“No country which is now developed has done so without providing high quality public education”.—Atishi Singh
“(I envision) A system of general instruction, which shall reach every description of our citizens from the richest to the poorest. . . If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be. An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.”—Thomas Jefferson
“For Jefferson, there was one step crucial to creating a genuine natural aristocracy. The poor and rich had to have equal access to a good education.”—Fareed Zakaria
“I can no longer support a party that seeks to measure educational success on the basis of how many children leave public schools.”—Senator James Jeffords of Vermont, on announcing his decision to leave the Republican party in 2001.
I vividly remember the moment I knew I was in deep trouble. It was the fall of 1970. I was shuffling out of calculus class where I’d just been slapped in the face with the results of our midterm exams. It not only confirmed that there was a lot of calculus I didn’t know, but that most of the stuff I thought I knew was also wrong. I was as panicked as an eighteen-year-old could get.
But it was about to get worse. At that moment, I overhead two classmates who were walking out of the room ahead of me. “Man,” one of them said. “Can you believe how easy this class is?”
“I know,” the other replied. “We haven’t had a thing we didn’t cover in high school.”
I nearly fainted. Both were from an upper-middle class suburb of Kansas City, and had obviously gone to a school way more affluent than mine.
So maybe I should say a few words about West Platte High School in Weston, Missouri—my hometown. We had 39 kids in my graduating class. Math was pretty straight forward. Algebra your freshman year, geometry sophomore year, Algebra II as a junior, and finally trigonometry when you were a senior. Nobody thought about calculus.
But because of an overly-optimistic college enrollment process, and the fact that I had decent high school grades, I was thrown into an accelerated calculus class—Math 199 (I was also tossed into a similar advanced Chemistry class where I also struggled, but that’s a different story). I felt like I was running a race through quicksand while the rest of the class was sprinting away.
In the end, of course, it all worked out. I made it through Calculus 199, as well as the second semester 200 class. I found my footing, pulled my grades up, and was able to go to medical school, the one thing I really wanted to accomplish.
How did I do it? For the same reason I struggled early on—my high school background.
West Platte was an incredibly safe place. No one carried guns. I had teachers who cared about me. Hard work and perseverance were valued every bit as much as intellectual ability. The school was basically a “classless” society. Yes, there were a tiny fraction of kids we considered “rich” and an equal number who lived in poverty. But for the most part, we were all “salt of the earth” as the quaint expression goes—small farmers, blue collar workers, and shop keepers. We worked hard, we endured, we stuck it out. It turned out that was way more important in the long run than whether we left home knowing how to calculate area under a curve.
But today, public schools such as mine are under assault all across the country. In state after state, teachers are denigrated by politicians, funds are being syphoned off to private schools (many with dubious academic goals), and the financial strength of well-to-do neighborhoods creates growing inequality in what students can hope to experience.
Bluntly stated, some private schools raise millions of dollars to build fine arts centers, while similar public schools hold fund raisers to pay for textbooks.
Many parents demand the right to micromanage their kids’ education, insisting on what should or shouldn’t be taught. Don’t say gay, don’t say anything about reproduction, don’t talk about climate change, don’t mention race, don’t even think about evolution—as if education was no different from ordering a Big Mac from a McDonalds Drive-Thru.
Never mind whether those kids will be able to get a decent job, think for themselves, or compete worldwide. It’s more important to make sure there are things they’ll never learn.
I’m going to be blunt. Public education built this country. Jefferson was right—destroy public education and you will eventually destroy the nation. But today, that concept has been lost in what can only be described as a blind pursuit of “choice.”
Parents want to “choose” what their kids learn and don’t learn, where they attend, who their kids see and don’t see, what they can deny and what they can ignore.
In the process, they’re cutting off opportunities for other kids, as well—the same kids their own children will one day work with, and either succeed or fail with.
I don’t care what your thoughts on “choice” happen to be, you can’t keep your kids inside intellectual and emotional bubble wrap forever.
Unfortunately, this basic message seems to have been lost on many parents. Instead, they’re demanding that tax payer dollars be diverted away from public schools to private institutions that are often religious, unaccredited, for-profit, or in some cases, all three. Schools that can refuse children with learning and/or physical disabilities. Schools that can kick a student out on a whim. Schools that can pass over kids who have difficulty keeping up. Schools that can permanently expel students because of their beliefs.
This was the last thing Jefferson, or any of our other founding fathers, wanted.
Take Florida for example. Its Governor Ron DeSantis recently signed into law a bill that could potentially divert billions of dollars away from public schools to private institutions. What are these schools like? Almost all are based on either religious ideology, investor profit, or lack accreditation. How many private Florida schools don’t fit at least one of these categories? Less than 3%.
When the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was passed the number of private schools (many called themselves “academies”) exploded. Most were grounded in religious fundamentalism, but their real underlying purpose was clear. They intended to resegregate white kids from schools that had been integrated. An added affect was often to incorporate racism, anti-science, and Christian nationalism into the curriculum. Over the years, their numbers have only grown.
So let’s take a minute to discuss religious schools. The largest number are run by the Catholic Church and have been around for years. Some are educationally strong, and some aren’t. But they don’t play by the same rules as public schools. They don’t need to meet the same accreditation requirements, or pay their teachers accordingly. Step out of line, and you could well find yourself on the street.
One of my son’s best friends had a younger brother who was a gifted student. After college, he took a job as a speech teacher at a Catholic high school in an affluent part of town. He coached the school’s debate team to multiple state championships. He was admired and recognized by everyone for his teaching excellence.
Until the school found out that he was gay and living with another man. Just like that, he was gone. Across the country, similar stories abound with regard to both students and teachers whose sexuality, speech, and lives aren’t in line with local Catholic values.
Believe me, I’m not trying to offend Catholic readers. If you wish your children to experience this sort of education, fine. But please don’t ask me to pay my tax dollars to support you.
Another family I know inquired of a different private Christian school (this one non-Catholic) about enrolling a troubled son. The parents felt that the school’s discipline might be helpful to the child’s future. The school’s Principal, however, reacted as if she’d been insulted. “We don’t run a reform school here,” she said. “If students cause problems, we expel them. If you think this might happen, I suggest you look elsewhere.”
Much has been made about differences in educational outcomes between private and public schools. Early on, voucher programs that shifted a small number of students from certain poor performing inner city public schools into private schools showed improvements. This caused many to jump on the voucher bandwagon.
But when such programs were expanded to basically allow all students to use vouchers in private schools, any improvement vanished. Some students (and private schools) did worse than public schools. When implemented on a broad scale, the magic of vouchers disappeared.
The only thing that changed was the dollars being drained from public schools—and the students who attended them.
Let’s face it. “Choice” in a market-driven society favors those most skilled in marketing, window dressing, and profit-taking. A wide-spread “rob-public-schools-to-pay-for-private-schools” program will lead to a proliferation of heavily marketed, often for-profit schools. Many will lack accreditation. Many will promote a rigid ideology over a broad-based education. Many will ban a wide range of books. Many will promote quack pseudoscience that will poorly equip students for the future. Many will be implicitly—if not overtly—biased against certain races, religions, and people. All of them will compete ferociously for student dollars—and some will make out like bandits.
And it will all be paid for by money that should be going to public schools. In that case, we can replace Jefferson’s dream of universal education with the phrase “buyer beware.”
What about transportation? Few private schools have buses, etc. Even if you’re a gifted kid that’s been suddenly handed a voucher, how do you use it if private schools are miles away, and your parents are working, absent, or don’t have a car?
Virtually every parent in America wants their child to get the best education possible. Many have been led to believe that simply putting the word “private” in front of a school’s name makes it better. We now know it doesn’t. Improving education will take more than handing out vouchers and dumping schools into a free-market free-for-all measured by dubious outcomes. It will require recognition and support of teachers, who along with police officers, are among the most undervalued and underpaid workers in the country. It will require better training for all educators.
For a second, let’s take a look at one of the most successful educational systems in the world—Finland. What’s different about it?
For a start, for-profit private schools are banned. Any remaining private schools must adhere to the same curricula as public schools. Teachers are held to the same training standards (at least a Master’s degree to start) and the same pay scale as teachers in public schools.
The result? Fewer than 2% of Finnish kids attend private schools—and as a nation, they have some of the best educational outcomes in the world—a lot better than ours, where over 10% of American kids go to private schools.
What about that kid in Calculus class I described earlier? What if I’d been offered a voucher when I was starting high school? Private schools were miles away, and I couldn’t have gone. And what if I had? What if I’d somehow wound up in an exclusive Kansas City prep-school full of wealthy kids? Could I have even adjusted to such an environment? Would I have left with my sanity intact? Who knows.
Sorry, but I’ll take my small-town public school any day.
Once again, this is not to say there is no role for private education in the future. But any move in that direction must be carefully targeted and well thought out. For-profit schools must be excluded. Both funding and teaching must be balanced. When you rob Peter to pay Paul, everyone loses.
The massive shift of funds from public schools to private schools will hurt America’s poorest students and represent just one more tax break for wealthy families. In Arizona, where a voucher plan was recently put into place, over half of the students who took the vouchers were from upper middle-income families, and already attending private schools.
“Choose” to starve public schools, and you’ll pay a lot more down the road—in “choosing” to build new prisons.
The conservative economist Milton Friedman once said “There is no greater threat to a free society than for corporations to act with any sense of social responsibility other than to make as much money for their shareholders as possible.” Is this really the vision we want for education?
Make no mistake, Capitalism and the Free Market have worked great in most areas of the economy—selling cheeseburgers, apartment buildings, haircuts, and automobiles. But in areas such as healthcare, it’s been a disaster.
While the free market has been a boon for health insurance companies and Wall Street-owned medical corporations, it’s given the rest of us out-of-control costs, millions of uninsured, and the worst health care outcomes in the developed world. How about roads and highways? America would be crazy to get rid of public highways, let companies build private ones, then hand out vouchers for us to “choose” a road.
Use “choice” to turn education over to the same forces that have perverted our country’s health care, and the results for America’s future students—and for American society—will be worse. Much worse.
America must choose between the public-school vision of Thomas Jefferson and the market-driven version of “vouchers” and “choice” espoused by Friedman. The latter has the real possibility of setting our educational outcomes as far back as those in health care.
In an increasingly dangerous world, which “choice” do we really want to make?
As a retired educator that has taught in rural areas to the suburbs, this is so true. Also as a former WP Bluejay, I always enjoy your insight.
Thank you, Karen. You’ve seen the full spectrum of educational experiences. Thank you for your service to America’s future generations. And we’ll always be “Bluejays,” I guess. You can take us out of Weston but I’m not sure you can take Weston out of us!
Excellent post, Don!
The late Molly Ivins once called Texas “the national laboratory for bad government.” Many states, however, are competing for the title, and in education the competition is extremely fierce..’In Arizona, where a voucher plan was recently put into place, over half of the students who took the vouchers were from upper middle-income families, and already attending private schools.’ Yup. Here.
Thank you Josh. You’re right, the competition for bad government intervention in education is fierce. It’s a race to the bottom that gets more and more frightening each day.
a generation of doctors came into medicine more than 50 years ago when medicine was a possible career for rural and middle class (when there was a middle class) young people because access to private schools was limited and because public education was solid if not spectacular. I went to a Jesuit high school which didn’t have biology labs or taught calculus and had the same reaction as you did in college.
It is not a coincidence that the vast majority of medical students come from urban areas with “choice” and high income counties with suburbs where public education is great. good education I gives young folks choices but the schools need support for teachers, equipment and small classrooms.
What kind of doctors will come from a censored educational system with no knowledge of the human condition. I shudder to think about it.
Amen John. How will doctors who’ve never known anything other than an upper-class life be able to understand and relate to patients who’ve known nothing but poverty and food insecurity? How can they deliver care that’s focused on those patients and their needs? Mainstream America is being left behind in medical education as it is in so many other areas, too.
I could really identify with you as to the school and town you described. Much as where I grew up. Now that small town is divided into affluent areas and not so affluent . I appreciated your journey as to calculus . I had a similar experience. I was particularly intrigued by your comment about what an affluent environment does to impoverished kids who have vouchers or sports scholarships to attend. This could be something that you could write about more ?
Thank you, Jean. You’ve brought up an interesting topic that will take some digging but is very important. I’ve only known one person that fit the category you describe. He was a good friend in grade school, and then went on to attend a very exclusive private high school. He wound up with a degree from Harvard. He also became arrogant, manipulative, cold, condescending, and basically miserable. Would that have happened regardless of his high school experience? I don’t know. But it certainly makes you wonder.
I graduated from Benson in 1970. 3000 total students and 721 in the graduating class. My public education experience was a much different experience than those experience in smaller schools.
The goal for all children would be to educate them so they can live a productive and meaningful life.
If one can pick a private or public college to attend, according to their needs, why doesn’t the same principle apply to all levels of students? Fact is, a failed student is much more expensive to society during their unproductive life time than any student who graduates from public, private or even home schools. The education systems should be tailored to every child’s needs. Cost then becomes irrelevant, I would propose lower, as always assuming a graduated student is always a good ROI.
In any occupation, one must learn from the fundamentals up. It is based on advancing by acquiring/mastering the knowledge at a lower level to be a success at the next higher level. So, why is our education system not set up the same? Why is the 200+ year old public school system still the same, advancement based on age not knowledge, although proven to not met the challenges of all children today?
The many current failures of the public school systems is empirical, and also data proven, to not provide the education our children need to survive and thrive in this world. Even for many graduates. We’ve thrown money at it year after year. Yet the system gets worse year after year. We don’t need an expensive, but ineffective, public school system. We need an effective education system that gives every child the best chance of being what they were meant to be. An asset to society, not a liability.
Government paid for education does not mean just public education systems like we have today. That’s the fallacy that needs to be overcome to start successfully educating children to survive in today’s world. To raise the odds of more educated and productive citizens.
“The many current failures of the public school systems is empirical, and also data proven, to not provide the education our children need to survive and thrive in this world.” I would make one correction–your statement should read “The many failures of the American School systems, both public and private.” You can’t build anything without a strong foundation, and right now the focus of many on the far right is to abandon the foundation while focusing on the image of privatization rather than the educational outcomes. There are many private schools that are poor as well, and many solid public schools. We can abandon the foundation if we choose, but we’ll spend far more money down the road building prisons if our focus becomes throwing money at private schools and turning our public schools into “safety net” schools, much like the poor in this country are often herded into “safety net” hospitals.
I would agree to a point. But, as higher education has demonstrated, some what, capitalism spurs higher excellence even in education. The case of all the “internet colleges” that failed is a good example of the bad being weeded out. In the end, systems like the new Iowa system, where all schools are open to all students, is one of the best where the weak and inefficient schools die and are replaced by true educational schools. If public schools become a “dumping” ground for only the worse, then that proves the failure of their system and they will rightfully cease to exist. They will be replaced or the child will have the means to attend other schools.The biggest problem with public schools is advancement by age and the lessening of holding children accountable, lenient grading systems, for their effort or lack there of, in an educational environment. Yes I am old, but when I attended school, the thought of being held back, and it happened for all to see, was a great motivator to at least do well enough to get to the next grade level. A negative motivator maybe. But effective. There were cases of a child being advanced when not ready, just to get rid of them to another teacher. In today’s world, that approach seems to be the norm rather than the exception. Bottom line, if we accept the results of the current education as sufficient, and not improving, our country will continue to fall behind the world and we will condemn future generations to lives of servitude which is all they will be educated to do. The ROI on public schools is not, at this time, not worth the investment for all of them. Our country was built on “improve to survive”. Why is that not applied to one of the most important tasks government is responsible for? Education.
Hi Dan,
Although I can appreciate the Libertarian ideology that that forms your opinion, I can’t agree with it. Capitalism has done nothing to advance education—quite the contrary. Ask anyone who paid tuition to Trump “University” or any number of other for-profit scams that passed for educational institutions. Ask the students who lost their money—and in some cases are still losing their money—to newer for-profit scam institutions, both in this country and elsewhere. Thank you, Betsy Devos.
Capitalism works great for selling cheeseburgers and disposable diapers, but for basic societal infrastructure, it’s been a disaster. Over the past 45 years, I’ve watched it nearly destroy health care. Venture capital buying nursing homes, then gutting them. Hospitals in rural areas closing while cushy suburban hospitals add unneeded capacity (and spend millions on marketing). Insurers making billions while millions of Americans go without coverage.
Do the same thing to education? Thanks, but no thanks.
Mark my word, the Iowa legislation will be as big a disaster as the Kansas massive tax cut a few years ago that nearly destroyed their schools. Market private schools like jellybeans or toothpaste, and you may make some quick bucks for shareholders, but you won’t prepare our future generation for the challenges that lie ahead. You’ll just scam a lot of parents—and in places like Iowa, the taxpayers.
It’s not just my generational experience (class of 1970). My kids went to public schools. Their kids went to public schools. Nieces, nephews and cousins—all to public schools, in a half-dozen different states. They learned. They grew. They excelled.
But capitalism in education? When I was in college, a classmate struggled with most of his classes (and he wasn’t exactly taking advanced courses). He’d attended a private Christian School. “Where I went to school,” he said, “if you turned in all of your homework you got an A, if you just turned in some of it you got a B, if you simply sat in class and didn’t cause trouble you got a C, and if you caused trouble you got a D. Nobody flunked, because they needed the tuition dollars.”
Yes, there are some public schools that need to be zeroed in on with regard to oversight and overhaul. But to use those schools as an excuse to throw all public education to the Wall Street wolves and the religious ideologues would be extremely short-sighted.
The free market works well where it works. And where it doesn’t work, it doesn’t belong. I support the free market and have been an active participant for my entire working career, but that doesn’t mean I worship blindly at the Altar of the Invisible Hand (that’s from my book, by the way, if you’re interested).
Every system has it’s flaws. I am class of 70 also. Kids went to North Dakota and Papillion schools. Both good systems untouched by other than solid teachers, admins and curriculum. Now it is Louisville and Gretna. The Trump schools and other such institutions failed and closed. Capitalism working. Many of those students will get their money they borrowed to go there, if government funds, forgiven. Education is not an either or. The school systems in the Midwest far exceed what the coasts and big cities have. Although OPS has it’s issues. Public school is not for everyone. The government is mandated to give every child a public education the unwritten part is one that is meant to mold them into societal assets. Obviously that is not happening and despite all the money given to the schools it is not getting better. When a system is not working and failing so many, it needs to be changed or eliminated. That includes schools. Supporters of public schools seem to have a closed mind to other than public schools. I believe you would agree the medical profession has changed drastically many times. Bottom line is, it is about the children and not the system. Public education is mandated, public school systems, like the failing ones of today, are not. In the end, the amount of money it takes to support a child who was not educated far exceeds the cost to educate them. Think of it like the person who doesn’t go to the doctor for minor things but only goes when it gets so bad they have to go. Not all public schools/systems are bad. But there is no big push on to weed out the ones that shouldn’t be there. Look at the latest story from Texas none the less. Graduation canceled because only 5 seniors out 33 were eligible to graduate. Over 2/3 of Americans, and children, can’t pass the test given to immigrants to become citizens. Only 1/3 can pass basic reading and math skills. Hard to add skilled professionals to a work force when they can’t do either. Whether or not Iowa fails is irrelevant. The fact is, just like medicine, you keep trying to improve until you get it right. I think we can both agree the medical system is no where near what it is was over 200 years ago. Why should schools be any different?
First, Dan, what do we agree on?
1. Education is essential to a functional society
2. Education is less expense than prisons, and educated citizens contribute more to society both financially and functionality than those who are uneducated.
3. Some public schools are doing poorly. Some are doing well. Some private schools are doing poorly. Some are doing well.
4. Educational outcomes are predictors of future individual and societal success or failure.
5. By and large, the wealthier the community, the better the educational outcomes, public or private. You used Gretna and Bennington as examples. I’d challenge us both to look at how the educational outcomes of those communities have changed as the average family income of those communities has changed. Same for schools and communities that have shown a downward trend. That’s not education’s fault. That’s a national failure that’s been occurring since 1980.
Where I disagree:
1. Capitalism will somehow “fix” this. Just because the students conned by Trump and so many others may get some of their money back is a flimsy excuse to justify what happened—and what continues to happen. How do you propose those students get those years back that they lost? How do you propose students and families who are conned into private schools with no accountability get those years back? Where’s the accountability? Whatever was there, Betsy Devos destroyed.
2. Privatization of education works. No, it’s a massive experiment in social engineering that you wish to foist onto society, using inadequate data. Just “doing something” to be doing something is a prescription for disaster.
3. The public school system is “failing.” No, there are issues with individual schools, both public and private, that need to be addressed. But what you are advocating is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
4. Health care has changed over the past 200 years, and public education hasn’t. Therefore, we need “something else.” I can’t agree. The education of my kids and grandkids in public schools has changed, in some ways better, in some ways not. Someone could just as well say “look, for the last 200 years we’ve practiced Medicine, and people still die! We need to get rid of it and just practice faith healing.” If someone wants to do this for themselves, more power to them. But don’t use my tax dollars.
5. Privatization of schools will help students most in need. No, it will fail the very students who will cost society much more in the long run (as you describe). Special needs students, mental health problems, amenable learning issues, etc., are frankly not welcomed in private schools. Students with other difficulties will be excluded. Improved outcomes for a few students at the top will be more than offset (from a ROI perspective) by the losses at the bottom when public schools are abandoned.
6. Public schools are responsible for the appalling lack of civics understanding. No, I have yet to see evidence that private schools uniformly teach this in a more meaningful way. But many will teach religious ideology, faith-based “science,” and highly selective historical content.
Check out the Centner Academy in Florida (They promote themselves within the Capitalistic educational system you envision as the “Brain School.” In truth, they should call themselves the “Brain Dead School.”) They teach that COVID vaccines spread COVID (even though there’s no virus in the vaccine to spread), they use special windows to screen out evil 5G “waves,” and teach that sugar and gluten will kill you. But hey, Ron DeSantis loves ‘em! And they rake in 30 grand per student. Many former teachers describe it as a cult.
But Centner is highly lucrative, and in the realm of capitalism, isn’t that what matters? Sorry, keep capitalism in the free market. Keep public service focused on public service. Take either one out of context and put them where they don’t belong, and you will have poison.