We don’t need no education

May 13, 2005

Matt Yglesias recently suggested that LA Times editor Michael Kinsley intentionally hires dim-witted conservatives to write painfully dumb op-ed columns to help make the right look ridiculous. I was skeptical, but thanks to David Gelernter’s latest piece, I’m largely convinced that Yglesias was on to something.

Discussions of school choice and vouchers nearly always assume that public schools are permanent parts of the American educational scene. Increasingly I wonder why. Why should there be any public schools? […]

What gives public schools the right to exist? After all, they are no part of the nation’s constitutional framework. Neither the Constitution nor Bill of Rights requires public schools. And in one sense they are foreign to American tradition…. Today’s public schools have forfeited their right to exist. Let’s get rid of them.

Predictably, Gelernter offers the usual conservative tirade against public schools — they teach respect for diversity, they sometimes tell students about bad things America has done, etc. — but the substantive points are almost beside the point. Gelernter devoted an entire column, in one of the nation’s leading newspapers, to explaining why voucher opponents are right about conservatives’ policy goals.

For years, the school voucher movement has argued publicly that taking money away from public education to subsidize tuition at private schools is somehow good for public schools. Critics would point out inconvenient facts — such as the fact that the claim doesn’t make any sense — but proponents would insist they’re right.

Occasionally, voucher opponents would suggest that the ultimate goal of voucher programs is to ultimately do away with public schools altogether. Sensitive to political realities, conservatives would reject such talk as wild paranoia.

Once in a great while, a voucher advocate would let his or her guard down. For example, Jerry Falwell once slipped and said, “I hope I will live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!” This, however, was a rare admission; most voucher advocates will at least pay lip service to the idea that public schools serve a valuable role and deserve public support.

We’re fortunate, therefore, to have Gelernter tear the mask off the charade with a poorly written rant that advocates the abolishment of public education. A special thanks to Michael Kinsley for allowing such inanity to appear on his op-ed page.

maybe i’m slow but i just realized after reading this that private accounts in social security and vouchers in education are exactly the same tactic designed for exactly the same result — the elimination of the program they are supposedly “helping”.

  • Our public schools actually predate the country. Their necessity has virtually never been questioned until the arrival of today’s right-wing fruitcakes.

    In the early 1800s, as the Industrial Revolution made it evident that British schools (then all private) were not producing the requisite educated workforce, Parliament debated whether to follow the French (revolutionary) and US models and take on the governmental burden of public education. A major opponent, the original propagandist for no-holds-barred capitalism Herbert Spencer, published “The Proper Sphere of Government” (1842) precisely to oppose creation of public schools. He feared such schools could, over night, evaporate the centuries of tradition (“the wisdom of prejudice”) which made proper society function. He was mistaken — as any teacher can tell you, schools have very limited capacity to change society (or even most students, without help from their families). In spite of Spencer’s well-reasoned (if misguided) arguments, that Dickensian era parliament created a solid system of public education. Public education remains the essential “human capital” input for all modern societies the world over.

    Nutcases on the right who want to do away with public schools remind me of nutcases on the left who want to do away with modern markets and technology, somehow returning us to economies which could never sustain the earth’s 6+ billion people. Talk about having your head in the sand (leaving your true self exposed).

  • I think Matt Yglesias gives Michael Kinsley too much credit, albeit with tongue firmly in cheek, I’m sure. Painfully dumb conservative columnists are the inevitable result of the painful and deliberate dumbing down of conservative thought and education by their extremist leaders.

    Their purpose was to make it easier to gain and hold power among the sheep-like masses. What they’re left with, however, are just a bunch of stupid people mindlessly repeating the nonsense they’ve been programmed with. They simply don’t have the intellect to maintain the illusion of superiority they have thrived on up to now and it’s really starting to show.

  • In one respect he is right there is nothing in the Constution about schools so ok they go (along with all the million +1 things that the govenrment does that aren’t directly covered in the Constution). Then what? Seriously. He throws this crap out there – like we haven’t heard this before – and then says nothing. He is likely one of those conservatives that complains about the Democrats haven’t come up with alternatives to the pResident’s Social Security plan. He throw the granade in the room to clear it out and come in like a conquering hero to fix things and look like the hero.

  • smiley,
    If you have a chance, you might want to do some reading about arch conservative Grover Norquist. Here is a link to an interview with him over at Mother Jones Also, if you search the Carpetbagger archives Steve has some information on him.

    After you read the article then start making comparisons with what is going right now, privatization of Social Security, cuts in Medicaid, just about everything that might be considered in the realm of a social program is fair game. All the benefits that we derive from government are subject to being turned over to a free market economy in the fantasy land these lunatics reside in. Some even argue that Barnes and Noble would do a better job of providing books to the public as opposed to public libraries.

    In earthquake terminology there are 2 parts to the earthquake, 1st is the focus where the plates start moving, 2nd is the epicenter where the ground vibrations from the plate movement are felt. Norquist is part of the epicenter to the right-wing earthquake. Once you learn about this poster child of right-wing extremist thinking you’ll get a much better understanding of the reasoning behind a lot of current legislation.

    And Steve I hate to keep harping on this one individual, but he surely is a window into the real so called conservative agenda.

  • Mark, to screw with the libertarian “get rid of government” nuts like Norquist, maybe we should give them exactly what they want – get rid of all government. In it’s place we will install a public corporation – The United States of America, Inc. – and instead of taxes we’ll just send them a bill for services rendered. All public schools will be private and mananged by the company that will send everyone a bill for ignorance removal services.

    Norquist’s anti-government, anti-tax mantra should be recognized for what it is: an earnest attempt to turn this nation into a third world country.

  • Peter,

    I’m getting ready to drive out to my brother’s house for a little family get-together. I’ll be traveling on one of the busiest streets in my small city. Pardon me while a take a moment to reflect on some of the benefits that I will recieve from government while I make this journey. A road to travel on that I helped finance with gas taxes, a reasonable expectation that when I come to that goverment financed traffic control device that cars going one direction will stop while the light is green for my direction, and if another car should decide to collide with my vehicle a policeman will come and issue a ticket to the offender and they will be held responsible for their error.

    If someone would like to follow up to my post with why they think that a corporation would be better fitted to handle these tasks I would be interested in hearing what they have to say.

    Somehow whenever I go off on one of these diatribes, the words in the public interest and commonwealth come into my thinking.

    Thanks to Ronald Reagan, supply side or free market economics have become the love child of the right. I think that this is one of the biggest lies ever perpetrated on the American public.

    I think that most of the readers here recognize what the larger fight is, if only the other half of the country would get a clue.

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