I earned my Ph.D. in the history of American education from Columbia University in 1975. It is a fascinating field of study, because the early history continues to be relevant to contemporary debates. At present, the nation is led by people who disparage public schools. They know nothing of the struggles to establish public schools that are open to all, supported by taxes, and tuition-free. I was fortunate in that my mentor was the great historian of education, Lawrence A. Cremin. I can’t help but wonder what he would say if he saw what is happening today, with the rise of a movement to undermine public education and turn it over to corporate chains, religious schools with uncertified teachers, home schooling, computer-based instruction, and all manner of substitutes for public schools staffed by qualified and certified professionals. The fact that this destructive strategy is supported by the federal government is simply bizarre.
This report is a useful overview of the early establishment of public education, even before the adoption of the Constitution. The report was written by Alexandra Usher for the Center for Education Policy.
Read the report here.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It occurred to me in perusing this paper that what we are doing with privatizing our schools through corporate-owned charters and vouchers that fund them is outsourcing the education of our children. For a democracy, that’s a little like outsourcing the development of our nuclear codes.
With corporate owned splinter schools, we run the risk of forgetting our shared history and common vision for a better future, which certainly was the intent in establishing an elaborate system of federal land grants for common schools. Do we truly believe that Gluen schools will produce young people that will be part of an informed electorate? Students need to understand the history and civic responsibility of being American, and there is no better place to learn this than in a public school.
retired teacher: Yes. Most here understand the “let’s make money on public schools” movement that is centered on privatization. However, as you suggest, the longer-term threat is to the curriculum.
At least two-prongs in that threat: (1) the quiet omission of a truly democratic education from our schools; and (2) the concerted (and insidious) importation of political and/or religious ideology to schools.
I’ll add an abbreviated analytic reflection about (2) above in a later note.
Also, regarding Laura Chapman’s incisive research, I doubt many in our land understand just how concerted the encroachment has become over the last three+ decades. (Thank you Laura.)
Correction: Gulen
I took a course on the Ohio constitution once. The education piece was fascinating. The establishment of public schools in Ohio actually came out of a “progressive” movement among Christians, most of whom (re) settled here from New England. You can still see the influence in the lay-out of some Ohio towns- they look like they could be in Connecticut.
The transplanted New Englander “progressive” Christians were a good fit with the German immigrants who came later because Germans valued public ed and brought a push toward “universal”.
Do you think ed reformers are starting to figure out that attacking the whole concept of public education probably wasn’t smart, since they’re wholly dependent on public funding?
Threw the baby out with the bathwater, there, wouldn’t you say?
What do they think will happen to their schools after these people get rid of public schools? They think the 1% will line up to pay taxes to fund charters? Fat chance.
Democrats in Congress have retreated so far on public education they were defending whether we should have public education AT ALL last week, a “debate” Ohio conducted in 1890.
Good job! Excellent advocacy! Really stellar work. We’re now reduced to begging for basic civil rights protections. Forget funding or “improving” public schools. We’ll be lucky to have a public school at the end of this.
John King released a statement where he announced “most” children attend public schools, so most children will be harmed by the “choice” budget. This is news to these people? They’re just figuring out that most children attend public schools? Since they know now can they stop attacking our schools in order to push their agenda?
Chiara and All: Perhaps, regardless of what happens in the present “war on public education and democracy,” we should realize that the long-term efforts to diminish history and “civics” education, along with the arts and humanities, across the board, from college to grade school, are still going forward and have been for a very long time.
Some of this ?”lowering” movement is out of sheer ignorance coupled with stupid budgeting from the so-called practicalities that hard-pressed administrators face as they try to do their jobs in a consumer-saturated culture; and some is from a concerted effort (by many cited here, e.g., DeVos, the Kochs, ALEC) to develop and play to authoritarian and “worker” consciousness in the general polity in order to serve corporate and religious interests. (I doubt they would want what the results would be.)
That fuller long-term education, and lack of it, however, is at the center of the questions: Why does the polity not understand the threats they are under? and how to provide access to that understanding?
If so, then whatever present communications are attempted, those communications are up against the problem of trying to treat a long-term problem with a set of short term answers.
The new phenomenon is the richest 0.1% making war against the common good. The idle rich like Melinda and Bill Gates and Betsy DeVos, trample, with impunity, the rights of citizens. Twenty-first century American oligarchs, without conscience, greedily deny the 99%, the right to shape the nation.
The organization (Young America’s Foundation) that funds extreme right wing demagogues for speeches on public campuses, is financed by Charles and David Koch and the DeVos family. (NYT-Stephanie Saul) The false impression that the speakers don’t front for a repressive oligarchy, is created by the media.
Oligarchs sent Robert Spenser to SUNY’s University of Buffalo. A man who was repeatedly referenced in the manifesto of the Norwegian nationalist, convicted of killing 77 kids- kids who wanted to live in a world that was not filled by the hate of the richest 0.1%, has no place opening his mouth, where decent people live, work and play.
Amen
Thank you, Diane.
TRULY.
A great read for Memorial Day. A reminder that it takes more than a military to build a free society.
You should read “The Worth of War” by Ginsburg. A tribe on an island in the South Pacific, attempted to build a society, based on peace. The tribe renounced war, and all forms of military conflict. A tribe from a nearby island, sailed to the island of the peace-loving tribe, and killed them and ate them.
Just try to build a free society, or any type of society without a military, see how far it gets you.
Charles and Greg The ancient Melian Dialogues are a stand-out depicting the conversation between a small unprotected island and a powerful militaristic Greek state. A must read, along with Machiavelli’s “The Prince.”
Would you please reference your anecdote, Chas? Gracias.
You often do point me to the truth. I see where you land, turn 180 degrees, and move toward the correct path.
See for yourself
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20697566-the-worth-of-war
I misspelled the name of the author. It is Benjamin Ginsberg
A little-known fact, is that the Freemasons were instrumental in starting the first public schools in the New World. Even before we were a nation, Freemasons were working quietly, behind the scenes, to establish a network, of “free” (tax-supported) public schools. From Massachusetts to Texas, to California, the first public schools were supported by the Freemasons. see
https://www.freemason.org/foundation/publicEd.htm
The great education reformer, Horace Mann, was a Freemason. The Freemasons pushed the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which established a mandatory allocation for public education in the states north of the Ohio river.
The Freemasons pushed to get the King James bible included in the school curriculum, and to “protestantize”, the new Roman Catholic immigrant children. Today, the Freemasons are fighting to prevent all forms of “parochiaid”, which could provide any financial support to Catholic schools, direct or indirect.
see also
Click to access usher_paper_federallandgrants_041311.pdf
Are you trying to tell us you are anti-Catholic, Chas?
No, I am not. I am a Freemason, but I do not necessarily agree with all of the positions taken by the organizations. The Freemasons were also behind the adoption of the “Blaine Amendments”.
Today I’m staying home on Memorial. My family has actively served in the military. A love of my nation and a sense of duty and service to the community was instilled in me all my life.
Someone asked me recently about my political party. I probably do not have one because of the corruption of Democrats lead by Harry Reid in my state. When Nevada Democrats began methodically attacking and undermining professional teachers and public schools – they lost me forever. The unjust accusation, the removal of due process, the lack of advocacy, the lack of funding and the general disgust of Nevada Progressives up to and including establishment democrats has been alarming. Surprisingly it is the Republicans in my state showing an interest in helping each neighborhood have a decent public school.
Public schools are the protectors of American Democracy.
My duty is to children. Policies and rhetoric and cash have ruined Nevada public schools. Leadership is corrupt and looks for photo opportunities instead of doing anything authentic to help children. Teachers and students are whipped back and forth by bad policies and cash-driven lobbying. Worse yet – teachers have scapegoated for every Nevada social ill. Constant and non-stop vilification in the media.
Public schools are the protectors of American Democracy.
Nevada truly believes its teachers are predatory villians to be captured misbehaving on film. The only stories that are told are vile and gross. Nothing is published about 36,000 staff members going to work and doing heroic things for kids daily.
Public schools are the protectors of American Democracy.
Nevada truly hates women who commit their lives to students. Teachers are used to being unsung. This is something new.
It is unfortunate that politics is ruining what is honest, authentic, and good about America. It is unfortunate that no one wants to listens to the front lines with battles being waged daily in our public schools.
My family has been full of service. Love of nation. Love of neighbors.
I ask no less from the people I elect.
Do not ask someone like me to vote for a unjust and corrupt politician.
Q Public schools are the protectors of American Democracy. END Q
Why do you say this? I am a veteran. I served in nuclear weapons control for two years. I served on a front-line NATO combat base in Germany for two years. No schoolteacher was in that bunker with me. I served with the Army (as a civilian) for ten years, in Iraq/Afghanistan. I sure did not see any school teachers at Kandahar, where two of my co-workers were killed.
All year long, and especially on memorial day, we should honor those who have defended our way of life and our democratic institutions, from Lexington, to Bellau Wood, to Normandy, to Anzio, to Khe Sanh, to Baghdad. NO school teacher is buried in Arlington cemetery. NO school teacher is in our veteran’s hospital with missing limbs. No school teacher is in Perry Point veteran’s hospital with traumatic brain injury.
It is the soldier, not the school teacher that is the protector of our democratic way of life, and our constitutional republic.
It is the sailor, not the preacher, who is the protector of our freedom of religion.
It is the marine, not the reporter, who is the protector of our freedom of the press.
It is the airman, not the attorney, who is the guarantor of our right to have an attorney.
Give credit where it is due.
Charles: It’s not a polemic–it’s both/and, and in their different ways. Both are highly significant. But I agree: give credit where credit is due. You mantra applies both ways.
“NO school teacher is buried in Arlington cemetery.”
I’ll gladly bet you $1,000 that that statement is false.
Chas, your complete militaristic mental complex is such that you are totally blinded by that false patriotism that is the military and it’s death and destruction machine. I’m sorry that you have so internalized and defend that sector of society that only serves to make this country and our allies that much more vulnerable to the death fanatics coming from the countries that we illegally invade and destroy.
Were I a religious man, and I’m not, I’d pray for your soul.
But both you and I will soon be long gone and our beliefs with us. That is life.
Charles you are seriously ill . You also have little understanding of our democratic institutions where civilian control is paramount .
It is not much a stretch, to say that the founder of the University of Virginia was perhaps our greatest TEACHER, was never a warrior and was responsible for much of what we refer to as our Democracy . This is what he had to say :
“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”
Further I would guess that there have been millions of school teachers since the Revolution that served their country, both before and while being a teacher.
I would also like to remind you that the Third Reich, the Soviet Union ,
and a slew of other brutal authoritarian regimes , enlisted millions in service to their countries which is not the same as being a protector of Democracy .
As that it is Memorial day I will not go into the list of American endeavors overseas that were not like WW2 .Were the good guy was easily discernible .
I will not go into the list of American endeavors over seas ,that Washington and Eisenhower, two of our greatest Generals warned about. Where our own involvement had nothing to do with Democracy and tens of thousands died or were injured for a questionable war.
Duane E Swacker
I need a typing course to beat you to a response.
There are school teachers buried at Arlington. There are veterinarians, and computer programmers, and grocers, there too. Take my remarks in context.
The politicians who gerrymander, should hide their heads in shame everyday but, particularly on Memorial Day, July 4th and Veteran’s Day. They should experience the people’s wrath.
One of our nation’s finest soldiers, was also a school teacher. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who earned the Congressional Medal of Honor, at Gettysburg, during the War between the States. see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Chamberlain
There are many school teachers buried in our national cemeteries.
Charlie is right. When teaching, I don’t protect Democracy. I support it. We’re talking about words, here. The people who protect it are elected, though. The military is great, but it doesn’t guard ideas. The military protects not Democracy but us and our stuff. Words.
It’s good when people have words — and ideas. That’s why “public education was created by a collaboration of federal, state, and local governments.”
Oh, and I almost forgot, not to take away from the gravity of Memorial Day, but there was a teacher who died in Normandy saving Private Ryan.
Six degrees to Matt Damon.
“Saving Private Ryan” is fiction. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was real.
Charles, if the soldier is the protector of the American way of life then why did so many in the military support Trump, and thus, indirectly, Russia?
@Joel: Are you a doctor? If not, then do not diagnose me. I have a thorough understanding of our constitutional republic, and our democratic institutions. I studied government thoroughly in college. I have lived in a communist/socialist country (I enjoyed diplomatic immunity). My apartment was at the corner of Mao-Tse-Tung drive and Kim Il Sung drive. I have lived under Islamic Sharia law (I did not enjoy diplomatic immunity). I agree with Churchill: Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.
I am big fan of Thomas Jefferson. ( I live in Virginia, where he is an icon). You are quite right, he was never in any army. He spent the entire revolutionary war, camped at Monticello. Regardless of his lack of a military record, his contribution to our republic is unquestionable.
I lived in Germany, and I know their history thoroughly. True, millions were “enlisted” in service to the Nazis and the Soviets. While some people supported these regimes willingly, there were many many more, who were compelled to support them.
Q Charles, if the soldier is the protector of the American way of life then why did so many in the military support Trump, and thus, indirectly, Russia? END Q
Good question. I honestly do not know the answer. (See, I do not know everything). I am certain, that part of reason lies with the fact, that many (not all) military persons were opposed to Hillary for commander-in-chief.
From Open Secrets:
“Active and retired members of the military have been showing far more support for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton than for her Republican rival, at least as measured by the checks they’ve written to her campaign.”
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/11/members-of-the-military-giving-three-times-as-much-to-clinton-as-to-trump/
CNN Exit Polls for 2016
http://www.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls
Served in the U.S. Military
Veterans – 34 percent voted for Clinton vs 60 percent for Trump who talks tough (all lies) but dodged the draft during the Vietnam War. Veterans are the troops that fought in combat.
Non-Veterans (this means they served in the Military but did not fight in a combat zone)
50-percent voted for Hillary and 44 percent for Trump.
What about actual numbers? Well, for every combat vet there are 7 support troops that do not see combat.
“In todays US Army there are 7 people in support of every solider in combat”
http://www.answers.com/Q/How_many_military_personnel_does_it_take_to_support_one_combat_soldier?#slide=2
In 2015 there were 18.8 million military veteran sin the United States. 11.5 million vote.
That means 1,437,500 were probably combat vets and the rest were in support roles when they served. That adds up to about 10 million that were in support positions or were stationed in other countries where there was no combat.
https://www.infoplease.com/american-veterans-numbers
Projecting those figures further.
862,000 combat vets voted for Trump vs 488,750 for Clinton
5,000,000 non-combat vets voted for Clinton vs 4,400,000 that voted for Trump.
Totals
Trump: 862k + 4.4 million = 5,262,000
Clinton = 5,488,750.
Clinton beat Trump by over 200,000 votes from all military veterans in the US and had more money donated to her campaign.
It really does help to fact check from reliable sources to come closer to the truth. Anyone that relies on the hate-filled, biased, racist, misleading Alt-Right media will never know the truth, but that will not stop them from being fools and using misleading claims that support what they want to think.
This is an example of how easy it is to make misleading claims by not reporting all the facts.
Perhaps you could explain this as the ‘supporter of Public schools ‘. you claim to be . Because I am having a little difficulty with the facts . Now I don’t know much about Nevada . Nor its Public Schools ,but it would seem, you are to be generous, only telling part of the story. Granted attacks on Public Schools are in vogue in both parties. but it is hard to rectify your statement .
“Surprisingly it is the Republicans in my state showing an interest in helping each neighborhood have a decent public school.”
With the reality of Nevada’s public schools, some of the poorest performers in the nation. A state whose supreme court ruled that the vouchers were unconstitutional in that they would by nature take money that should have gone to public schools . Stating they would need a separate source of funding .to comply with the states constitution.
Perhaps if Shelly Adelson and Donald Trump paid a little more in taxes, both income and property there would be more money for education .
Nevada would be 37th in the nation in terms of funding per child. Of course there is no state income tax in Nevada . But we will assist the children of the wealthy to take advantage of vouchers to get away from those Government schools.
http://www.rgj.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/20/republicans-unveil-new-education-savings-account-bill/99433980/
or this
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/29/nevada-school-voucher-account-program-unconstitutional
or this
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2014/feb/11/nevadas-school-funding-formula-among-culprits-late/
Today I’m staying home on Memorial. My family has actively served in the military. A love of my nation and a sense of duty and service to the community was instilled in me all my life.
Someone asked me recently about my political party. I probably do not have one because of the corruption of Democrats lead by Harry Reid in my state. When Nevada Democrats began methodically attacking and undermining professional teachers and public schools – they lost me forever. The unjust accusation, the removal of due process, the lack of advocacy, the lack of funding and the general disgust of Nevada Progressives up to and including establishment democrats has been alarming. Surprisingly it is the Republicans in my state showing an interest in helping each neighborhood have a decent public school.
Public schools are the protectors of American Democracy.
My duty is to children. Policies and rhetoric and cash have ruined Nevada public schools. Leadership is corrupt and looks for photo opportunities instead of doing anything authentic to help children. Teachers and students are whipped back and forth by bad policies and cash-driven lobbying. Worse yet – teachers have scapegoated for every Nevada social ill. Constant and non-stop vilification in the media.
Public schools are the protectors of American Democracy.
Nevada truly believes its teachers are predatory villians to be captured misbehaving on film. The only stories that are told are vile and gross. Nothing is published about 36,000 staff members going to work and doing heroic things for kids daily.
Public schools are the protectors of American Democracy.
Nevada truly hates women who commit their lives to students. Teachers are used to being unsung. This is something new.
It is unfortunate that politics is ruining what is honest, authentic, and good about America. It is unfortunate that no one wants to listens to the front lines with battles being waged daily in our public schools.
My family has been full of service. Love of nation. Love of neighbors.
I ask no less from the people I elect.
Do not ask someone like me to vote for a unjust and corrupt politician.
While I support public ed over much that seeks to undermine it, how to educate a child is entirely the right of the parent. To broadly lump homeschooling and religious education with fraudulent charter schools and sham on-line outfits is in some ways unfair and where I respectfully disagree. We are still a free nation. Although the word “choice” has been co-opted to seduce people into making unwise choices, parents do still have other choices that for them may be a better option than their local public school.
As long as my Government dollars fund nothing other than Government schools you have every right to educate your children where you prefer.
Agreed — public dollars should not be used by private entities.
But just to play devil’s advocate, what if people who refused to attend public schools withheld that percentage of their local taxes?
tribucks It’s the same question, on principle as this: Should you withhold a certain amount of your taxes because, say, you don’t use the highway or, if you are a vegetarian, the meat inspectors? Or the courts, and so on, and so on, and so on?
Tribucks,
In the small town where I live, I don’t use any public services. Never had a fire, don’t use the public schools, don’t use the public library. Should I pay no taxes?
Given the statistics on child abuse for kids who are homeschooled, society has an obligation to protect them. Also, society has a responsibility to protect its members from kids who have had an education exclusively delivered by a Timothy McVeigh, a White supremacist, a Nazi, etc.
Valid concerns .
I haven’t seen any such stats so maybe you could provide them.
Regardless, just because a small percentage of homeschooled kids are “abused” (like to see your definition there too), you can’t lump all homeschooling in the same basket. How would you like it if the homeschool crowd lumped all public school teachers in with those who have abused kids, slept with them, neglected them. etc.? I wouldn’t and I bet you wouldn’t either.
I think you both may have missed the parts where I agreed about public dollars and then said “devil’s advocate.”
Of course you have to pay the taxes where you live. You choose to live there and you get what comes with it, good and bad. That doesn’t mean you can’t choose to hire a private fire squad when the city’s is underperforming. You can choose to drive instead of take the bus because it’s slow or icky. But it should all come out of your own pocket in addition to the taxes because it’s your choice.
I think that the economic worth of education and market-based customer choice is about the only thing that matters today in federal policies. Studens are viwed as human capital, schools are to be used to promote the economic growth and competitiveness of the nation.
The “partnerships” (federal state, local) that once opened up federal lands as grants for public institutions, including public education and other uses for the “common good,” have been replaced by a view that these assets should be given over to privateers so they can be exploited for profits and contribute to the economic growth of the nation.
Anyone who questions the drive to monetize the “worth” of our social or civc services, and shared public benefits is declared to be anti-American, opposed to free markets, willing to kill off innovations and opportunities for entrepreneurs.
Higher education programs are now to be measured by their economic value–return on investment–for individual students.
Pre-school programs are marketed as financial products with low risk and a high return on investment (if properly managed). These financial products are called social impact bonds also called pay for success contracts.
The EdTech Industry is brazenly moving forward unchecked, with online learning and non-stop data-gathering. The profits from hard and software and sales of data for marketing is attracting venture capitalists looking for guaranteed profits.
Federal, state, and local dollars flow into into STEM and STEAM programs, into entrepreneurial courses and projects as if these activities will prepare students for college and careers….and a life where knowledge of the institutions of our democracy are not needed or actively disparaged…. the lying press, the courts that obstruct the CEO president.
Citizenship is not different from being a customer. Call your city hall and someone says: “Customer service. How can I help you?”
Billionaires have construed public education as monopolistic, in need of deregulation, and better corporate management, and thinking of schools in a district as a portfolio of schools, and of course just closing down and selling off or reconstituting the “underperforming” schools in a portfolio
The corporate mindset leads people who shape policies for education to seek CEOs to lead schools. In this role they should look for more bank for the buck, any best practice that can be developed or “replicated” and “at scale.” Corporatists are so unaware of this market-mindset that they do not even recognize how “replication at scale” is a variant of the factory model of education they are eager to condemn. The Corporatist seems to believe that franchised schools with a “brand” are wonderful investments and also merit tax breaks.
In otherwords, the history presented in this paper seems to understate the realities of the day, that the civic and social benefits of education are totally subordinate to economic measures.
Christopher Cerf would reflect that corporatist inclination. His tenure as NJ Commissioner of Ed didn’t do much for students. His current role as state-appointed Superintendent for Newark Public Schools may not benefit students either.
I think it is a safe bet that America’s Founders would be shocked to discover that America’s public sector, including its community-based, democratic, transparent, non-profit public schools are under assault by autocratic, private-sector, for-profit corporations without the elected federal and state governments doing little to nothing to stop the corporations and even supporting this piracy.
Both Jefferson and Lincoln warned against what has ultimately happened.
Too bad public education wasn’t written into the U.S. Constitution. But how could our slave owning founding fathers have devised a socialist concept that would have included even the completely disenfranchised? That public education and public utilities happened at all in the U.S. is a miracle. Let’s now let the small minded, corrupt Republicans extinguish the last socialist virtue in the country.
“Let’s NOT let …” of course in that last comment.
How could the Founding Fathers, both slave owners and those who did not own slaves because they did not all own slaves, have known that the rural population in the late 18th century that was 94-percent would be 25-percent in the 21st century?
Historian Richard B. Morris in 1973 identified the following seven figures as the key Founding Fathers: John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.
One of the greatest contradictions of the Founding Fathers was their disunity with regard to slavery at a time that they were seeking liberty for themselves.
In her study of Thomas Jefferson, historian Annette Gordon-Reed emphasizes this irony, “Others of the founders held slaves, but no other founder drafted the charter for freedom, ”
In addition to Jefferson, George Washington, John Jay and many other of the Founding Fathers practiced slavery but were also conflicted by the institution which many saw as immoral and politically divisive.
Benjamin Franklin owned slaves (though Franklin later became an abolitionist).
John Jay would try unsuccessfully to abolish slavery as early as 1777 in the State of New York but was overruled (though he would later sign the Gradual Emancipation Act into law while Governor).
Alexander Hamilton opposed slavery, as his experiences in life left him very familiar with slavery and its effect on slaves and on slaveholders, although he did negotiate slave transactions for his wife’s family, the Schuylers.
John Adams, Samuel Adams, and Thomas Paine never owned slaves.
How could the Founding Fathers have known about the telephone, the radio, the TV, the Internet, Blogs, the hate filled, racist, misleading, lying Alt-Right media machine and so much more that has changed since their time, and I wonder what they would think about global slavery today?
The 21st-Century Slave Trade
And that thousands of those slaves, who are forced into the sex industry are children and young women, are smuggled into the United States, most of them through Houston Texas.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/11/us/the-hunt-john-walsh-diaz-juarez-texas-sex-slave-human-trafficking/
Here’s the essence of the article linked to by Diane:
“Many of the founders viewed education as a primary way to ensure citizens were prepared to exercise the freedom and responsibilities of a democratic society…there was a general consensus in favor of using public funds to support public schooling for the common good…a public school that would be the catalyst for instilling and furthering these democratic ideals.”
This is exactly what public schools should be focused on now. Not on “college and careers.” Not on SATs and ACTs and Advanced Placement. Not on STEM.
It sure does seem to me that the American Republic is at a crossroads. We have in office an ignorant despot who has little to no understanding of or commitment to democratic values, placed there with the aid of Russian intelligence agencies.
One of our major political parties is dedicated to eradicating science and to funneling money from public treasuries to the already-rich.
If now isn’t the time to return to schooling for democratic ideals, then when?
Diane In case this gets overlooked, from the Op/Ed page of today’s Los Angeles Times:
ALL QUOTED BELOW
School vouchers will test our democracy
BY JONAH EDELMAN AND RANDI WEINGARTEN
President Trump wants to siphon billions of dollars from public schools to fund private and religious school vouchers. It’s an idea that’s bad for kids, public education and our democracy.
Today, vouchers are used by less than 1% of the nation’s students. Trump and his Education secretary, Betsy DeVos, want to change that. Trump’s new budget proposal would make historic cuts to federal education spending, while diverting $1 billion into voucher programs — a “down payment” on his oft-repeated $20-billion voucher pledge. We believe the president’s plan would deal a terrible blow to public schools and to the 90% of America’s children who attend them, while doing almost nothing to benefit children who receive vouchers.
Although our organizations have sparred and disagreed over the years, such is the danger to public schooling posed by Trump’s embrace of vouchers that we are speaking out together on this issue. The Trump-DeVos effort to push vouchers, or something equivalent through tax credits, threatens the promise and purpose of America’s great equalizer, public education.
At a time when low-income children make up the majority of public school students, we as a country must do more to support families, teachers, administrators and public schools. Trump’s plan would do the opposite.
Public schools have never fully recovered from the Great Recession. Research, common sense and our collective experiences working with children, families and schools tell us that we must invest in, not cut back, public education. That means providing high-quality preschool for kids, and the social, health and mental health services they need. It means making sure students are reading at grade level by the end of third grade; that they have powerful learning opportunities, including career and technical training that can prepare them for college and work; and that they are guided by well-supported teachers and other education specialists. It means addressing the federal government’s deep underfunding of special education and building a culture of collaboration among teachers, administrators, parents and communities.
The Trump-DeVos budget and voucher plans, while still lacking in details, would eliminate more than 20 education initiatives, including after-school and summer programs, career and technical education, teacher professional development and funding to lower class size. Public money would go instead to schools that lack the accountability and civil rights protections of public schools. DeVos alarmingly fueled these concerns during a congressional hearing last week, when she repeatedly declined to say the Department of Education would withhold vouchers from schools that discriminate, including against LGBT students or students with disabilities. She similarly sidestepped questions about accountability.
We believe taxpayer money should support schools that are accountable to voters, open to all, nondenominational and transparent about students’ progress. Such schools — district and charter public schools — are part of what unites us as a country.
Champions of an essentially unregulated, free-market approach to K-12 education, including DeVos, counter that theirs is a better path to helping students in need. But the facts show that where vouchers have been put into practice on a meaningful scale, they hurt student learning.
In April, the research arm of the Department of Education released a study of the federally mandated voucher program in Washington. It showed voucher students did worse in math than similar public school students, and it adds to a growing body of education research that concludes that vouchers may harm rather than help student achievement. In fact, the results of voucher tests, compared with other reforms, are the worst in the history of the field, according to Kevin Carey, education policy director at New America.
Administration officials have suggested what amounts to a “back door” way to increase the reach of vouchers: tax credits for corporations and the rich who contribute to third-party voucher funds. The nation’s School Superintendents Assn. looked at states where such credits are already in place and found that, in some cases, the donors have been able to make a profit off the backs of taxpayers and ultimately kids. And what Carey calls the “shell game” of moving money through these funds makes it difficult to account for how the money is spent.
The Trump administration’s perverse priorities are increasingly clear: Impose the biggest cuts to federal education funding in memory and slash support to poor children and families by cutting Medicaid, food stamps and other programs, all while cutting taxes for the rich. It is an agenda that betrays millions of families seeking a better life, and one at odds with what this country stands for. Public schools are a fundamental engine of opportunity in this country. We will stand together to defend them.
Jonah Edelman is chief executive of Stand for Children, which advocates for quality public education. Randi Weingarten is president of the American Federation of Teachers. END QUOTED MATERIAL
CBK,
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