What the advocates of public education fear, of course, is that the end of the “common school”—by which they mean the government-run school system—would result in a balkanization of society, and an increase in child neglect.  They fear that the diversion of children from government schools into class, race, and religiously segregated schools will ultimately break the social fabric if different sub-cultures educate their children in separatist ghetto schools that foment hatred and exclusion.  They fail to establish whether this is more divisive than the present system, the one that Andrew Coulson showed forces parents into conflict.   Whether it was the early public schools forcing the Protestant Bible onto their students, or French state schools favoring republican or royalist views according to the whim of the government, or traditionalist parents protesting whole language reading programs, “government-run systems …have been the chief cause of school conflict throughout history.” (Coulson 1999 p319) Government schools force parents to fight with each other for control of the one-size-fits-all school curriculum. 

Public school advocates also worry about the fitness of parents to direct their children’s education, given the lack of involvement of parents in the activity of their children in their local public school.  But why should parents try to involve themselves in a system that does not give them control over the school their children are assigned to, over the type of education their children receive, and which can use the power of the state to compel attendance?  Parents do get involved when they get a chance to make a difference.  The record shows that when government actively discouraged education in England in the early nineteenth century, literacy was increasing rapidly, and many poor parents were willing to sacrifice so that their children could acquire literacy and numeracy in the local village school.

Parents struggling on the red/blue transition want basic literacy and numeracy for their children.  Parents in the lower middle class like Mary Johnston want their children to go to “the best schools, first grade through college.”  Upper class parents want their children to go to a selective college, or they want them to rise above ticket-punching careerism and learn to develop a true devotion to the global community.  Different parents want different schools for their children.  And why not?  There is no body of research that compares class or race origin with type of school and educational outcome.  There is no body of research that compares the agendas of parents with the agenda of education experts and compares the educational outcome.  Instead the anecdotal evidence indicates that experts should not be trusted.  They backed school busing to achieve racial balance.  They backed whole language over phonics instruction.  They relaxed discipline and stood by as violence in schools increased.  Given the mediocre results of the government school system in the past century there is no compelling reason why parents should not be given control of their children’s education and permitted the freedom that a barely lettered mother enjoyed in the mid-nineteenth century: the right to send her child to the school of her choice.  And this is to ignore the issue of government involvement in religious or moral education, which is inherently problematic, and the issue of school discipline, which, if administered by government officials acting under the color of compulsory attendance laws, inevitably raises civil liberties issues.

There is no reason why the need and desire of red/blue parents for education in the basics and in discipline need disadvantage orange and green parents who want and need other educational alternatives for their children.  All that is required is to give parents the right to send their children to the school of their choice.  All that is required is for orange and green parents to release their stranglehold on the politics of education, to practice the tolerance they preach, and allow a little diversity to bloom.

The third component to a strong and durable road to the middle class is the experience of living under law.  Law is the drainage system for the road, unremarkable but vital.  Until it rains, the ditches and culverts along a road seem meaningless.  But when it rains, the drainage protects the road from washouts, and keeps the water table down to protect the road-base from liquefaction and frost heaving.  So it is with the law.  Until conflict arises it seems meaningless and superfluous.  But when conflict occurs, law guides it into storm channels, and protects society from an inundation of passion.

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©2005 Christopher Chantrill