Big Schoolmaster

By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

When I got started in the Right of the 1950s, federal aid to education was controversial. My side argued that the strings attached to the aid would bring federal control. The Left pooh-poohed us.

Today, with the monstrous Department of Education fastened on American education, government officials openly advocate not strings, but ropes.

One recent strand was the innocuous sounding but deadly dangerous "America 2000 National Goals for Education" promulgated by President Bush. There was little controversy when he announced these goals, for no one questions the notion that the central government should set goals for the education of American children.

As expensive as they are utopian, the National Goals assume that every child has equal capacity for learning, even though intelligence, character, self-discipline, will, and other traits are not evenly distributed. The purpose of such a lunatic assumption has nothing to do with its truth, however. By guaranteeing that schools will always fall short of the government's goals, such an assumption justifies unlimited meddling.

GOAL ONE: "By the year 2000, all children in America will start school ready to learn."

Amidst federal talk of "early intervention strategies," this means that childrearing will be supervised by social workers and other bureaucrats. Already, legislation is being discussed in the Bush administration to authorize government visits to all new parents.

GOAL TWO: "By the year 2000, the high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90%."

This is a warrant to dumb-down standards and curricula even further. Most American public schools are already an intellectual wasteland.

GOAL THREE: "By the year 2000, American students will leave grades four, eight, and 12 having demonstrated competency in challenging subject matter, including English, mathematics, science, history, and geography, and every school in America will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well, so they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our modern economy."

All students learn to use their minds well? This is more egalitarian folly. In addition, since the feds will design the tests for grades four, eight, and 12, they will effectively determine curricula and teaching methods.

"By the year 2000, U.S. students will be first in the world in science and mathematics.">

GOAL FOUR: If not, the feds will take over. P.S.: I'm not holding my breath until U.S. students as a whole beat Asian and European students as a whole.

GOAL FIVE: "By the year 2000, every adult American will be literate and possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship."

Every adult? This justifies unlimited money for special programs.

GOAL SIX: "By the year 2000, every school in America will be free of drugs and violence and offer a disciplined environment conducive to learning."

No drugs or violence? It can be done. American schools were like that in the 1950s, but the cultural foundations of decency have been eaten away by the Left-State combine.

Before the federal government attempts to put this goal into effect nationally, let's try a test. The central government has a constitutional responsibility for the schools in Washington, D.C., unlike those in the rest of the country. First, the feds can abolish drugs and violence in the D.C. schools, and then they can talk to us about Wyoming and Alabama.

America 2000 also envisions public schools of a Stalinist type to "parent" children from their preschool years until college, and provide nurturing and "non-school services" before and after normal school hours. The same set of teachers and social therapists would stay with each group of children through the years, with the specific intention of becoming imitation parents. This, from an administration that calls itself "pro-family."

"When Barbara holds an AIDS baby," said Mr. Bush in his State of the Union speech, "it tells all Americans that family values are important." No, Mr. President, it tells us nothing of the sort. It may tell us about charity, or political hype, but it tells us nothing about families, any more than your education goals tell us about learning. They are, instead, just a few more steps on the road to omnipotent government.

Given Bush administration policy, it's time to reconsider school choice as well. The original idea, promulgated by Milton Friedman, sounded good. Parents would get an education voucher they could "spend" at any federally approved institution. Such a plan would, we were told, force public schools to compete with each other and with private schools. President Bush has allocated $500 million in his new budget "to support this growing movement" – not the only reason to be suspicious. In fact, "choice" will undermine the independence of private schools.

In today's public schools, parents fit into one of two categories: superfluous or "trouble- maker." They have no control over what their children are taught, even if it contradicts their religious or other deeply held beliefs.

Private schools offer an escape, and a real education besides. But perhaps not for long. Schools that accept even one vouchered student will be subjected to massive federal regulation of their curriculum, admissions, academic standards, and disciplinary code.

Frank R. Kemerer, an education law professor at the University of North Texas, Denton, points out in Education Week that private schools have long had to fight for their independence. The Supreme Court in Pierce v. Society of Sisters in 1925 ruled that bureaucrats can "inspect, supervise, and examine" private schools and "their teachers and pupils," to make sure that "certain studies plainly essential to good citizenship" are taught, and that nothing taught is "inimical to the public welfare."

A decade ago the Supreme Court reaffirmed Pierce when it upheld Nebraska's shutdown of a Christian school and jailing of its principal, who was also pastor of the local church. His crime? He had used parents as teachers. They were motivated, hardworking, and well educated, but they didn't have state licenses. Religious freedom, said the court, is no defense against state regulation.

These intrusions happened without government funding. What will happen with vouchers? One precedent, says Kemerer, is HUD's housing vouchers. When a landlord accepts a tenant with a voucher, he comes under an incredible array of regulations telling him to whom he can rent, at what price, for how long, under what conditions, how much upkeep he must do regardless of tenant vandalism, and when and if he can cancel the lease.

Economics professor Estelle James of State University of New York, Stony Brook, has studied school vouchers all over the world and found the same pattern. Whether in Holland, France, Belgium, or any other country she looked at, private schools that accept vouchers become semi-public.

In the U.S., school choice will mean that private schools can't offer distinctive curriculums. Christian and Jewish schools may have to water down their doctrinal teachings. Now will schools be able to control their admission standards. All-girl schools will have to include boys, and vice versa; fundamentalist schools will have to accept non-believers, and vice versa.

Just as the new Civil Rights Act makes it illegal for companies to use any test that has a "disparate" impact on minorities, private schools will find themselves accused of discrimination unless their admission, scholarship, and honors programs are ethnically proportionate. Discipline too will have to be administered on a quota basis.

There are other reasons to oppose school choice. It can't create – any more than Gorbachev could – a free market in a socialized industry. It will subvert the decent public schools left. And it will cost a bundle.

As American education has become more centralized, it has also become more left-wing, more dim-witted, and more anti-parent. Only one small area of freedom remains: the private school. Nothing is worth subverting that freedom.