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End Public Schools?
Another Friday, another David Gelertner column. This is by no means the main point of his argument, but one of the reasons Gelertner gives for wanting to abolish public schools is that their teachers are liberals. It's pretty unambiguously true that public school teachers are liberals. But of course the reason public school teachers are so overwhelmingly liberal is that . . . conservatives want to eliminate public schools! Under the circumstances, you can hardly blame teachers for probably being the hardest core of support out there for the Democratic Party. What else are they supposed to do?
One also notes that this is absurd: "Today's public schools have forfeited their right to exist. Let's get rid of them. Let's do it carefully and humanely, but let's do it. Let's offer every child a choice of private schools instead." If you did that, 80 percent of kids just wouldn't be in school next year. Actually existing private schools don't have vast acres of empty classrooms lying around just waiting to be filled with voucher kids. Even if you wanted to offer a voucher to every family next year you would still need the public schools. In practice, this would just be a huge income transfer to rich people. There would only be space for a tiny number of current public school students in the private school system, since no school's going to kick out a bunch of incumbent sixth graders to make room for the newly voucherized. Parents whose kids were already in private school would get a bunch of cash from the government and everything would be the same.
The assumption would have to be that down the road the number of private schools would increase and more-and-more people would be out of the public school system. Be that as it may, rural America would probably still need public school no matter what, because beneath some level of population density there won't be enough people to allow for meaningful choices and people wouldn't want their kids being educated by a totallly unaccountable private sector monopolist.
May 14, 2005 | Permalink
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Another reason that most public school teachers are liberals:
Conservatives place a high ethical value on looking out for numero uno and tend to shy away from those professions with small monetary rewards (and not that many spiritual rewards in the days of No Child Not Taught To The Test).
Trite, but true.
Posted by: Michael Farris | May 14, 2005 12:51:44 AM
As long as the system is still publically funded, I have no problem with vouchers.
Posted by: Dustin Ryan Ridgeway | May 14, 2005 1:13:05 AM
people wouldn't want their kids being educated by a totallly unaccountable private sector monopolist
Yet more evidence that you haven't spent much time in rural America. As someone who lived a stone's throw (literally) from Alabama for years, I can assure you that if Wal-Mart offered schools, people would sign up in droves. There's nothing quite so inspiring to that crew as an airbrushed effigy of Sam Walton, God, and the American Eagle in front of a flag.
Posted by: josh | May 14, 2005 1:13:18 AM
Two more points. First: Private schools (unlike charter schools) are currently allowed to pick their students on grounds other than whether the parents can pay -- which means that they consistently reject the harder-to-educate students in order to make their track record look better. If you want to make any privatization scheme work, you must get rid of that.
Second, there's the point raised by the decidedly non-extreme-liberal Michael kelly in the New Republic in 1996: unless the government very carefully monitors their curriculums, any privatized school system will end up containing a very large number of more or less biased schools teaching their students various forms of religious, racial and/or political bigotry. Kelly cites the example of an innocent-looking charter school that the DC city council unanimously approved -- and which turned out to be a hotbed of drooling black racism and murderous anti-Semitism. This is the shape of things to come, unless we are very, very careful -- and once the process of social and political atomization gets any kind of a foothold in the US, it will be self-amplifying and thus very hard to reverse.
Posted by: Bruce Moomaw | May 14, 2005 1:25:56 AM
Yeah, it is basically a Rovian masquerade ball where partisan warfare costumes as public policy (see e.g. tort reform). He says "Agreed: The national interest requires that all children be educated and that all taxpayers contribute." Once he's conceded the positive externalities, the questions become: what institutional arrangement and how much $? But, politically, how much does the former decision matter? I mean, wouldn't the teachers' self-interest still draw them to the embrace of the same political suitor--the one that spends more on education? Then he says, "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." Well, I guess the thought experiment I'd ask Gelertner to engage is imagining a world where that rugged capitalist defense contractor lost its only customer. I mean, is there really a difference between our real-live monopsonist defense contractors and his hypothetical overtly publicly-run institution of the same function? The client is the same in either case. And, it's hard for me to imagine that politically it would matter if we transitioned from private to public defense contractors. Conservatives like defense spending. People who like defense spending are going to embrace conservatives politics whether Mr. Donald Rumsfeld or Mr. Martin-Marietta is signing their check.
Posted by: jnance | May 14, 2005 1:30:13 AM
What's most hilarious about this is that a study just came out that challenges the unspoken assumption that I think both repubs. and dems. make that the public schools are, by and large, inferior to private schools. Turns out they are doing a pretty good job:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0510/p11s01-legn.html
Posted by: christopher Brandow | May 14, 2005 1:43:05 AM
"American public schools used to speak for the broad middle ground of American life. No longer. The fault is partly but not only theirs. A hundred years ago, a national consensus existed and public schools did their best to express it. Today that consensus has fractured, and public schools have made no effort to rebuild it."
The conservative multiculturalists have arrived. What he is really saying here of course is that there probably is no way of restoring social cohesion in a society with such disparite points of view about social and cultural mores (ie a society where non-Protestant, non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual people are minimally empowered) and so it is off to our own respective demographic ghettos we go. The fundies get their own schools. The liberal secularists get their own schools. The gay dwarves get their own schools. And so on and so forth.
But of course he's probably right. The Dutch solution (voucher schools, progressively funded, with government oversight) is probably the most rational one for postmodern America, and even the children of liberals who now attend public schools will appreciate not having armed guards, metal detectors, random searches, video surveillance, drug testing, and lockdown. Conservative schools may become conservative squared, but so will liberal schools. And the gay dwarves will finally get spacious mushrooms of their own. The infrastructure will take time to develop, but this seems to me so intuitive and obvious a solution it will almost certainly not happen (or at least not soon).
Posted by: Robin the Hood | May 14, 2005 1:44:41 AM
Oh, and I do like this: "Instead, our boys have been made painfully aware nearly every day of their school lives that they are conservative and their teachers are liberal." No shit, Dave. Because you fucking draw the lines for them. And, I'll bet it's painful as hell for your boys to listen to you tell them how different they are from the world they encounter.
Posted by: jnance | May 14, 2005 1:46:38 AM
Matt's main argument doesn't make sense. If the Gelertner plan is adopted, the current public school facilities and faculties don't disappear. Presumably they'd be privatized; sold off to whatever well-connected education companies that are willing to pony up. Then competition and market pressure will force them to be innovative and customer-focused, and be free of bondage to old-fashioned liberal ideas, and the kids will all be doing PowerPoint presentations in class, and the birds will sing and all manner of things shall be well.
Posted by: Mike Travers | May 14, 2005 1:51:35 AM
People should read about Horace Mann, the father of public schooling in the USA in the early nineteenth century. His reasons were socialist in the sense that he thought every child should have a decent education and the goverment was the most relable and fair institution to do it.
http://www.nd.edu/~rbarger/www7/mann.html
Posted by: Quiddity | May 14, 2005 1:52:58 AM
If I was sending my kid to a fancy private school that got to kick out the retards and the hoodlums the last thing I would want is an end to public schools. Just think what would happen to my Precious Princess Miffy! No no no!
Besides poor people just don't look good in ascots and dickeys. So declasse`
Posted by: anon | May 14, 2005 2:50:22 AM
Matt, I am pointing this out not so much because I am an anal-retentive spelling jerk as because you have made this mistake repeatedly in several posts:
The guy's name is Gelernter, not Gelertner. I'm not even going to get into the whole German (/Yiddish) thing.
Posted by: liver | May 14, 2005 2:53:19 AM
If conservatives want to make an actual, serious goal of eliminating public schools, they should do what they are supposed to be doing with abortion: reduce the need for them.
Encourage the building of more private schools, and encourage more home schooling.
Posted by: Adam Herman | May 14, 2005 3:26:36 AM
it's always nice when a wingnut explicitly puts this stuff in print. trying to convince people that obvious conservative goals are really their goals is more difficult when they refuse to come right out and say it.
now if we could just get some [more] of them on record as wanting to kill SS.
Posted by: cleek | May 14, 2005 7:15:37 AM
"If conservatives want to make an actual, serious goal of eliminating public schools, they should do what they are supposed to be doing with abortion: reduce the need for them.
Encourage the building of more private schools, and encourage more home schooling. "
Well, of course, and they're doing exactly that. The present problem is that anybody who wants private schooling for their kids has to pay for private schooling, AND for the public system. Which makes affording private schooling a serious problem for most people, much more of a problem than if the system weren't already socialized.
And, no, the private schools SHOULD remain able to pick and chose their students. Look, just because there needs to be an "X" of last resort, doesn't mean that everybody has to be herded into the that system of last resorts. We have grocery stores AND soup kitchens, and don't think it an outrage that the grocery store will kick you out if you don't meet minimal standards for dress, civility, bathing... We understand that, just because everyone needs to eat, doesn't mean that everyone needs to eat at government run feeding centers.
And just because everyone needs an education, it doesn't follow that the government needs to be running schools. Personally, I find the notion of the government having many hours a day of access to children during their most impressionable years terrifying. The brainwashing opportunities are obvious, and ARE exploited.
But then, that's why you don't want people going to private schools, isn't it; You don't mind people being brainwashed as kids, so long as it's done by somebody who's probably in agreement with you.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore | May 14, 2005 7:56:34 AM
Personally, I find the notion of the government having many hours a day of access to children during their most impressionable years terrifying. The brainwashing opportunities are obvious, and ARE exploited.
What utter claptrap. Teachers = 'the government'? Oh, fuck off. You've been in your libertarian bunker for too long, and the lack of oxygen has damaged your brain.
Now, when Catholic priests have many hours a day of access to children at their schools, that's just the private system at work.
Posted by: ahem | May 14, 2005 8:13:40 AM
The biggest hole in the voucher argument is that the vouchers never cover the tuition. Every plan I've ever seen offers between $1500 and $3000 per year for private school tuition. Where I live, private school costs between $7k and $15k per year. So close the public schools, and poor kids get no school at all.
Posted by: pj | May 14, 2005 8:20:57 AM
also worth noting: David G.'s conceit that military contractors are private companies in any meaningful way. Sure, Northrup Grumman "competes" with Lockheed to see who can make the most expensive plane that we don't need right now.
Posted by: praktike | May 14, 2005 8:24:36 AM
Definitions are everything. I didn't notice where the Gelernter children go to school, but based on the public schools in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, he could have easily have written, "Our boys have been made painfully aware nearly every day of their school lives that they are WHITE and their teachers are liberal."
My daughter (white, liberal) is preparing to be a high school teacher. The other students in her classes tend to be white liberals. Her profs, an exultation of PC, keep telling the WL students that they, being white, can have no idea of the experience of their students (in our area, 60-70% of HS students are Asian, Hispanic, African or African-American)so they need to be more liberal and multi-cultural to accommodate the experience of their students. She has begun to question whether a career in education is such a good idea, between NCLB and the belief that teachers should be members of the cultures of the students they teach.
Upthread, Michael Farris comments that conservatives tend not to become teachers. I am reminded of an old bit of reason:
"Treason never prospers.
What's the reason?
Why, if treason prospers,
none dare call it treason."
It can be transformed thusly:
"Conservatives never teach.
What's the reason?
why, if conservatives teach,
none are able to remain conservative."
regular reader of Yglesias, but first time post.
Posted by: PTate in Mn | May 14, 2005 8:26:52 AM
"Second, there's the point raised by the decidedly non-extreme-liberal Michael kelly in the New Republic in 1996: unless the government very carefully monitors their curriculums, any privatized school system will end up containing a very large number of more or less biased schools teaching their students various forms of religious, racial and/or political bigotry."
This Chicken Little arguement always cracks me up. Why, we can't let parents be responsible for educating their children. They'll teach them how to build and ignite crosses, and the secret to mixing the perfect Molotov cocktail. Our beloved government must save us from ourselves.
I agree the government should set up minimum requirements for school curriculum. Basic reading, writing, math, etc. But beyond that, parents have the right, and yes - the moral ability to shape their children's education. Sure there are a few nutballs out there. But they are such a small minority. Their children will be exposed to their obscure view of the world regardless of where they go to school.
Posted by: Warbonnet | May 14, 2005 8:28:11 AM
Liver isn't being anal-retentive (or at least, not necessarily ;->). Yes, his name is "Gelernter" and having the right spelling makes it easier to Google him, so you can see his past columns. As can be seen from his columns and articles over the past several years, the guy ventured off into wingnut land a while ago. Good case study on the theme of "rabd conservatism as mental illness" though.
Posted by: pilgrim | May 14, 2005 8:35:32 AM
You guys are FUNNY!
"conservatives want to eliminate public schools!"
That's just ridiculous. The point of voucers is to introduce competition in the hope that it forces the public schools to improve in order to compete. It also gives poorer families a chance to have the same choices as rich families do now (IE: If your local public school isn't working, go to a school that does.). I'm perfectly happy with my local PUBLIC schools. The teachers have been wonderful! There's far too much overhead though. I think they have more people on administrative staff than they have on teaching staff.
"any privatized school system will end up containing a very large number of more or less biased schools teaching their students various forms of religious, racial and/or political bigotry."
Isn't that what the public schools are today? "Global warming is coming! Global warming is coming! Be good little libs or the planet will die!" (When I was in school it was "Global cooling is coming!", forgive me for being a bit skepticle of liberal panic messages.)
Or "Here, read Heather Has 2 Mommies. WHAT! You want to read the BIBLE instead! That evil book is BANNED in this place!"
"What utter claptrap. Teachers = 'the government'?"
Isn't that the argument you guys have used to ban the Bible from schools? No religion in government, school = government, so no Bibles allowed at school? Come on, be a little more consistent. Either a school is part of the government or it's not.
"No Child Not Taught To The Test"
Are you aware that bill was written by Ted Kennedy? Or is he too conservative for you? I agree it's not perfect, but it at least stops the practice of graduating whole classes of people who can't read. Got a better plan? I'd like to know what it is.
"got to kick out the retards and the hoodlums"
That's not very nice of you, calling disadvantage children names. Don't you have any compassion?
Posted by: Brian H | May 14, 2005 8:38:22 AM
One also notes that this is absurd: "Today's public schools have forfeited their right to exist. Let's get rid of them. Let's do it carefully and humanely, but let's do it. Let's offer every child a choice of private schools instead." If you did that, 80 percent of kids just wouldn't be in school next year.
Not necessarily. If, by law, public schools were were made private entities (say, non-profit corporations), you'd have the same number of desks and chairs ready to serve the incoming students. The main difference would be that these newly private schools would no longer have a guaranteed source of customers. I believe such a development would be highly desireable.
Posted by: P. B. Almeida | May 14, 2005 8:55:59 AM
Oh, and I almost forgot to comment on this bit of idiocy: "and people wouldn't want their kids being educated by a totallly unaccountable private sector monopolist."
Private sector monopolist? I doubt anybody EVER managed to create an effective private sector monopoly, without a helping hand from the government. And education isn't exactly a business with a lot of natural barriers to entry. To the extent there are any barriers at all to just starting up a new school with a half dozen students, it's the government's doing.
Posted by: Brett Bellmore | May 14, 2005 8:59:51 AM
"It can be transformed thusly:
"Conservatives never teach.
What's the reason?
why, if conservatives teach,
none are able to remain conservative."
That's a nice poem, but completely untrue. One of the reason I love my local public school is that enough of the teaching staff is conservative that my son doesn't get brainwashed. The conservative teachers teach my son how to reason, how to research, how to evaluate evidence, how to argue (sometimes being assigned opposing sides of the same issue on different days), how to test theories, etc. All this in Jr. High. I wish the liberal teachers would have the same attitudes, but they typically teach by rote.
Posted by: Brian H | May 14, 2005 9:05:57 AM
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