John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, reports on a discussion between historian Jack Schneider and journalist Jennifer Berkshire about the future of public schools. There is no denying the well-funded effort, supported by the Trump administration, to send public money to nonpublic schools. And yet more than 85% of American children still enroll in public schools.

He writes:

I just watched the annual Education Justice Lecture, “The Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School.” Education Law Centers’ Executive Director Robert Kim moderated the discussion featuring Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider, “The Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School.”Jack Schneider explained that we’ve entered a new era where technology-focused, data-driven accountability has created a new value system. It seeks to promote the private good, not public education. To rebuild our public school culture, we must remember our previous value system, which was about the public good for everyone. The decline of community contacts has led to alienation. Consequently, education advocates are “on our heels,” defending the status quo, despite its increased segregation.

Bob Kim urged us to remember public education’s ties to civil rights. And Jennifer Berkshire, who documents the privatizers’ attacks on public education, but who leans towards optimism, replied that the thing she’s most pessimistic about is enforcement of civil rights. Now, inequality is widely seen as the natural reality

Schneider added that without public education, “you don’t have rights, you have options.” And, we need pluralism.

Getting back to her hopefulness, Berkshire described patterns of responses to President Trump’s policies. For instance, many people support Trump’s immigration policies, in general. But, when they see them enforced at schools, they oppose the cruelties they see with their own eyes.

Schneider cited polling and focus groups that compare and contrast the nationalization of politics, as opposed to school politics. Polls show patterns, where many parents are negative about schools nationally, but give high grades for their own school. After all, parents show up for musical, art, and other events that bring neighborhoods together.

Similarly, most say first we must get back to basics but as focus groups talk with each other, they start expanding praise for diverse subject matters; then, they move on to praising inclusivity.

Both Schneider and Berkshire explained how Democrats should learn from their mistakes in promoting schools. They didn’t want to get bogged down describing the bipartisan No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top that inflicted so much harm on public schools. But, they explained, too many are forgetting the backlash against RttT, as well as NCLB.

So, Berkshire started with “our trap,” our assertions that the only path to a better life is through college. And Schneider focused on bringing our opponents back together with neighborhood schools where everyone needs to listen with each other.

But, he warned that rightwingers aren’t the only people who are predicting that we are at the end of the public education era. For instance, there are members of the Obama corporate reform crew who are still trying to get their “band” back together.

We must get back to the culture that saw schooling as a public good, not a Free Market path to economic success, mostly for the elites. We must draw on the power of communication. It is crucial for life in a democracy which is built on communities that band together.