe that public schools have a right to exist insofar as they express a shared public view of education. A consensus on education, at least at the level of each state and arguably of the nation, gives schools the right to call themselves public and be supported by the public. Once public schools stop speaking for the whole community, they are no different from private schools. It's not public schools' incompetence that have wrecked them. It's their non-inclusiveness.

All public schools should be closed, and all school districts should go to a voucher system for the full amount being spent per student. Then just sit back and watch all the tiny private schools pop up.

Performance could be ensured by requiring some very basic testing in reading and math only, with no political or religious stuff in it, and requiring achievement equal to the current average of public schools for each grade level. The school or home teacher gets the payment AFTER the student(s) pass the test.

It wouldn't set a very high standard, but it would set a higher standard than half of public school students currently achieve, and eliminate the problem of payments to schools and home teaching parents that aren't teaching anything at all, while keeping government meddling in curriculum to an absolute minimum, and government meddling in dress and behavior standards, schedules, choice of who to admit, etc., to zero.

Bad writing.

I believe that public government schools have a right to exist insofar as they express a shared public view of education. A consensus on education, at least at the level of each state and arguably of the nation, gives schools the right to call themselves public and be supported by the public. Once public government schools stop speaking for the whole community, they are no different from private schools. It's not public government schools' incompetence that have wrecked them.

Leftists have nearly destroyed the words "public" and "society" by using them as euphemisms for "government.' Accordingly it is necessary to consider whether the intended meaning is anything other than "government" when you encounter them.

Never happen. The "free and compulsory education" has been the cornerstone of "progressivism" since the latter part of the French Revolution.

"Free and compulsory" education has been the main means of inculcating "progressivism" and "patriotism" (Germany and France in the 1930's, Soviet Union, China and North Korea today, and in the USA, too) for over a century.

The American system is modeled after the Bismarkian German system existing from 1820 to 1919, and intended for the indoctrination of the young, "socialization" they call it. The big name here in the States in making "free and compulsory education" happen is John Dewey. http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/dewey.htm
Maybe #2 is Thomas Mann, and import from the Kaiser's Germany.
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/tmann.htm
These guys are the biggest of big time "liberals", Leftists, really, from the era when Liberalism seemed the only hope for the future. People sure are dumb.

Dear Editor,

By all accounts and from every view, the Philadelphia school system is beyond broken. If the school system was a business, it would have gone bankrupt, had its assets sold off and been forgotten long ago. If it was an army, it would have surrendered and would still be interned in POW camps. If it was a car, not only would nothing happen when you put the key in the ignition, it would also periodically leak oil, gasoline and catch on fire for no apparent reason. If a devoted group of maniacal public servants 40 years ago had decided that they would wreck the Philadelphia public schools and, everyday without rest until today, had put all their energies into that one purpose, they could have hardly done better than the mess we have today.

One of the principal reasons we have this mess is that we allowed public schooling to become a very profitable monopoly enforced by the police power of the state. The worse the public schools do in educating our children the more money it attracts. There are no penalties for poor performance and no benefits for excellent performance. Those in power reap huge monetary benefits from those in the employment of the public schools and thus are unwilling to even tinker with it. It is a one hell of a system.

There are 176 out of 264 schools on the failing list in Philadelphia when spending per pupil is over $7500 per year. Nearly 63% of black fourth-graders are unable to read proficiently. They are doomed to a life of low wages and low expectations. Yet the NAACP, the teacher's union and the mayor's office see nothing wrong with the status quo. As a comparison, Catholic school spending per pupil is $3500 per year with much better results.

It is time to get government completely out of public education. They should have not one string or tentacle left to grow on the public school system. Parents know what is best for their children and would have left this madness long ago if they had the choice. Parents would not tolerate failure and would seek excellence in their children's school if they had the choice. Parents would not put up with waste, incompetence and fraud in their children's education if they had the choice. If they only had the choice...

By 2banana

"The school or home teacher gets the payment AFTER the student(s) pass the test."

Do Police have pay withheld when crime rates go up? You would penalize teachers for results of a test? Do you not realize that there are more factors involved in results than a simple "blanket-test" can possibly reveal? I think you're oversimplifying the situation a little. As someone who has taught in a public middle school and currently works in a Catholic middle school, I must defend my colleagues in this respect: The problem with our school systems starts at the top. The overwhelming amount of liberal persuasion that has invaded the education system has all but erased institutions that proved effective several years ago such as corporal punishment. Children have lost their fear of authority. Society promotes the idea that challenging authority is not only allowed in many instances, but is encouraged. Children see all this PC Leftist CRAP about freedom of speech and feel that they can do and say anything they desire without having any accountability for their words or actions. Of course, the TRUE source of the problem lies with the parents. When educators inform parents of their children's improper behavior, parents blindly side with their children and accuse the teachers of the wrongdoing. In a system where this sentiment is perpetuated, it becomes very difficult to collaborate on behalf of the children. So before you go "dogging" the teachers in the system, remember that they(Several of them) are victims of the same oppressive system that remains the catalyst for all of the problems to which you refer. There are some of us who are doing what we can to try to bring the values and accountability back to the schools, but we are few and far between. If you want to target somebody, target the TOP, NOT the bottom. Teachers have constraints on what they can do just as everyone does in any career field. Do not seek vengeance against the teachers, but target the administrative aspect of education...THEY MAKE THE POLICIES!

"...Children have lost their fear of authority...".

I agree, and I think there is a deep reason for this.

One of the fundamental concepts of the Quality movement is that, generally, if something is going wrong, it is not the fault of the worker, it is the fault of the system. For example, if there is only one way to put a part into a chassis, you won't get the mistake of someone putting it in backwards. So manufacturing businesses will change the design to cut down manufacturing defects.

Using this concept, you can't really blame most of the teachers when children don't learn. It reminds me of the old Smothers Brothers routine, where one of the is singing a song, then turns to the other and says "take it", and he says "no".

It seems to me that the root of the problem is the very structure of government schools. Because the school is a 'government' school, lawyers and courts get involved; and they start applying criminal and legal concepts, like 'children have rights', and 'separation of church and state', and 'the state has a positive obligation to educate a child regardless of the child's abilities or behavior', and 'we can't teach anything that might offend anyone', and a host of others.

This structure is incompatible with both the goals and the structure needed for education.

Private schools, on the other hand, have a structure of: 'you pay me money and both you and the child obey this set of rules, and we will do our best to educate the child -- if a child really doesn't want to be here, or refuses to obey our rules, go find another school'. So, kids learn or leave.

It's the structure, stupid!

Teachers would have virtually no constraints under the system I described, so I don't see how that's an issue. Nor would any teacher be compelled to take on any student s/he didn't feel s/he was capable of educating to the required standards. Obviously special exceptions would be needed for genuinely retarded students. But many of the students now being labelled "special ed" shouldn't be, and are just getting the label because no one's willing to put the extra effort into teaching the difficult cases, so they just want to get them off the roster for the test results that count.

Under the system I proposed, most students who really have learning disabilities (even mild ones) would probably end up going to small in-home schools, where a parent who has a child with such a special need, sets up a small school, takes in a few children with very similar needs, and can make a very good living doing this, when you look at the colossal amount of money public schools spend per child, and assume that all of that goes to whoever is teaching them under the new system. In my district the price tag currently tops $20,000/year per student, and this is also the norm in many big cities with horrific school systems (though they usually try to conceal the staggering price tag by excluding physical plant costs -- e.g. all costs associated with purchasing and maintaining the buildings -- from the "per student" expenditure figure that they publicize).

If you're, for example, the mother of a dyslexic child, you could choose between 1) getting gross income of $100,000/year for teaching 5 children, including your own, in your home (and even with the most optimal materials and equipment, and nutritious meals prepared elsewhere and delivered, a huge profit would remain), or 2) choosing from a significant number of such small specially tailored schools, and sending your child there at no cost beyond your current real estate tax bill. And if you're the parent of a gifted child who's bored to death in school, you'd have the same options. And if you're the parent of a physically disabled child, you'd have the same options. And if you want your child to have a particular religious environment and curriculum. And if you want your child to have a particular political environment and curriculum.

"Do not seek vengeance against the teachers, but target the administrative aspect of education...THEY MAKE THE POLICIES! "

You are exactly correct in what you are saying. Change the policy, then follow thru on enforcement of the same. But as long as the government is sponsoring compulsory public education, the politicization aspect will remain.

That is why I so love the idea of killing off public schools, in favor of empowering home, and private schooling.

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