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Review by Andrew J. Coulson: |
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Professor Arons' latest book convincingly demonstrates how government intervention in
schooling is the central cause of the pitched battles that arise so regularly over public
schools. With reference to dozens of headline-making cases from Florida to California, Short
Route to Chaos explains how parents and community groups have taken-over school boards
in efforts to have their views reflected in their public schools, thus forcing those views
on their neighbors as well.The status of state schools as the official providers of
education, and the obligation of all citizens to pay |
Read the Introduction
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for them, ensures that everyone wishes them to teach the things they value, and
to omit the things they oppose. But since most American communities are far from
homogeneous, these desires inevitably lead to a fierce contention for the power to
determine the contents of a public school education.
Our perennial school wars produce few winners, Arons argues, and far too many losers.
Having made the case for keeping government out of the business
of setting educational standards and curricula, Arons goes on to propose a constitutional
amendment to achieve that end. His proposal, it must be noted, is not supported
empirically as is the rest of the book. It is presented simply as a possible solution.
Based on the historical evidence, it does not appear to be a workable solution. In the
formulation of his amendment, Arons lays the groundwork for a continuation of the current
school wars by including the provision that every child would receive state funding for
his or her education. It is extremely unlikely that the public would accept state funding
of education without state oversight, given the rampant abuse already to be found in
heavily regulated government operations such as our existing public schools and the
federal Medicare program (which, according to the Department of Health and Human Services,
loses $23,000,000,000 every year due to fraud). Throughout the history of schooling,
government funding has always been followed by government control, creating the very
problems which are the main subject matter of Short Route to Chaos.
Arons' diagnosis is impeccable, but his prescription for curing
the ailments of public schooling is at best a placebo. While a constitutional amendment
protecting parental choice in education is an appealing idea, it provides little real
insurance against encroaching state regulation so long as the government continues to pay
the bills. There is a long and unpleasant record in the United States of ignoring the
constitution, particularly in the field of education. The unconstitutional segregation of
public schools by race lasted all the way up to the middle of this century. The rampant
disregard for the tenth Amendment, which reserves for the states and the people all powers
not expressly delegated to the federal government by the Constitution, continues unabated
to this day. The very existence of a federal department of education, when the
constitution does not even mention the word education, is one obvious example of this
violation of the tenth Amendment, and the passage of the federal Goals 2000 act is yet
another. Professor Arons Replies:
Short Route To Chaos is about the
importance of educational liberty for all people, not just for those who can afford to
purchase schooling of their own choice. The book's analysis attempts to demonstrate that
the demise of liberty in education is the inevitable result of the present structure of
public education in America. The book's prescription is designed to provoke more thinking
about the problem of unequal liberty, but it is otherwise unimportant to the work. The
prescription calls for a two-pronged amendment to the US Constitution--a guarantee of
educational liberty and a guarantee of equitable education funding. If there are as good
or better ways to accomplish this dual end without re-constituting American schooling, by
all means let us consider them.
Andrew Coulson is right in asserting that history shows that
governments are very unlikely to fund that which they do not control, though there are
examples to the contrary. The G. I. Bill paid for war veterans to attend school, including
seminaries; but Congress could not regulate the content of those schools. Unemployment
insurance is a federal/state government program, but neither government can control how
you spend your check if you are unfortunate enough to have been laid off.
Still, Coulson is right in suggesting that the forces, rewards,
and habits built into our present public school system have made government control of
schooling content inevitable for the past one hundred and fifty years. Now that
governments at the state and federal level have increased their desire for such control,
and the sophistication of their mechanisms for achieving it, the problem is worse. That is
why I chose Goals 2000 and the national and state school standards movement as a case in
point for Short Route To Chaos.
The forces that make school wars inevitable will not be easily
subdued. Any plan for securing equal education liberty must be based on breaking the
connection between funding and control in public education, but not at the expense of the
poor and middle class. The call for constitutional principles that require all levels of
government to STAY OUT of controlling school content, while simultaneously REQUIRING
states to equitably fund every family's educational choice, is therefore revolutionary. In
the 1770's, the call for democratic self-government in which individual liberties were
protected from democratic control was revolutionary in a similar sense.
Short Route To Chaos is an attempt to step back from the
politics-as-usual that has dominated schooling and school reform since the 1840's. It
suggests that schooling is more like religion than it is like public policy or economic
policy; and should be treated as such under a Constitution that protects fundamental
liberties from the encroachments of political majorities.
Short Route To Chaos is also an invitation to extend the national
discourse about school reform. It argues that because of Goals 2000 and the rise of state
controls we are at a constitutional moment in schooling. It assumes, as democracies must,
that "we the people" are capable of re-casting the structure of schooling in a
way that reduces the school wars and benefits all of us--even if our educational and
political leaders will not and our constitutional courts cannot. It searches for common
ground; and suggests that if we can agree on the analysis of the underlying problem of
schooling, we are capable of finding the mechanisms for remedying that problem.
Andrew Coulson's criticisms add to the discourse. They are
important and should be taken seriously. I believe they are built on an acceptance of the
ends if not the means by which equal educational liberty can be secured.
Professor Arons' reply is copyright (c) 1997, Stephen Arons
Department of Legal Studies
University of Massachusetts, Amherst 01003
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