What Happened to Logic?
Vouchers and democracy – polar opposites!
Growing up in the 50’s and 60’s I well remember what was a meme half a century before the invention of the term: “The United States – where anyone could one day grow up to be President!” The truth of this statement was supposedly tied to both democracy and the availability of education to all. Another memory from my youth is comparing the white schools to the black schools before segregation in Georgia. My first problem with politics and logic was the phrase ‘separate but equal’.
There is a similar logic in labeling vouchers as ‘school choice’. Voucher schools are not limited by federal laws, as are every other school that receives federal money! Discrimination is not just allowed, it can be part of the charter. Your kid has anything remotely like a disability your voucher is worthless. Voucher schools specifically don’t want students hard to provide for; and are not required to do so; as are every other school that receives federal money! The choice part of ‘school choice’ is entirely on the part of the school. For many, the voucher school will choose you – you’ve got money. If you don’t understand that the voucher idea is all about somebody getting rich on the government’s dime it’s way past time to start paying attention. Large amounts of federal cash and none of those pesky regulations and laws to worry about; the scam artist’s heaven on earth – especially the oligarchs who are just next level scam artists.
What the christian nationalists have managed is a guarantee we will be rethinking and changing many traditions in education that were never thought to have alternatives. We are in the process of learning what a ridiculous boondoggle vouchers are, but the problems that generated them will not be gone, just worse.
The Constitution says nothing about education, the word never appears. Nevertheless there exists a significant amount of judicial precedent based on previous cases involving education. Repeatedly the Court has proclaimed there is no right to education in the Constitution. The 10th Amendment has been interpreted as reserving the power to govern education to the states, allowing them to set policies. Additionally the Court has held the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment requires that states provide equal access to schooling for all children. It is this last that the voucher proponents ‘re-interpreted’ to their own purposes and which we who wish to continue public education will have to define far more clearly.
Democracy as a form of government requires access to education for all: A truth acknowledged by our founding fathers. Public education today is failing to provide this education: Voucher proponents, parents, business leaders and teachers – yes teachers – have found here a point on which they all agree, one of very few. Vouchers are not the answer to this failure: Education is expensive; and the idea government can afford to pay for each individual taxpayer’s dream of ‘a perfect education’ defies logic. When logic shows vouchers to be untenable, the forces that created them will be looking for answers.
While there is a consensus that public education is failing to educate our children, how to address this failure; the cures needed, what is being done wrong, who’s responsible, indeed the purpose of education itself lacks any agreement at all. Unless and until we come to grips with this complete mish-mash of rhetoric and grandstanding to come to some understanding of what is supposed to be done, there can be little hope for improvement.
Those who support public education appear to approach the issue as not a problem, just everybody get out of the way and let’s get back to what we were doing. The fallacy here is the teacher shortage: If everything is hunky-dory why are teachers continuing to leave the profession in droves and the prospects for new teachers coming to replace them diminishing. As a teacher for 36 years who retired in large part because of the problems facing education and the fact that rather than working towards solutions, they’ve been made dramatically worse, I can assure you THAT is what is causing teachers to leave – and they will continue to do so in increasing numbers.
The other side wants to privatize education and here is where the complete lack of logic is laid bare. The cost of education is approaching a trillion dollars yearly. Logically, what is the chance that private education can undertake the trillion dollar price tag? The chances are slim and none – and Slim’s packing to leave town, as the adage goes. The real aim of privatization is to return to the time before public education, when education was a privilege of the wealthy, and the poor were meant to fill the jobs that kept the rich in their superior position. Clearly an educated, knowledgeable work force will figure out they’re being taken advantage of, and that’s bad for business.
Every autocracy in the world aims first to control access to truth through the press – today social media is included. Education is never in the interests of an autocracy. THIS is why the educational crisis in the US – actually it is in many ways worldwide – is both so dangerous and worthy of our attention. From a logical approach privatized education and providing equal access to education for all children could not be further apart. Whatever you privatize becomes accessible only to those who can afford it. The pretense that the tax dollars you pay for education, when returned to you, will make any education affordable is a pipedream of criminal proportions. So what does ‘school choice’ mean: first is a nice little tax rebate for the wealthy who would never send their child to a public school anyway; second is a degradation of public schools through loss of funding – at a time when a good quality education is becoming ever more expensive. ‘Privatized education’ will not eliminate public schools because there are far too many people who can’t afford any private school, not to mention the parents of a child with special needs, for whom there is no private school willing to undertake the admittedly large expenses attached to those needs. These public schools will become decidedly second tier – ‘separate but equal’ making its return. The difference: in the 50’s the white schools were at least still paid for by the citizens who recognized that an educated people were of benefit to the society overall, while now to receive an education will mean spending personal funds. Private schools are, by definition, more concerned with profit, and it behooves us to consider who that profit will go to; the relationship between profit and quality of education; and the likelihood of dramatic cost increases for such schools.
This brings us to the states’ requirement to provide ‘equal access to education for ALL children’ which the Supreme Court – at least in the past – has claimed the Constitution demands. Vouchers and privatization in general could not be more antithetical to this precept: Yet democracy demands such equal access or the phrase “All men are created equal” is just so many words bereft of meaning.
