Tell most parents about the concept of school choice or Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) and they almost immediately jump on board. The idea of having the financial freedom to choose the education that best suits their children is a dream come true for many families, so it’s no surprise that consistently 70-75% of school parents support the idea.
But there are still a handful of naysayers, particularly those who fear that school choice will drain the public schools of necessary funds. After all, they argue, our country needs public education, and if we don’t have enough money for public schools, that essential component of our nation’s freedom and success will vanish.
The problem is, what many consider public schools today may not be the type of educational institutions that our nation’s founders envisioned.
So what is the purpose of public education … and how can we ensure that our public schools are offering the kind of education originally intended by the American founders who recognized the importance of an educated population?
A wise answer to that is found in American author and educator Neil Postman’s book, The End of Education. According to Postman, a public school depends not so much on the structure and facilities of the institution, but the kind of narratives it advances:
I will say only that the idea of public education depends absolutely on the existence of shared narratives and the exclusion of narratives that lead to alienation and divisiveness. What makes public schools public is not so much that the school have common goals but that the students have common gods. The reason for this is that public education does not serve a public. It creates a public.
In light of this, let’s consider what goals or “gods” today’s public schools advance.
News reports from the last few years indicate that public schools are breeding grounds for bullying, fights, disrespect toward teachers, poor academic standards, and instruction in various -isms and ideologies, not the least of which is gender, as evidenced in this recent video of a Minnesota classroom:
These things are most certainly creating a public … but is it the type of public we want or that parents want?
In Postman’s eyes, there is a right kind of public that our schools are supposed to foster, namely, one that strengthens and promotes the American Creed that individuals as diverse as Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey, and Horace Mann advanced.
This historical creed can be seen in documents such as the Northwest Ordinance, which was influenced directly by Jefferson’s ideas, and even in the schoolbooks used for decades in America’s public schools, such as the McGuffey Readers and Webster’s Speller.
Consider the following passages from each of these documents:
- “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” – Northwest Ordinance, 1787
- “Be a good child; mind your book; love your school, and strive to learn.
Tell no tales; call no ill names; you must not lie, nor swear, nor cheat, nor steal. Play not with bad boys; use no ill words at play; spend your time well; live in peace, and shun all strife. This is the way to make good men love you, and save your soul from pain and woe.” – Webster’s American Spelling Book, 1809 - “When the stars at set of sun
Watch you from on high
When the morning has begun
Think the Lord is nigh.
All you do and all you say,
He can see and hear:
When you work and when you play,
Think the Lord is near.
All your joys and griefs He knows
Counts each falling tear.
When to Him you tell your woes,
Know the Lord is near.” – McGuffey’s First Reader, 1879
These types of statements are typical of the American Creed advanced in our nation’s public schools for decades, the “right” kind of public that Postman suggests our schools should advance. But is that the kind of public they advance today?
One can test the answer to this question by looking at Postman’s diagnostic questions:
The question is not, Does or doesn’t public schooling create a public? The question is, What kind of public does it create? A conglomerate of self-indulgent consumers? Angry, soulless, directionless masses? Indifferent, confused citizens? Or a public imbued with confidence, a sense of purpose, a respect for learning, and tolerance?
Those last qualities are exactly what many Minnesotans and parents want to see in the children coming out of our nation’s schools; instead, we more often see the angry, soulless, ignorant masses departing our public halls of learning.
If that seems harsh, keep in mind that in Minnesota’s public schools in 2024, only 52% of high school sophomores were considered proficient in reading and only 35% of high school juniors were considered proficient in math. Those percentages are according to the Minnesota Department of Education, based on annual assessments.
Postman concludes that the only way to set our public schools back on the right track is by reinstating “shared narratives” and using those narratives “to provide an inspired reason for schooling.”
Given the state of today’s public schools, that’s a tall order and not one that’s likely to happen quickly. In fact, the only way it seems we’re likely to return to those shared narratives that Postman believed are essential to public education—where moral virtues, patriotism, and even religion are extolled—is by implementing—you guessed it—greater school choice.
If public schools aren’t offering the type of training parents want their children to have, then school choice is an easy way in which parents can take back control and send their children to schools that will produce well-educated students, not only in academics, but in morals and ideologies as well.
But that type of educational offering doesn’t have to be limited to private schools and homeschools. In fact, public schools can use school choice and its popularity to change their approach and begin to re-offer the type of morals and academics Americans once expected in public education.
If public schools were offering what parents want, we wouldn’t see three out of four parents wanting school choice in Minnesota. Furthermore, if public schools provided what parents want, it’s far less likely that they will have to worry about losing their funding to school choice options.
It’s time to put parents back in the driver’s seat of their children’s educations and give schools the flexibility to offer what parents want and our state and country need.
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