Setting the Record Straight

The far right's latest efforts to undermine public education

Last week in this space, we explored the right wing's ongoing effort to characterize any public solutions to societal problems (especially publicly funded solutions) as "assaults on freedom." Their simplistic syllogism goes something like this:

Taxes are mandatory on the citizenry - not voluntary; publicly funded solutions to societal problems require tax dollars; therefore, all publicly funded solutions are "coercive" and "anti-freedom."

One fatal flaw in this "logic" (there are obviously several) is the cramped and crude definition of "freedom" that it implies. As we noted last week: 

"But, of course, even a moment's reflection reveals that this assertion is ridiculous - the equivalent of a spoiled teenager's complaint that his "freedom" is unjustly restricted by the requirement that he contribute his fair share to the general welfare of the household that makes his wealth and comfort possible."

Still, despite its many evident shortcomings, the "public solutions = less freedom" argument can be seductive. This is especially true when public institutions or officials have regularly failed or fallen short of their duties. In these circumstances, citizens are sometimes understandably tempted to say "the hell with it" and seek whatever short term solution is best for them, their family or their community - regardless of the big picture or long-term implications of their action for society as a whole.

The challenge of public education

In recent years, few public institutions have been more susceptible to such a response than the education system. Whether it's minority parents disillusioned by decades of second class treatment or parents of special needs kids agonizing over the lack of appropriate services for their kids, it's easy to understand why some people feel tempted to give up. The stakes are so high and the system often so large and complex and flawed that people can become overwhelmed and desperate.

And indeed, while public education is, on the whole, successfully educating more kids more effectively than ever before, there's no denying that many schools (and the people who run them) are bureaucratic, uncaring and unenlightened. There are public school administrators and principals and teachers who've become burned out and cynical time clock punchers. This phenomenon can sometimes carry over to the county and state level - especially when politicians create an atmosphere that encourages officials to practice "spin" and rewards those who provide calm assurances that "all is well" rather than frank or sobering assessments of what it will really take to make the system work. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the equation, many parents have come to have unrealistic expectations of what schools can and should provide. Immersed in an hyper-competitive, consumerist culture that saps their free time and teaches them that all parties must constantly demand the absolute best and cheapest products and services at all times, many people relate to schools like they do the local Target store - with a demanding, adversarial attitude. Not only do they fervently resist higher prices (i.e. taxes) they demand that the schools be all things to their child.

Now overlay this incredibly difficult mix with the siren song of the ideological, anti-government right. This group, which never liked public schools to begin with because of its narrow but fervent stance on "freedom" and religious zeal for the infallibility of the "free market," is only too happy to step into the breach with a magic solution to what ails education: "school choice." In North Carolina, the various Pope, Inc. groups (Locke, Civitas, etc…) constantly bang the "choice" drum and have been joined in recent years by a slick operation called Parents for Educational Freedom.    

Mix in some thinly veiled appeals to ethnic and/or racial insularity and you've got an alluring package of "solutions" - both for the disaffected and fearful on the right and for some well-meaning progressives who've simply lost their patience with (or perspective on) the public schools.   

Recent examples

A few decades ago, the anti-public education lobby leapt right for the jugular by advancing the idea of "school vouchers" - in effect, an effort to directly defund and depopulate the public schools. Rebuffed on most fronts for overreaching, the right soon turned most of its attention to a war of attrition. A key tactic in this effort was the promotion of so-called "charter schools."

Charters, of course, are a controversial type of quasi-public, quasi-private school that has produced, at best, mixed results - both for charter students themselves and for the broader education system (for which charters were supposed to serve as incubators of innovation). Each year in North Carolina, an increase in the state's "cap" of 100 charters tops the far right's education agenda.

Last week at a press event at the state Legislative Building, the Parents for Educational Freedom group touted another pro-"school choice" idea: tax credits for parents of kids with special needs. The idea here is that parents who choose to educate their special needs children in a private school or home school can receive a tax credit of up to $3,000 per semester. To qualify a student must be determined, based on an evaluation conducted by the appropriate public school system, to be a child with special needs who requires special instructional or therapeutic services outside of the regular classroom on at least at daily basis.

In keeping with what has been the pattern with charter schools, the event attracted supporters from across the political spectrum - both hard core privatization warriors and pro-public school progressives who vowed that the issue is not an attempt to undermine public schools by sneaking "the camel's nose under the tent," but rather a sincere and legitimate effort to help kids today who simply aren't being served.     

Going forward

Whether the idea of providing tax credits to special needs parents will ever be seriously considered by North Carolina lawmakers is unclear. Though progressive proponents (and some disability rights advocates) make a sincere case regarding the need to do something on the topic, there are lots of reasons for skepticism.

Like charters, such programs have an uneven (or at least unproven) record. Last year, an independent report on the so-called McKay Scholarships in Florida (the nation's second largest voucher program) found that the program has a lack of "accountability" or "quality control" and had failed to collect much information at all on the performance of the special needs children the program subsidizes.

Even setting the Florida case aside, however, the North Carolina proposal raises lots of tough questions. Federal law already allows parents to send their special needs children to private schools at public expense if they meet a fairly high bar for proving that their child's needs are not being met in the public schools. The point of the proposed state bill appears to be to lower this standard so that many more kids can go. How this would impact the educations system as a whole, however, is not clear. Right now, fully one in eight kids in the North Carolina public schools are classified as having special needs.

Best guesstimates are that perhaps a few thousand children (most undoubtedly with thoughtful and engaged parents) might leave as the result of such a bill. This means that 95% or more of special needs kids would be left behind. What will be the effect on them of siphoning off a segment of children with the most engaged and involved parents? And what will be the impact on the cause of sustained, long-term public school improvement and reform generally?  Who will be left to raise heck within the system and to demand that the public make the kinds of large new investments that are necessary to make the system work for everyone?

These questions lead one back, unavoidably, to the issue of creeping privatization. While the progressive proponents are clearly sincere, the same cannot be said of their allies of convenience on the anti-public school right. These groups and individuals are committed to a long-term siege against the public schools in which they intend to push the system to a tipping point - a place at which the traditional model of public education will no longer be sustainable and the private, "free market" approach will take its place

For those North Carolinians who believe that there's more to freedom and education what we consume, the hope is that lawmakers will proceed with the utmost caution.  

 Email This Post  Print This Post

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 14th, 2008 at 5:06 am and is filed under Setting the Record Straight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.