Strong Schools Are EssentialFor Democracy

32 PHI DELTA KAPPAN Photo: PhotoSpin/Lifestock

SOME believe that defense of public ed-ucation is merely a “special interest is-sue.” For a minority, it’s a matter ofprinciple that private, for-profit com-panies are better than public institu-tions regardless of results. The otherswould dispense with the public schoolsif any alternative could produce higher

test scores or reduce the gap between the scores ofwhites and blacks. In fact, some critics of public edu-cation claim that reducing the test score gap is the civ-il rights issue of our time, as well as the cure for oureconomic ills. They claim that anything that distractsus from focusing on these two issues undermines boththe poor and the rich simultaneously. It can be an ir-resistible argument — if you don’t think about it.

While outright calls for privatization in the form ofvouchers remain unpopular, privatization by any oth-er name is widespread. Both not-for-profit and for-profit private organizations now operate publiclyfunded schools in many states. Even if there is no ev-idence that such privatization solves either the testscore gap or the nation’s economic woes, the critics ofpublic schools tell us that it is always worth a try. Infact, they keep telling us that we should stop “wast-ing” tax dollars on public education and use thatmoney for various privatization schemes. Thus, theline between public and private becomes harder andharder to find.

Under these circumstances, it is a pleasure to readRichard Gibboney’s manifesto on behalf of publicschooling’s traditional democratic mission. Startingwith two quotes from the outrageous Thomas Paineand strewn with old-fashioned (not an insult) cri-tiques of unchecked capitalism, his manifesto is loud,sometimes brash, occasionally inaccurate, and a de-light to read.

Arthur C. Brooks, the new president of the decid-edly right-wing American Enterprise Institute, notesthat “despite the rise in government spending be-tween 1972 and 2002 . . . the percentage of Ameri-cans who said they were happy . . . 30% . . . did notchange.” Ergo, he argues, government can “onlymake things worse if they tried . . . through taxationand public spending.”1 Brooks may not have noticedthat it was precisely by means of government policythat the rich got richer and the poor got poorer in thepast 20 years. Perhaps that increasing disparity inwealth accounts for why the rate of governmentspending to happiness has not changed. He doesn’task about the happiness gap between rich and poor,but maybe that hasn’t changed either. Would Brookschange his mind if it had?

But one thing is clear, government spending — lo-cal, state, or federal — is not how conservatives hopeto improve education. “Throwing” money at theschools is a waste, especially when there’s a “real” warto fight. Thus AEI scholars show a lack of concernover spending in Iraq, but they begrudge every pen-ny spent in the war against ignorance.

Unfair? After all, many AEI scholars and support-ers have been eager beavers for the No Child Left Be-hind Act, though they were far from eager when it wasthe Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which

n DEBORAH MEIER is a senior scholar and adjunct professor atNew York University’s Steinhardt School of Education, a boardmember and director of New Ventures at Mission Hill, director andadvisor to the Forum for Democracy and Education, and a mem-ber of the board of the Coalition of Essential Schools. She lives inHillsdale, N.Y.

Strong Schools Are EssentialFor DemocracyIf the test score gap is bad for the economy, what about the medical care gap or the income gap, Ms. Meier asks. She argues that schools should return to their historic mission, teaching the skills needed for a strong democracy.

By Deborah Meier

SEPTEMBER 2008 33

they saw as just “throwing money.” These scholars al-so do not seem disturbed at increased mayoral andstate control of urban schools, which, in other cases,they would call the “state’s heavy hand.” They don’tmind “big government” when it helps reinforce theirbiases in favor of the free marketplace and morality.In fact, they applaud policies that hope tochange behavior through punishment. For ex-ample, conservatives favor grade-retention poli-cies although they certainly show no evidenceof improving even test scores, and there is am-ple evidence that these policies increase thedropout rate among the poor. But these policies,along with a host of zero-tolerance policies that haveswept over schools, appeal to conservatives as properpunishment for failure.

POVERTY HANDICAPS CHILDREN

The handicaps poor children start with are notmerely that they have, statistically, less of most things,but that they also have more of the wrong things. Theyare more restless, more independent, etc. They talk alot but say the wrong things. Test scores can reflect raceand class and can do so for even very young students.This is not the place to pursue this subject in detail,but testing is the best and surest way to create a systemfor maintaining gaps. It should be no surprise that weare seeing more tracking, perhaps most insidiously inthe form of different schools for different kids, oftenunder the name of choice. It’s not possible that the in-ventors of these policies were unaware of this.

Gibboney is too hard on the National EducationAssociation and the American Federation of Teachers.They have two faults. First, they probably reflect theirmembership’s ambivalence and fearfulness. Second,they have been deserted by a weakened labor move-ment in general, and there now are fewer liberal allies,which makes it riskier to be militant. I think, like Gib-boney, that unions should be bolder, but I’m sittingon the sidelines saying this. The teachers unions alsomight be wiped out if they try to be more militant.

But Gibboney is completely right that few educa-tors, and even fewer noneducators, see any of these is-sues as serious policy questions. Only the claim thatit is public schools that are undermining our econo-my gets any national exposure. As a result, even thosewho find the economic argument both morally andfactually nonsense are sometimes grateful. Some at-tention might be better than none.

Even if the argument connecting student test scoresand corporate profits were true, it is a weak argument

for doing something right now. A rush to improvescores on the part of those at the bottom would takefar more time than the naysayers claim we have.Changes in schooling take five to 15 years. Duringthis time, our competitors will be raising their scorestoo. After all, many large American-based corpora-

tions and foundations, such as Microsoft, are subsi-dizing the school systems of our competitors.

If inequality in test scores is bad for the economy(though it’s not true for China, for example), whatabout inequality of medical care? Where does the cor-porate elite stand on that? Or inequality in housing?Or inequality in preschool child care, summer expe-riences for children, or prison sentencing? Or the in-equality these critics do not mention, the inequalityin income? Citizens in a more robust democracywould be asking such questions.

I’m ready to sign on to Gibboney’s four recommen-dations. We need to do something about poverty. Weneed to do some deep thinking about the connectionbetween democracy and schooling. We need publicpolicy that strengthens, not weakens, unions. I don’tknow if there is a reason to expect “dynamite” in ourcities, as Gibboney warns, but we certainly need a bet-ter urban policy.

Sometimes, I fear that the less said the better whenit comes to school politics. But that’s a short-sightedattitude that only speaks to how disabled the argumentfor democracy itself has become. Democracy has be-come one of those “process” issues that neither votersnor politicians want to take on, hoping that somehowour constitutional rights will hold up long enoughwithout our reasoned and impassioned defense.

Strong schools upheld and honored by their ownconstituents in every community in America are onebulwark of democracy. The weaker schools become,the more dependent they are on mandates fromabove, such as test scores that shortchange what be-ing well-educated means. When educating our kidsfor tomorrow falls beyond our shared responsibility,then democracy is already dead. Thanks, RichardGibboney, for calling the alarm, even if we may notagree on what should be done next.

1. Patricia Cohen, “American Enterprise Institute Names a New Presi-dent,” New York Times, 15 July 2008, p. E2. K

Strong schools upheld and honored by theirown constituents in every community inAmerica are one bulwark of democracy.

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k0809mei.pdfDeborah Meier, Strong Schools Are Essential For Democracy, PhiDelta Kappan, Vol. 90, No. 01, September 2008, pp. 32-33.

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