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[This piece is somewhat disjointed and repetitive in places, having been
written in bits and pieces over a few days. But I don't have the time to
reorganize it all. I'm satisfied that the argument presented is coherent and
well substantiated factually, even if stylistically inelegant.]
S Artesian writes: "So... are we supposed to be against public education?"
What a pretty word, "public" education!
But what is the reality that hides behind that word?
A bourgeois state monopoly that imposes unequal, discriminatory, education,
EDUCATION AS PREDATION, where Blacks and Latinos in inner cities are crammed
into pre-prison institutions designed to break them into servile slaves and
where only half or fewer even complete a miserably inadequate course of
studies. But even among relatively more privileged layers, it is first and
foremost NOT education but indoctrination, the inculcation of an ideology
designed to preserve and re-enforce imperialist domination and privilege,
exploitation and oppression, and capitalist rule. Even what might be
considered "education" strictly speaking has been sharply curtailed and
crippled so as to minimize the risk to the bourgeoisie of challenges from
the masses generally but especially from the intelligentsia in training,
despite the fact that this ill-serves the increasing need of the bourgeois
economy for technical, professional and scientific cadre.
Sartesian argues: "We aren't against public health measures because the
state administers that program. We aren't against libraries because cities
administer those. We aren't against access to clean water because the state
regulates that program."
But those analogies all break down. What Sartesian shows by presenting them
is that he does not understand the central issue involved, which is
POLITICAL, who is in control and what ends that control is used for.
We are "for" public libraries but most decidedly AGAINST the state
censoring or dictating the content of libraries instead of leaving it to
autonomous institutions staffed by professional librarians who are
influenced in choosing what to make available by the interests of the users.
We are for public health but AGAINST the state meddling in medical matters
(abortion! contraception! condoms! needle exchanges!); those should be in
the hands of medical personnel who base their actions and policies on
scientific knowledge. (And in the case of the treatment of an individual, in
consultation with that person, of course.)
As for clean water and even garbage collection, these are quite different as
they are not institutions mostly or at least significantly guided by or
meant to reproduce bourgeois political/ideological/cultural hegemony (but we
most certainly DO object when on the basis of bourgeois ideology the state
sticks its nose where it doesn't belong, e.g., the brou-ha-ha against
fluoridation some decades back.
And how do things stand with "public" schools compared to libraries and
hospitals? Are schools autonomous entities functioning with state financing
but with educational professionals in charge and influenced, among other
things, by the interest and desires of students and parents? Do the
newspaper editorialist rage and progressive-minded elements of the public
rise up in protest when government bodies try to dictate to schools what
they should or should not offer, as happens with libraries?
Even in the form of a question, the idea doesn't pass the giggle test.
Through myriad mechanisms, from direct positive law at the federal and state
level, school district board policies, to less transparent mechanisms (such
as the stranglehold Texas censors have over what goes into textbooks) public
schools are not merely financed by the bourgeois state, they are RUN by the
bourgeois state in a very intentional fashion. It may be that the conditions
do not yet exist to significantly challenge, much less break the state
monopoly of education especially as applied to the most oppressed layers of
the working people. But it is nevertheless a shameful capitulation to
bourgeois liberalism to support this state monopoly with the excuse that we
are defending the right to an education unburdened by high --and for many
families, impossible-- economic costs.
Getting society as a whole to assume responsibility for the cost of the
formal education of the new generations and appointing the
bourgeois-imperialist state headmaster in chief are two different things.
* * *
For some, the big enemy of "public" education is school choice. But what is
wrong with freedom of choice in schooling?
How does God make it so that a government school, and the one just down the
street --oh happy coincidence!-- is the IDEAL one for ALL the children who
live in the neighborhood? Or never mind ALL the children -- let's just focus
on the ones I am responsible for. My children. How does a George Bush,
Barack Obama and/or the Congress, state legislature or local school board do
that, without as much as a by your leave to me, who knows a little something
more about that child than any of them, and without the aid of experts who
might be able to provide some insight on whether a given school is a god fit
for a particular child?
Of course, "Marxists" are terrified that if parents are free to choose,
parents will choose wrongly. They will send their kids to Papist schools,
they cry in alarm.
But I believe people have a *democratic right* to send their kids to papist
schools.
That's because I would like the democratic right to send my son to a school
where he will be shown that all the TV cop show/civics class folderol about
a jury of your peers is a despicable lie: virtually everyone in prison, 19
out of 20, have been railroaded behind bars through plead bargaining, a
procedure that in *civilized* imperialist countries would put both the
prosecuting and defense attorneys who attempted it, as well as any judge
that permitted it, in a cell.
I would like a school that would organize a field trip to the local
courthouse to see a truly CRIMINAL "justice" system at work. So that
students can see FOR THEMSELVES the defendant perjure himself when he pleads
guilty and responds affirmatively to the judge when the robed reactionary of
the ruling rich asks him the pro-forma question of whether the defendant has
pled guilty because he IS guilty, and FOR NO OTHER REASON. So the students
can understand that this perjury has been suborned --a felony criminal
offense-- by the prosecuting and defense attorneys, both officers of the
court, who worked out a deal to drop more serious charges in exchange for a
guilty plead to lesser ones; that the judge is perfectly aware of this
subornation of perjury by the officers of his or her court and actual
perjury in the courtroom and not only tolerates it, but encourages and is in
fact an accomplice in this criminal enterprise; and that the guards and
other sworn law enforcement officers normally present are completely aware
of these felonies and do nothing to bring the perpetrators to justice;
indeed, they would be fired if they even made the suggestion, never mind the
attempt.
And that it is the government with THIS system that has the unmitigated gall
to criticize Cuba for jailing the paid agents of that government for
cooperating with the openly-proclaimed, half-century-long-policy objective
of that government of overthrowing the Cuban government.
I indulge in this fantasy digression as a way of suggesting that I may not
be 100% in agreement with some of my critics who have pointed to the
excellence of the education their children received in U.S. public schools
or question whether really the US roiling class uses its public schools to
try to inculcate imperialist ideology.
Moreover, this opposition to school choice is in reality only opposition to
school choice for some.
The bourgeoisie and a lot of the middle classes, the socio-economic and
culturally privileged, and most of all of the white anglo nationality,
already HAVE school choice in one form or another.
One of the main ways, of course, is the freedom to choose your public school
by buying or renting in the "right" neighborhood. And this is simply a
function of your nationality/"race," legal standing, and degree of economic
privilege -- all objectionable criteria.
Magnet/charter schools with selective admissions --which automatically make
them MORE accessible on average to the privileged rather than the most
oppressed-- are another mechanism of school choice for certain layers.
There is in my area an elite DeKalb [county] school of the arts, among other
"magnet" schools, where entrance is by performance/exhibition to judge
artistic talent. Enrollment is limited to 300 students {in a system with
more than 100,000 pupils, 30,000 of them high school students!), and barred
to those with a grade average lower than B- or who have ever failed any high
school or middle school course, even if they passed it later. Requirements
include at least four teacher recommendations, two academic and two artistic
and all referencing the candidate's "character."
You might think that, being an arts school, the environment is relatively
freer, but that is not the case. There is a systematic attempt to limit
rights based on "academic performance," which as we know includes a large
degree of brown-nosing. You can't run for student council, for example,
unless you have a 3.0 or higher average and have fulfilled a quota selling
ads for school publications. To make extra sure, the student candidate is
required to get two endorsements from teachers certifying that s/he
"demonstrates leadership potential." Criticism of the school, its policies,
practices or other candidates is prohibited and disqualifies you. To be
elected you must be on the administration-approved ballot. Write-ins are not
counted.
(And what a coincidence! According to county election officials, write-ins
are also not counted in general elections in DeKalb County. Thus even
though I wrote in Nader-Camejo back in 2004, there were no write-in votes
recorded for them --nor any one else-- in my precinct. But I digress.
Again.)
Another example of PUBLIC school choice for those with the cash: the Decatur
City schools, which are superior to most of the County schools that surround
the city, accept out-of-city students on a tuition-paying basis, but the
tuition is $6,000 a year -- pricey, but only half that of "normal" private
schools [$12,000/year] or 2/3rds the rate non-Catholics pay at Papist
academies (about $9,000 a year).
Yet even Decatur schools aren't available to EVERYONE who wants to
tuition-in and can afford it:
"City Schools of Decatur will accept tuition applications on a case-by-case
basis, using the criteria set forth in board policy:
"(1) Said student is in good standing with the school previously attended,
having demonstrated consistently good attendance, satisfactory discipline,
and the readiness/qualifications for the grade/program in which he/she is
seeking enrollment.~ A student who has withdrawn from previously attended
school to avoid any form of disciplinary action may not enroll in the City
Schools of Decatur.~ A student withdrawing for poor attendance or
unsatisfactory academic performance may not enroll in City Schools of
Decatur." <http://www.csdecatur.net/tuition/>
We all know -- or should-- the social coloration of such policies about
"good standing" and "satisfactory" behavior and "qualification" for the
grade the child would be enrolled in.
* * *
Sartesian insists that "As far as American education designed to defend and
promote the interests of the enemy class, well yes & no. It is the gutting
of the education system that the ruling class sees as protecting its
interests, not its ideological conscription into American firstism."
I've already alluded to the alleged aversion of the ruling class to using
their schools to promote their lies.
But as for the rest, the long-term policy of the U.S. ruling class has been
precisely the OPPOSITE of "gutting" the k-12 public education system. The
real [constant dollar] per student spending on primary and secondary
education has roughly QUADRUPLED in the past half century, and DOUBLED since
1980. It is now around $10,000 or more per child for current operating
expenses more when capital budgets and state administrative costs are
included.
This implies a yearly increase, ON TOP of compensating for inflation
(typically around 3% a year) of an ADDITIONAL 3% yearly increase over this
period, although closer examination shows the rate of increase was a little
higher in the earlier decades (3.5% in addition to increases to make up for
inflation) and a little lower in the more recent ones (2.5%).
In the state I know best, Georgia has dramatically increased its per-pupil
school expenditures, and the median current expenditure on a per-student
basis here is pretty much the same as the national median.
Yet Georgia, AFTER decades of improvement, and moving UP in the listing of
per-student expenditures, NOW has a lower graduation RATE than in the
1980's. And in RELATIVE terms, its graduation rate used to have it in 41st
place among the states and District of Colombia in the bad old days of
underfunded schools relative to national averages. Now, thanks to this
concerted effort to upgrade, it ranks 49th (thank God for Mississippi and
Alabama!).
But here is the most significant and revealing fact: DESPITE a huge increase
in average national constant-dollar per-pupil spending over the past three
decades (from $5,400 in the 1980-1981 school year to $9,400 in 2005-2006 in
constant FY 2007 dollars), educational achievement has been DECREASING. This
is the summary by two Harvard economists of their research into 100 years of
US education:
"The supply of educated Americans increased greatly and almost unceasingly
from 1900 to around 1980....
"But after around 1980 the supply of educated Americans slowed considerably.
The sluggish growth in the educated workforce in the last quarter century
has
been mainly due to a slowing down of the educational attainment of those
schooled
in the United States, rather than to an increase in the foreign born
component of the
workforce.
"The slowdown in the growth of educational attainment has been most extreme
and
disturbing for those at the bottom of the income distribution, particularly
for racial
and ethnic minorities." [Goldin, Claudia and Lawrence Katz (2008) The Race
Between Education and Technology The Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press.]
Various statistics bear this out, including *American* [US-born/raised] high
school and college graduates (however not so total college graduates as
these include increasing numbers of imported students, disproportionately
concentrated in fields like engineering, science, medicine and so on). The
numbers and the actual quote are from a study focused on Georgia which is
here: <https://www.georgiafamily.org/upload/ReturnonInvestment.pdf> This
study, by the way, is quite instructive and well worth reading. That is also
the source of information about Georgia graduation rates cited earlier.
It should be added to this result that the age cohorts that are now
approaching or reaching retirement age have an increasing percentage of
college graduates compared to the immediately preceding cohorts of retirees.
Not only does the economy need increasing TOTAL numbers of workers with
college degrees, it needs increasing numbers of college graduates just to
*replace* those leaving the labor force. (See, for example, this study
analyzing the impact of this problem in Minnesota:
<http://www.mnprivatecolleges.org/userFiles/File/Research/hs_grad_projection
s.pdf>. It projected as of 2004 that by 2010, that state would no longer be
producing enough graduates to both replace retirees and fill new positions,
and by 2015, it would not be producing enough graduates just to replace the
retiring ones, never mind filling new positions.
The national figures for average per-student "current" [i.e., operating]
expenditures in constant 2006-2007 dollars for selected years beginning in
1960-61 are here: <http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66>
The 2006-2007 figures comparing the median, 5th and 95th percentile school
district per student operating expenses by state are here:
<http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/revexpdist07/tables/table_03.asp#f2>
Finally, it may interest people to look at some 2006-2007 numbers for the
100 largest school districts, including enrollment, total expenditures, per
student current expenditures and so on. Those are here:
<http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/revexpdist07/tables/table_07.asp>.
Among other interesting things, this last table shows that the suburban
metro Atlanta Cobb and Gwinnett county schools --which are relatively better
among those of the metro area-- spend almost identical amounts per pupil --
$8,800 and change.
The very high achieving non-Atlanta Fulton county schools, which have five
of the state's top ten high schools in terms of average SAT scores, spent a
little more: $9,400. The more checkered non-city of Atlanta DeKalb county
schools (students living in DeKalb or Fulton County but within the city
limits go to Atlanta city schools) $10,100. Yet the frankly catastrophic
City of Atlanta schools spend substantially more per pupil -- $12,745.
But before you draw the conclusion that the more spent, the worse it gets,
look at the coveted City of Decatur schools, which spent roughly $13,741 per
student that year. (The figure isn't in the federal reports because the
District is so small, but it can be found in the state's hard-to-read but
nevertheless illuminating spreadsheet for the corresponding school year,
which can be found here:
<http://app.doe.k12.ga.us/ows-bin/owa/fin_pack_revenue.display_proc>.
* * *
As this glance at the metro Atlanta numbers show, the idea that financing is
the main variable driving ups and downs in at least the conventional
indicators of educational quality simply is not supported by the data.
In fact, from what I know about different school districts and individual
schools in my area, provided the data is available I have little doubt that
it would be possible to establish a very strong correlation between
socio-economic status of the families of the students (with some adjustment
for nationality) and the performance of the schools the students go to as
measured by graduations rates, standardized tests, number who go on to
college, etc., and, significantly NO CORRELATION AT ALL, NONE WHATSOEVER
between per pupil expenditures and these academic achievement indicators at
the range of levels of per pupil spending in this area (roughly
$8,800-$13,800).
For example, THE STUDENTS of most of the 20 or so DeKalb county high schools
are Black and poor, with some admixture of immigrant Latinos or Asians in
one or another campus. But three of the "regular" (i.e., with geographically
determined student bodies) high schools if I remember right are middle
class/professional and somewhat whiter and they do qualitatively better, as
do the magnet schools like the DeKalb school of the arts.
Thus SAT [college entrance "Scholastic Aptitude Test"] scores of seniors,
which includes only those that consider themselves to be college bound,
average around 1300 for the district as a whole. But for the five or six
"best" schools [including magnet schools], which are also the more middle
class schools, which are also the "whiter" schools (although anglo students
aren't necessarily more than perhaps 40%), the average scores jump up to
1650 or so, and this is the average of a much larger percentage of the
student body (anecdotally I'm told a majority) than take the test in other
schools. I've also heard --but not seen actual numbers myself-- that some
DeKalb schools have only a fifth of the actual graduating class taking
SAT's. When you take into account that in these areas, half or more of the
students drop out, we have the SAT test takers representing roughly the TOP
10% of the graduating-age youth of the catchment area of the high school.
I'm told in some cases the average scores are 1,000 or 1,100. (Older people
who went through the US school system should remember that current SAT
scores max out at 2400, not 1600 as in the olden days. So if you're thinking
that 1,000 isn't THAT low, you have to translate that to today's range of
scores by adding 500.)
So much for funding and education quality in the metro area. But in
addition, it must be said that given the pretty constant INCREASES in
funding (in real terms) over many, many years, the idea that the poor state
of US education can be traced to underfunding due to cutbacks is simply a
myth.
That said, RIGHT NOW there is a generalized school budget crunch throughout
the country because of the recession. Unlike the federal government, states,
cities, counties and school districts do not have the capacity to, in
effect, print money to cover deficits. I'm not sure whether all state
constitutions bind their governmental units to balanced operating budgets (I
believe Georgia's does), but as a practical matter, that is pretty much
imposed by economic realities. Operating deficits are unsustainable and
therefore loans to cover them are unavailable in financial markets.
Unless the feds --and the Fed!-- run the printing presses overtime and send
suitcases of cash to state and local officials, economic slowdowns and
recessions will inevitably cause acute budget crunches for local governments
with the possible exception of those that set up reserve funds instead of
cutting taxes or expanding spending in "good times" (which a few --but very
few-- did).
But leaving aside the conjunctural economic downturn, the longer-term
TENDENCY has been to increase BOTH funding AND federal, state and local
political attention to the education of children.
This raises the question, what is really going on?
Sartesian says the ruling class wants education gutted.
This is facile and unserious. The evidence is OVERWHELMING that the ruling
class wants even better education than now. Educational improvement is the
holy grail of many if not most foundations run by actual, card-carrying,
certified members of the ruling class, like the Rockefellers, Bill Gates and
Warren Buffett. Top-flight ruling class universities and think tanks invest
HUGE amounts in trying to figure out how to improve education. There have
been countless local, state and national private and public education
studies and commissions (above I cited just a couple of state studies, for
Georgia and Minnesota, but I can assure comrades detailed Google searches
will unearth piles of studies for any state or aspect of public education
you care to investigate).
More evidence? We scribblers and hacks in the bourgeois media routinely fall
back on bemoaning the state of education, stridently demanding improvements,
and earnestly presenting "solutions" [utter quackery as often as not, of
course], especially when we have no mass murder, celebrity scandal or
terrorist attack with which to goose ratings or circulation. This
corresponds to what the owners of the media, and the ruling class generally,
want done, not to the interests, concerns or information available to
reporters.
For example, what I related above about the systematically criminal way the
American justice system operates is common knowledge in every local newsroom
in the country. But how many times have you seen a "special investigative
report" about it, or even a three-paragraph item alluding to it buried at
the bottom of page 17 of your local paper? Although it is (usually) not a
conspiracy or management diktat what does and does not get covered, it is
VERY DEFINITELY a product of the working of the machinery of ruling class
political-ideological hegemony.
And the LINE of the ruling class --there is simply no question about it, to
say the contrary is idiotic-- is to promote and prioritize education.
On local TV news, reports by Margaret Mascara or Joe Blowdry on everything
from the deplorable state of high school band uniforms to declining SAT
scores are as much an integral component of news programming during "sweep"
weeks (which determine ad rates for local stations) as prefab teenybopper
pop "stars" are of the Disney channel's lineup.
So WTF is going on? If the ruling class demonstrably WANTS better education,
has backed up this desire with money, focused public attention on the
problem through its media, unleashed its experts, academics and even
supposed entrepreneurs to achieve the goal, why isn't it happening?
I believe the reason is that the ruling class has put itself into a wicked
contradiction. Not just some educational approaches of the 1960's, but the
whole zeitgeist associated with the "new frontier" and "counter-culture"
that we call radicalization terrified the ruling class.
Against this spirit, not just of rebelliousness but of inquiry, which breeds
rebelliousness, of demanding rationality and explanations that make sense,
of being encouraged to understand and think things through for yourself,
against this whole complex of cultural attitudes, habitual practices,
educational methods and so on, both the educational system as such, and the
broader ideological-political-cultural consensus building/creating/imposing
apparatus of the ruling class has been deployed since the 1970's.
In education it started with "the three r's" and "back to basics," escalated
throughout the 80's with "accountability" and "standards" which meant
"teaching the test" and culminated with the Democritan-Republicrat
abomination and fraud of "no child left behind."
And I should stress this is a broad social phenomenon, not just a punctual
drive in one field -- education. It is what the various "culture wars" that
have constantly flared up for three or four decades have been about, and a
huge part of the reason for the execrable shape of what passes for "news"
and "public affairs" programming today.
David in his post criticized my comments about the education of my son and
daughter by saying, "what I read from JB is 'academic' in the worst sense of
the word."
Perhaps. But I rather think he missed the point. For example, about
relativity: my daughter learned --from a Ph. D. in physics, BTW-- the
"facts" about relativity in what was supposedly a college-level physics
course open only to the most outstanding students at one of the top ten
public high schools in the state, one largely populated by the children of
academics and professionals. But what she learned was what answers to give
to questions that might appear on standardized tests. She did not learn the
theory of relativity, which would require understanding, and a very
different way of approaching teaching and studying, a very open ended way
involving challenging, questioning, looking at things from different angles
that even if introduced only in the studies of sciences and math can have
very unpleasant side effects for the ruling class when extended to looking
at society, as the 1960's showed.
Something similar can be said of the geometry my son is taking, and the
algebra courses that preceded it. We were just watching the DVD of the movie
"{proof}" and in talking about it, I realized not just that he can't DO
mathematical proofs in the course he is taking. In fact, he does not KNOW
what a mathematical proof IS.
While watching the movie, I noted that the last sentence of the text the
lead character in the movie is shown writing, something like "But X is
true!" suggests the proof she had done was a proof by contradiction, which
showed a very fine attention to detail by the writer/director to make the
movie real even for people currently studying math or those with knowledge
of the field.
He was left completely at sea by my comment. And when I explained what this
sort of proof was, it became clear that he was at sea because he did not
understand the concept of proof itself. He has not been exposed to it. He
is, I think I mentioned, at a very academic private high school and recently
got back PSAT scores that ranked him at almost the 80th percentile among
11th graders who took the test, except that he is not a junior, he is a
sophomore.
While his main interests are in drama and similar, his are the same
college-prep courses and teachers that a future programmer, scientist,
engineer or financial analyst would take. And you certainly can't BEGIN what
I would consider college-level studies in those fields without having
already understood and absorbed the concept of mathematical proof. But more
to the point, I think it would be much, much harder to develop an interest
in a math-intensive field if you'd had to advance as far as my son has done
in the study of mathematics learning it all as something like a series of
religious incantations, magical formulas and tricks without inner coherence
or development, without the cleverness and elegance of the proofs that make
it all hang together.
And indeed, precisely this is constantly highlighted by bourgeois studies,
that U.S. high school graduates now are not nearly as interested in math,
engineering or science university studies as the baby boomers were or even
those entering college 15 or 20 years ago. Of course, with the typical
golden calf idolatry of free market ideologists, many of these studies then
conclude the problem is engineers don't make enough money or the croupiers
on wall street make too much. Of course, if that were true there wouldn't be
a single liberal arts college program left in the country, never mind acting
courses.
This sort of math and science teaching is the result of the bourgeois drive
for "back to basics," learning "skills" (instead of developing
*understanding*) and equating "quality" with being able to answer questions
on national standardized tests.
But I believe there is absolutely *no point* to such "teaching" in math and
science -- if developing top-level scientists and mathematicians is your
aim. Knowing disconnected STATEMENTS of conclusions drawn from the theory of
relativity without any understanding of relativity itself is worthless for
anything EXCEPT driving most students AWAY from serious engagement with math
and sciences. It is like designing literature courses to teach students
lists of what books were written by which authors and what prizes they won
as a result, complemented --for extra credit-- with an index of important
characters in these books and a sentence or two to be memorized about each.
It's like studying the history of rock n roll without listening to Chuck
Berry.
Given this overall framework, then the differential results between, say,
the Atlanta city schools and OTHER districts in this same metro area need to
be examined. Yes, the City of Decatur spends $1,000 more per student than
Atlanta and Decatur schools are far superior to Atlanta ones. But Fulton
county schools --which include the greatest number of top-ranked [by average
SAT scores] public high schools in the state (including five of the top
ten)-- spend $3,600 less per pupil than Atlanta, and Gwinnett and Cobb
County, which together have 7 or the top 25 high schools, spend almost
$4,000 *LESS* per student than Atlanta (which has *no* schools in the top
25). But beyond district comparisons, WITHIN districts there can also be
great variability that is not due to any difference in spending that is
visible in the schools or the accounting spreadsheets.
What's going on?
The answer is not that some people are competent at running schools and
others are not. The same local ruling class runs these schools through their
various political apparatuses. In Decatur for a long time it was a
far-left-Democrat (a Michael Harrington "socialist"), that spearheaded the
upgrading of the schools whereas in Atlanta it's been a more or less
continuous Black political machine dating back to the institutionalization
and ossification of the civil rights movement after the assassination of
Martin Luther King. It has presided over the decline of school indices as
white folks with children and even Black middle class families have
abandoned the city. In the suburbs, the controlling machine is dominated by
Republicans, including quite a few of what I call "flat earthers" -- Bible
thumping creationists and their ilk. ALL of these answer to one and the same
local ruling class; however, the differences in personnel suggest something
about the true state of affairs, which is that they have somewhat different
jobs to do.
In the mostly Black Atlanta schools, job #1 is to break the spirit of the
children, extinguish their curiosity, place them in a tightly regimented
environment. I learned this when my daughter started school at the age of
four. We sent her to the local public school. Her mother and I had very
carefully chosen it, moving to the proper neighborhood the year before.
Moreover we considered ourselves very lucky because our daughter was
assigned to the classroom of what was supposedly the best teacher. My four
year old daughter's first interaction with that teacher was to be scolded
for taking a toy from a shelf without permission. I believe that somewhere
my daughter still has a paper from that first day of school. The teacher
asked if any of the children could write their names and Carmen could. She
came home crying because her teacher had told her she'd written it wrong and
drawn this red line through it -- it was all capital letters, instead of
capitals and lower case. The school had no playground -- recess (for four
year olds!) consisted of marching around and doing exercises in formation.
The SIZE of that school -- and Atlanta grammar schools generally -- was
determined by operational efficiency of bus transportation and in serving
lunches in the cafeteria, so Carmen had lunch at 10:30 in the morning.
The curriculum --this was the first week of kindergarten!!-- was based on
sitting at desks and using pencils to mark up ditto sheets. So, for example,
instead of counting coins, the students were taught to count *drawings* of
coins, which is contrary to the most basic ideas about early childhood
education that you learn as a freshman in college if you study anything like
child psychology or related fields (as my daughter remarked yesterday when I
was reminiscing with her about this). It was explained to me the reason for
this regimentation by ditto sheets was so that if a teacher was out, another
one could step into his or her place without the slightest difficulty.
Then I noticed other things about the school. In kindergarten, the student
population was about half Black, half anglo (back then Atlanta's Latino
population was tiny -- the immigration boom was just getting off the
ground). By second grade the classrooms were pretty much all Black. The
catchment zone of this school was both north and south of the proverbial
tracks, but within a year or two, white families with small children had
either moved (normally to the suburbs) or put their children in a private
school (as we did, except we didn't take two years to do it -- we moved her
after two weeks).
I used to joke about what was this person doing teaching school when Janet
Reno was in such need of jack-booted thugs, but of course that was the
point. This was not a "school" as socialists who in reality have this
bourgeois-liberal affection for "public" schools might idealize them, but a
training ground for subservient servants and the future prison populations.
OUTSIDE the "inner city core" --not just Atlanta but also South DeKalb
County-- the schools do honestly and consciously prioritize and emphasize
trying to prepare many/most of their students for college and eventually
office/professional/skilled technical/managerial and so on careers. But here
you very much then run into the ideological straightjacket that's been
imposed, not just on education, but on the culture as a whole against
open-ended questioning, challenging authority, trying to understand opposing
or unpopular points of view. To that you can add the absolutely massive
sewage floods of bourgeois lies, frauds, scams ... in short, ideology ... in
courses on history, economics, civics, etc.
* * *
To sum up: It is NOT TRUE, it is counter to well-documented facts, that
there has been a significant defunding of public education in the United
States, over a period of several or many years. When talking about long term
trends, precisely the OPPOSITE is the case, despite the current squeeze,
which is pretty much the automatic result of a deep economic crisis that
ruling class operatives and the ruling class itself neither foresaw nor
wanted, and not some sort of "plot" or "offensive" against "public
education." It makes as much sense to talk about a bourgeois ruling class or
government attack on public education because of this budget squeeze as it
does to talk about the attack on the housing market or the construction
industry. This is capitalism. Shit happens without the need for a conspiracy
to bring it about. Of course, inherent in the government financing
structures is the reality that the ruling class places a higher priority on
some government activities (repression through imprisonment, world
domination through imperialist aggression and war) than on others
(education). But this is true as much in "good times" as it is now.
It IS true that American education has been stagnant-to-declining for
DECADES despite steadily increasing funding and "despite" (but in reality
because of) increased attention to education by ruling class politicians,
think tanks, and so on. This is most clearly reflected in the "bottom line"
-- the failure of the United States to produce from among its native born
population sufficient numbers of the highly skilled and highly educated
technical and scientific cadre the economy demands, and the resulting need
to mass-import not just this sort of highly trained labor power, but also
suitable candidates for such training.
The reason for this is NOT that the ruling class does not WANT much greater
numbers of such highly skilled workers and professionals to emerge from
among the native-born population. It most decidedly DOES, as is shown by the
statements of its top political leaders, studies by universities and think
tanks, the philanthropic hobbies of gizzillionaires which reflect the
interests, concerns and desires of the actual members of the ruling class
very directly, and, it should be noted, the sustained increase over many,
many years in per student public school spending at the K-12 level.
The REASON all this has proved ineffective is a REAL "ruling class
offensive" but one on the *ideological plane* AGAINST free thinking,
open-ended inquiry, curiosity, inquisitiveness, refusal to accept things on
authority and so on. And, of course, the effect of this on educational
programs and practices. This offensive has been based not just on the need
to prepare much or most or each generation for being servile cogs in the
productive machinery of capitalism, but also on the ruling class's
well-grounded fear of radicalization among the youth and especially the
intelligentsia-in-training, as happened in the 1960's.
An interesting question is whether these "blinders" on the relatively more
privileged and intellectually promising students are more strict or severe
in this country than in some other imperialist countries. I suspect this may
well be the case. Social inequality and injustice are much more glaring in
the United States, and social tensions are much, much higher. That is why
the level of repression in the United States is so great, as is shown in
everything from the number of murders by police to the vast prison
population. And this would suggest that the level of ideological repression,
so to speak, also has to be much higher. In addition to the crippling of the
intellectual potential of students, additional evidence for this are the
astonishing levels of Americans who profess belief in ghosts, angels,
biblical literalness and so on. As well, of course, as the truly
encyclopedic ignorance and extreme narrow mindedness of ordinary Americans.
This "ideological repression" does not find expression as one homogeneous
set of education policies and practices across the country, although there
is a growing pressure against diversity due to national standards. But the
United States does not and has never worked like that. Yet this ideological
drive does find generalized expression throughout the entire country, with
whatever local variations, sufficient expression to produce the declining
level of educational achievement that has been documented by the
bourgeoisie's own experts and studies.
"Defense" of "public schools" and especially against the *idea* of school
choice by parents is *indefensible* from a Marxist point of view. Of course
the entire ruling class and the managerial and professional layers closest
to it have "school choice" as they have always had everywhere. But in the
United States today, a very large portion, perhaps in the neighborhood of
half the families with school-age children (as a speculative ball park
estimate to illustrate the point), ALSO have school choice through myriad
mechanisms. This situation is undesirable in the extreme: it is
discriminatory, re-enforcing national oppression, and it shifts the
financing of education from the state to individual families, overwhelmingly
of working people, even if somewhat or even very privileged.
Marxist opposition to charter schools, vouchers, and other bourgeois "school
choice" schemes should be based NOT on that they threaten the monopoly of
public schools, but on the reality that they do not attack that monopoly
head on, but merely nibble around the edges, at "best" creating new avenues
for the privileged to access school choice. These schemes offer only the
illusion of choice to the more oppressed layers, which are the families that
need it desperately because right now their children are condemned to such
inferior schools.
Typically socialists and liberals will say that the real solution is to
fight for top quality schools for all, not allow the most oppressed to
escape from inferior schools. In reality, this is simply one more go around
of the "black and white unite and fight" bullshit.
This means that defending public schools in the United States today as a
general policy means defending state monopoly control of the education
especially of the children of the more oppressed layers of the working
people and most of all of the oppressed nationalities. Marxists should not
defend, but rather oppose public schools as a system.
As Marx himself explains in the Prussian case, government financing of
education is ONE thing, appointing the state as educator entirely ANOTHER.
Joaquin
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