30 Oct 2024
School choice has been raised as an issue in my community. My initial reaction to proposals for using public funding (things like vouchers or education savings accounts) for private schools was framed primarily by two things.
First was my concern that this would drain funding from public education and undermine something I see as an essential public good. This concern has been shown to be a real problem by the laws in Arizona and New Hampshire, which are often put forward as examples of success but which have resulted in significant budget problems and loss of public school funding and resources, especially for those least able to participate in private schools.
Second was my concern that the evidence does NOT support the contention that public funding for private schools improves education quality or academic achievement across the board. Those who claim it does tend to rely on selected (dare I say, cherry-picked) studies and data. When all the available information is considered, the results are decidedly mixed - and again tend to favor those communities and families least in need of improvement.
In the process of researching the available information about public education in the US, I came across a third perspective that I find much more bothersome than either funding or educational outcomes: history suggests that the movement for ‘school choice’ and ‘educational freedom’ is driven by fear of - and opposition to - America becoming a multicultural society.
Let me explain how I came to that conclusion.
Public education in the US began as an attempt to create good citizens. Even before the Founders created a new experimental model of societal governance, small ‘d’ democracy, they recognized recognized the importance of an educated public. In the era of monarchs, public education is not just unnecessary but also potentially a problem if it empowers citizens to think for themselves rather than simply obey the monarch. If citizens were to govern themselves, the Founders (and other Enlightenment thinkers) realized that those citizens would need to have and be able to use knowledge about the world and how it worked. Public education was considered essential. Since the Founders envisioned that democratic governance would be the privilege and responsibility of a narrow segment of the public - white male landowners - that is how ‘public’ education was initially designed.
The 19th Century saw a change in how public education was seen in the US. With the development of more complex industry and infrastructure (think of factories and railroads) it was clear that the country needed educated workers who could read and use manuals, do math beyond buying groceries, and could serve as engineers, inventors, and professionals. Educational goals changed from literature, history and philosophy to more practical topics. High schools became very important: in 1870 there were 800 high schools in the US, in 1900 there were 6000 high schools, and the illiteracy rate had dropped by 50%. Grading students began during this era. These changes were not evenly distributed, of course. Urban and northern areas changed much more than rural and southern areas both in terms of how schools were seen and attitudes toward education itself. This accidental historical dichotomy persists to this day.
The early 20th Century saw a considerable growth in the need for public education and the need to create adults capable of working in an ever more industrial United States. The urban-rural and northern-southern polarization also increased.
During the early 20th Century, and especially during and after World War I, the US experienced a very large influx of immigrants. This added another educational need: not just education but also assimilation. During this time, there was a growing emphasis on not just academic learning but also cultural learning, not just being a good and employable citizen, but being an **American** citizen. (The US had already been doing this with Indigenous Americans.)
The aftermath of World War II saw another major shift: millions of Americans from different places and cultures in the US served together in a global enterprise that also exposed them to other languages and cultures in a way that was not possible in those pre-internet days. Post World War II, education came to be seen as something essential for everybody, not just to get a job but to understand, participate, and succeed in a very diverse and rapidly changing world. The GI bill provided educational opportunities for millions of Americans who had previously been excluded from quality and extended education, whether because of economics, geography, race, or personal resources.
Not surprisingly, the increased diversity and cultural changes in the decades after World War II (Civil Rights and the end of legal segregation, Women’s Liberation, interracial and gay marriage, among others) provoked a negative response from some. After Brown v Board of Education in 1954, there was a ‘Massive Resistance’ movement of white parents and lawmakers, a term coined by Harry Byrd, Sr., Democratic Senator and former Virginia Governor. This was a campaign to delay and obstruct the desegregation of public schools. Many (mostly southern) communities closed public schools and/or created private (white only) ‘Segregation Academies’ to get around desegregation. (This was not limited to education: many public facilities were closed and replaced by private ‘white only’ facilities: swimming pools, parks, libraries.) The segregationists (mostly) lost this battle, though it has been a slow, troubled, and still incomplete process; I grew up in a community where the schools were unofficially segregated on the basis of housing and zoning restrictions.
I think there are some striking parallels between the reaction of some to integration back then and the current reaction of some to public schools: both have been perceived as a dangerous enemy to a culture and way of life they wish to preserve. Rather than seeing public schools as a way we can learn (and teach our children) to work together as a multicultural and diverse society that is strengthened by conversations and collaborations among different philosophies, religions, economic and educational backgrounds, ethnicities and abilities, they see public schools as agents of a change they fear. Rather than becoming a constructive part of the public school system to ensure that their perspective is accurately represented ALONG WITH OTHERS, they are opting out and creating educational systems designed to avoid strengthening a diverse, tolerant, and multicultural society.
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