Johann Neem is author of Democracy’s Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America. He teaches history at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington.
A Plea for the New School Year- Johann Neem
I am so excited for the new school year to begin. I admit that I am a bit sentimental when it comes to public schools. That’s because public schools are one of the few institutions that almost all of us have been through, which means that the experiences of schooling connect us within and between generations. There are the common schedules and rituals. There will be the first day of school. There will be school pictures. There will be holidays and dances. There will be field trips. And, of course, homework and tests. It’s part of the growing up experience in America. In a diverse society, it’s easy to focus on our differences. But public schools not only bring diverse people together, they give us something to share for a lifetime.
As we head back for another school year, then, I hope that we can put aside some of the loudest and most extreme voices of our partisan culture wars. Actually, most Americans want the same things. We want our kids to have a fair shot. We want our kids to be part of a shared national community. We want our kids to be challenged, and also supported. We want our kids to be safe.
That’s why public schools, I still believe, can bring us together.After all, the overwhelming majority of parents support their local public school. And for good reasons. There is strong evidence that public schools are effective for students at all income levels. Yet partisan rhetoric has eroded support for public schools. From the right, advocates of parental rights and privatization urge parents to find schools that reflect their familyvalues, rather than see the schools as places where we forge common values. But too many on the left, including many educators, also question whether we Americans can share the same histories, holidays, values, and rituals. In the name of cultural pluralism and diversity, they challenge the public schools’ longstanding mission of socialization.
We need to keep the faith. As an immigrant, I know that public schools can be our welcome mats. Our nation has had, and still has, its share of nativism and prejudice, but what other nation welcomes so many people from so many different backgrounds? In public schools, we all become Americans. We read the same books, eat the same cafeteria food, play the same games, studythe same subjects, and get to know each other.
So this is my plea for the new school year. We will always argue over what we should teach, and in a democracy we should. But let’s enter this year focusing on what we share and what binds us together, rather than what separates us. There is so much pulling us apart today. It’s a shame that our public schools have become one more thing to fight over because we need them. We benefit individually and collectively from an educated public.
As the new school year begins, I hope we can all take a deep breath and remember that despite all their flaws, despite all our disagreements, at some deeper level, we Americans all agree that the rituals of American schooling—the academics, the bell schedules, the band concerts, the football games, the fieldtrips, the prom decorations—define us. We maintain them because they maintain us.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Public education is a unifying, successful way to educate most of our people. Our public schools are largely the responsibility of the states. What happens when state governments are taken over by radical extremists? Libraries are shuttered; books are banned; teachers are monitored, reprimanded and even fired. When extremists control the narrative, public schools can become conduits of misinformation.
Florida recently adopted the use of PragerU videos in its public school classrooms. Mother Jones posted an interesting analysis of a Prager video on climate change. It is full of misinformation and lies. Why should public schools be forced to use material that attempts to indoctrinate our young people against factual science and history? If you have a couple of minutes, this video from a climate scientist analyzes all the misstatements in this PragerU video. As I am writing this, Florida is getting ready for Hurricane Idalia to hit its Gulf Coast. Public schools should not be deliberately teaching politicized misinformation.https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2023/08/prageru-climate-skeptic-science-florida-education/
Refreshing, spot-on message! We need to develop a Leap Manifesto for Public Schools similar to the Leap Manifesto developed in Canada to address climate change. Like John Luke Picard, we need to engage and “Make it so!”
The fact that public schools unify us as a people is precisely why they are targeted for destruction by the billionaires and others who want to keep us at each others throats so we won’t notice that they are stealing every penny from the public coffers.
The billionaires increased their wealth by over a trillion dollars during the pandemic while the vast majority of us lost wealth.
They don’t want anyone to notice that they used the pandemic as an excuse to rob us blind.
And are still using “supply chain issues” and “worker wages” and even the war in Ukraine as excuses to gouge the public and keep prices on food, gas and other essentials artificially high.