An Alternative to Public schools

How to you feel about state aid to parochial schools? Does the proposal make you angry? Do you regard the idea as subversive of our democratic institutions? If you do, you are responding like any red-blooded programmed liberal to the historic enemy.

A friend called me the other day to solicit my support. He wanted me to work against Governor Milliken’s proposal to find more money for education. Although he liked the idea of using the income tax instead of the property tax, he felt the political sop of giving funds to parochial teachers was too high a price to pay for reform. The separation of church and state was, in the long run, more important than better schools. State aid to private school teachers was the opening wedge in the relentless campaign to destroy public education.

I refused to help. I told him that I was sick of liberal orthodoxies that could only repeat old answers to new questions. Since, as a humanist, I regard no human institution as sacred and untouchable, I was not prepared to worship either the American Constitution or the state school system. It appeared to me that the present condition of American education was unsatisfactory and that the main cause of the trouble was not financial.

My friend was astounded by my reaction. He found it inconceivable that I had succumbed to parochaid propaganda! ‘Is it because of political opportunism’ he asked? ‘Is it because you think that Catholic support is needed to get the education bill passed?’ I answered his question with a loud ‘No. I’m just in the mood to investigate alternatives.

He countered with the usual liberal fare. Be emphasized that America rested on the rock of separation between church and state. To give state money to private schools was to give state money to religious education, since most private schools were Catholic-owned to Public schools and Catholic-run. ‘Do you want to make the American state an arm of the Roman church?’ he asked. ‘Do you want to risk the establishment of religion in this country and the persecution of non-believers?’

His argument softened. ‘After all, parochial schools mean religious segregation. Don’t we want a country where children can study together regardless of creed? America is composed of many different ethnic and religious groups. Subsidizing private education will only accentuate the differences. What is to prevent bigoted whites from organizing a private school under the guise of religion and excluding blacks? Certainly, no self-respecting liberal will forego the vision of integration now that it is so close to reality.’

My friend persisted. ‘If there isn’t enough money for the present public system’ he emphasized, ‘there won’t be enough for a private system too. The new funds will be drained off to the parochial schools and the state schools will be as bad off as they were before. Even if we have to accommodate thousands of students leaving the bankrupt Catholic system, it will be cheaper, in the long run, to operate one system than two.’

He saved his angriest argument for the last. ‘If the Catholics are so interested in improving their schools, why don’t they sell some of their gilded wealth and pay their teachers. The gold off half their statues would yield an immense fund. Is their real estate speculation more important than the minds of their children? Their plea of poverty sticks in my gut.’

As his voice started to rise with the last statement, I suddenly became aware of how he had turned the argument. I had told him that I was open to studying the possibility of giving public money to private education. He had equated the word ‘private’ with the word ‘Catholic’. He had assumed that the public schools were secular schools and that private schools were religious. In the end, he did not denounce what I had proposed to investigate. He had simply denounced the the Catholic Church.

The tirade was revealed for all its absence of sublety. The historic enemy of the liberal program has been the Roman Catholic Church. Sensible survival dictates that whatever the Church wants the liberal fights. Even if the public school system is monolithic, bureaucratic, and unimaginative, we liberals must defend it to the death, so long as the Church attacks it. To yield one inch to the enemy is to lose the battle. The public school system emerges, in liberal discussion, with one compelling virtue. It does not serve the needs of the Roman Church.

The liberal and the humanist find themselves on the Same side of the argument as the fundamentalist Baptist and the free-will Methodist. ‘They share no real beliefs and values. They only shake a ‘common enemy’ – the Pope; The public school has a negative value. It is supported by people who are bound together in a common hostility to-an external foe.

The reverence that liberals have extended to state education has always puzzled me.; Many who would be squeamish about socialized medicine have no reservations about-Socialized education. Certainly, receiving pills from a state institution is less objectionable than receiving ideas and values. Physical bodies are lass individualistic than personal minds. Mass solutions are more appropriate to the health of the lungs than to the creativity of the brain. The last thing one would rationally assign to a government bureau is’the molding of a child’s view of the world.

Why have public schools flourished? Many conditions which no longer exist are the reason. Public schools are the product of small town America. In the village of nineteenth century America, no single church school was viable. The only economical approach to education was a single school system that could afford the teacher and the building. The public school became the Protestant answer to too many denominations. All the churches cooperated to sponsor a system that could dispense a kind of neutral Protestant ethic and WASP social manners. That program survived in big-town U,S.A.

Public schools are the product of social uniformity. A century ago our country was predominantly Anglosaxon and rural. There were no wide divergencies of life-style to upset the local scene. With the exception of fringe religious groups, a quiet consensus prevailed on what was right and wrong and what a good citizen should do or shouldn’t do. People might disagree on who should exercise political power. But they didn’t disagree on the issues of work, thrift, patriotism, and sex.

Public schools are the result of ‘WASP imperialism’. When millions of immigrants poured into America, the problem of how to integrate them arose. The old Protestant establishment wished to guarantee the survival of its life-style. The new immigrant wished to learn those social skills that would give him status and advancement. The desires of both groups coincided. And the community school became the means for both groups to fulfill their needs. The ethnic melting pot has always been an illusion. Assimilation to the dominant culture has been the real watchword.

Public schools are the consequence of an economy of scarcity. In a world where affluence is not-yet possible for the masses, education is basic and simple. Why teach reading, writing and arithmetic in three different schools when the subject matter is the same no matter where you are? Let there be one community school teaching these basic skills to all children. Where there is no possibility of controversy, duplication seems senseless.

Public schools derive from a particular notion of how to serve the masses. The prevailing concept of welfare is that the government helps the poor by giving them services rather than money. A ‘compassionate’ ruler dispenses food, medicine, and shelter to the needy – but rarely the cash which allows the dignity of choice. The philosophy behind this procedure is clear. Since the poor man does not know how to spend his money wisely, the rich and the educated must protect him by shielding him from personal decision. Since the of poor man cannot afford to pay for his own education, a state school becomes the the most reliable way of guaranteeing that he gets the kind of education the majority thinks he needs. The rich are entitled to educational options. The poor must be protected against them.

Public schools are the product of a dream – the dream of equality. Many advocates of the state community school saw it as a vehicle for bringing children of different social and economic backgrounds together in a common long range experience. The public system would be the enemy of segregation and snobbishness. It would do what the church and the family refused to do. In small-town America where large residential ghettos did not exist the plan was realistic and sometimes worked.

But in big-city America the old reasons for a state school system no longer apply. There no longer exists the uniformity of outlook and value that used to prevail. Educational institutions that dispense the old Protestant ethic may be good for rural America and certain parts of old suburbia, but they are irrelevant to the life-styles of young people that are emerging today.

The urban potpourri features wide varieties of value-systems that are not mutually compatible in one school system. Education is more than transmitting facts. It is more than enabling children to handle concepts in a rational way. It is also the human relations between the teacher and the pupil. It is also a vision of the ideal citizen. Bible-reading patriots and Quaker pacifists cannot fulfill their educational ideals in the same school system. Cosmopolitan humanists and the American Legion cannot come up with a satisfactory history curriculum that can be commonly shared. All that emerges in most state schools is a timid and wishy-washy compromise that penalizes minority values and new techniques. Some courageous teachers prevail. But the system crushes most initiative. In the end, the defenders of the public schools plead the value of exposure to many points of view, even though there is no real exposure.

There no longer exists the need to Americanize the masses. Immigration has stopped and the vast majority of the white community is thoroughly assimilated. The need in America today is not for more unity and more uniformity. It is for more individuality and more liberation from the tyranny of public opinion. Community state school systems are controlled by conservative majorities which resist innovation and which prevent creative liberals from carrying out the kinds of educational experiments they would want to participate in. If they are rich liberals they can opt out of the prevailing system. If they are not-so-rich progressives they are stuck.

There no longer exists the economy of scarcity for most people in America, and there need not exist this economy of scarcity for all people in America. The ‘indulgence of personal fulfilment and personal happiness is no longer a sin against the public welfare. The notion of a basic education without individualistic. style and frills is inappropriate in a middle-class setting. We are much more attuned today to the varieties of talents and temperaments that exist among children. School curricula designed for analytic children are not suitable for intuitive and aesthetic students. Programs created for self-motivated pupils are unsuited to more passive children. To combine all these approaches within the framework of a single neighborhood school or to convince a bureaucratic regime that they should cater to the unique talent and disposition of your own child are impossible tasks. After all the propaganda for state education is beautifully articulated, the public schools of America remain unalterably dull. There is certainly no more need for patronizing welfare. We have witnessed the revolt of the poor against the humiliating dispensation of goods and services. We are daily confronting the resistance of the poor against programs for their rehabilitation devised by social reformers who did not bother to consult them. But now a new revolt is brewing. We are, in the near future, going to witness the rebellion of middle-class families, who cannot afford the option of good private education, and who will refuse to support a monolithic school system that treats them like old-style welfare recipients.

We are, in the next few years, going to witness the resistance of middle-class young people, who cannot find their skills for living in a system that is designed for ‘everybody’. There is definitely no more need for preserving the illusion of integration. In large cities, unlike small towns, neighborhood schools mean segregated schools. The rich go to school with the rich; and the poor go to school with the poor. A public school experience in Birmingham is usually less cosmopolitan than education in a parochial school that caters to a wide-income area or in an experimental Montessori school struggling along without adequate funds. Bussing poor students to ‘rich’ schools solves no problem if social segregation governs student behavior. It appears to me that a genuine liberal is open to change when old programs no longer work. He certainly does not engage in the ritual defense of his own orthodoxy. Nor does he deny himself pleasure in order to provide his ‘enemy’ with pain.

The following alternative seems to me to be an alternative program worth -investigating. The program is stated in its ideal form and is certainly open to compromise.

(1) Let’s dispense with public schools. Let education be a private matter. Let parents of children under 16 decide what school the child should go to. Let children decide what school they want to go to. Education should be compulsory until

2) Let the government (federal or state) give money to people – not to schools or teachers. (In this sense parochiaid is a bad proposal.) Let an equal amount of money be given to each child, to be used at any school they desire to support. The funds for this program can .come from a rate increase in either the state or federal income taxes.

(3) The state must establish minimum requirements that all private schools must observe. These requirements should be broad and should only apply to those language and mechanical skills that are necessary for survival in an urban and technological environment. Each school should be able to decide for itself the kind of teacher it wants. And each school should be able to decide the range of age levels it wants to serve.

(4) A school may be organized by a group of interested parents when there is a sufficient number of people to guarantee the minimum requirements. It shall be run by the democratic decision of the parents and all students over 16. The principal shall be elected, and he shall have the right to appoint his teachers. The philosophy of the school shall be determined by the group. The members may decide to organize on the basis of teaching technique (Montessori, ungraded, lecture, test, etc.). They may decide to organize on the basis of philosophy (Quaker, Humanist Hippie, Catholic, etc.). They may decide to create the school on the difference of talent or temperament (analytic, artistic, etc.). They may even choose to organize an all-purpose subdivision school. But the decision is theirs.

(6) Every school must be independent. The parents shall not have the right to abdicate their responsibilities to an area superintendent or to a bishop. Hierarchical control of any school would defeat its purpose. Even Catholic schools would have to exist outside the direct manipulation of the diocese. If schools with similar philosophies or techniques, wish to cooperate to organize purchasing centers or teacher-training centers, such cooperation should be encouraged.

(7) Let existing public school buildings be turned into public libraries and science centers which would be available to all students. The state would directly provide the supplementary research facilities (especially on the secondary level) that the small private school could not afford.

(8) Discrimination on the basis a) of philosophy, talent and sex (boys, school) should be allowed. A school must have the right to exclude any student who does not meet its intellectual or temperamental requirements. It surely must have the right
to limit its size in order to preserve The intimacy or informality it may desire. However, exclusion because race or income ought to be forbidden. The basic fee at any school must not exceed the government grant. If rich people wish to give more to a particular school – they ought not to be denied this privilege!

Is my proposal utopian? Perhaps. However, in an age of immense educational dissatisfaction it may in the long run, be more realistic than last-ditch defenses of the old public-school system. The goal of a society is not to worship the First Amendment (which, like the Bible, can be interpreted anyway you want to.) It is rather to promote individual liberty and happiness and to increase self-respect through opportunities for personal choice.