Thoughts on Public Education
Photo credit to CRA Architects
Public education is one of the great achievements for the working class in the United States in the 20th century. Education from early childhood development to graduation from high school is crucial to the success of our democratic republic. Without education in the arts, sciences, and civics we can expect the rise of illiteracy, disease, and a decline in our standard of living in the United States. The rest of the world will pass us by forcing the importation of scientists, engineers, doctors, and artists. Without education in civics our constitutional form of government and the rule of law would be lost to the rule of whim and whatever a would-be dictator or oligarchy says it is.
Assuming education of our children and young people is crucial to the nation’s success and its future as a democratic republic, we must invest the necessary monetary resources in the people and facilities to create the best possible learning environment. I believe what we invest will be returned in the quality of the high school graduates produced going into the work force, liberal arts colleges, advanced technical schools, or the military.
I opposed the privatization of public education both from the perspective of fairness to working class families and from the viewpoint of private educational institutions and the implications to them of accepting public funding.
The use of “vouchers” or other conveyance of public money for the purpose of investing in sending students to private educational institutions is manifestly unfair to the children of working class and low-wage families. Many of these families cannot afford to attend private schools even with the help of “vouchers” or other method of public funding for each student. Taking money out of public schools to invest in privatized education unfairly takes resources away from maintaining public school facilities and paying good teachers for the families that cannot support sending their children to private schools. Effectively, that means wealthier families in public funded private schools are “more equal” than working and struggling low-wage families.
From the perspective of both religious schools and secular charter schools, if they receive public funds, they are then subject to the dictates of the state. Ways that those dictates could play out is that private educational institutions would, by definition of being publicly funded, not be allowed to exclude anyone. Privatized public education would have to expect regulation by the state verifying the efficacy of monetary expenditures and budgeting as well as monitoring adherence to mandated curriculum and staff pay scales. Fairness would require that religious educational institutions accepting state funding could not exclude any religious practice or teaching – a requirement that many schools based on teaching a particular religious practice would find unacceptable. Another potential consequence of accepting public funding of private education is a requirement to support teacher and staff unions negotiating for wages, healthcare and retirement benefits, and working conditions. My expectation is that most of these consequences would be unacceptable to private schools especially for religious private education.
Let’s keep state funded education public and well resourced! Our children – everyone’s children in Pennsylvania – are worth it!
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