Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Why should good education get in the way of propping up the school bureaucracy?

Over at Kentucky School News and Commentary, Richard Day is hammering Jim Waters of the Bluegrass Institute for advocating school choice--both between public school districts and between public and private schools.

In their most recent post, they characterize public-private school choice (the full unadulterated variety that involves something called "freedom") as "a religious agenda ... removing control from local officials." I am trying to find the Scripture reference mentioning school choice. I'll announce it when I find it. And imagine someone wanting to wrest control of their children from state bureaucrats.

Besides, it's in the Nicene Creed somewhere. I think.

Why is wanting to send your child to the best school available part of a "religious agenda"? Because the school a parent might want to send their child to might be religious?

And why is it that religious schools, which involve sometimes expensive tuitions, attract parents who aren't even religious away from schools that are basically free? Could it possibly be because they actually offer a better education? Not just a better religious education, but a better general education?

And why would anyone question their motives when they want a break on the their taxes for it in light of the fact that their helping to pay for public schools?

Day seems outraged that Waters is outraged by the fact that the state dictates that children go to inferior schools:
Waters finds it "outrageous" that local elected officials are being empowered by state law to decide if and where school attendance boundaries should be allowed to exist - in favor of his proposal that would impose a free-for-all on every local community in Kentucky.
"Parents may send their children to the public school of their choice."
Forget school districts. Forget school board authority. Parents can just send their kids wherever they want.
What? Why should we let the educational well-being of children get in the way of the well-being of the state educrats? Where are our priorities anyway?

It is a measure of the cultural inbreeding of public school establishment (that's the one William Bennett once referred to as "the Blob") that they literally can't comprehend that anyone would see the educational betterment of their children as more important than the care and feeding of the fiscally voracious educational bureaucracy. It's also an indication of the intellectually bankrupcy of the whole system.

Day points to a hypothetical situation that one might encounter under even public school choice plans:
Imagine a young couple selecting their new home right around the corner from the best school in their community. They have children who grow to school age only to be locked out of their neighborhood school because folks from the next county over have filled the school to capacity. I think I know how those parents would feel. Tough luck, Junior. Where should we move now? Such scenarios would happen repeatedly across the state.
I think Day must know there are reasonable ways to deal with such a contingency that are perfectly consistent with a common sense school choice plan.

But while Day has trouble seeing the rationality behind letting parents decide where to send their kids to school, those of who think it makes pretty good sense have an equally difficult time trying to figure out why anyone thinks it is good public policy to trap children in bad schools.

That wanting to allow children to go to good schools is somehow an inherently religious motivation is not self-evident. But maybe if we keep telling people this, it will make them forget just how bad their current options are.

7 comments:

Richard Day said...

C'mon Martin. I'm not anti-choice, per se. (I still believe I was the first principal to try to establish a charter school in Kentucky.) I'm just anti-sweet sounding proposals that are completely unworkable in reality.

And, for the record, the post was mine alone.

One's perspective matters here.

It's hard to find anything wrong with freedom to choose if one focuses only on their own child or one particular school - as I did at Cassidy. But trying to implement the just-go-wherever-you-want plan on a state-wide scale, by law, as Waters suggests, is a different matter.

When one deals with the physical realities of putting Water's plan (if one can call it that) in place it all falls apart.

Besides, the state constitution requires a measure of equity among all Kentucky schools. I haven't given up working toward that end. I realize that some others have.

I have attended and taught at religious schools and bear no antipathy toward any parent who seeks a religious education for their child. That's not my point, as I think you know.

But if Waters is suggesting that his creationism is relevant, then any public school person, out of respect for students of any religion, or none at all, must ferret out BIPPS's intent as it relates to public schools only.

I am trying to find a reference to freedom in the Nicene Creed. I'll announce it when I find it.

But if you wish to look for religious references, perhaps we could start with your comment: "It is a measure of the cultural inbreeding of public school establishment...that they literally can't comprehend that anyone would see the educational betterment of their children as more important than the care and feeding of the fiscally voracious educational bureaucracy It's also an indication of the intellectually bankrupcy of the whole system."

I'm sure Jesus said something just like that. I'm going to look for the passages where Jesus says we should look out for our own; forget our neighbors; let other people's children suffer; pass by the man on the road to Jericho; or the one where we are taught to avoid paying our taxes. I'll announce it when I find it.

If you truly believe schools are built for the benefit of bureaucrats, then we simply disagree. Since leaving Cassidy, I have tried to focus on all of the children - not just the few.

Richard

Weston on her own time said...

I respectfully suggest that:

1. The core argument for human freedom is implicit both in "Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible" and in "for us men and for our salvation."

2. The core argument against tyranny is entailed in "to judge the quick and the dead."

3. The application of the above concepts to specific questions of worldly government requires continuing reflection and discernment in every generation.

4. When a fire marshall limits occupancy in school buildings, that exercise of civil authority (a) deserves our respect and (b) makes it unworkable to let parents have unfettered choice of public schools.

Richard Day said...

Susan,

I'm with you on #s 3 & 4.

But I'm gonna have to think about 1 & 2.

Richard

Weston on her own time said...

Richard,

As back-up for 1 & 2, I commend the social encyclicals of Pius XI, with a side order of the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

Lee said...

> When a fire marshall limits occupancy in school buildings, that exercise of civil authority (a) deserves our respect and (b) makes it unworkable to let parents have unfettered choice of public schools.

Are school districts "civil authority"?

The Bible says that we should respect the authorities placed over us.

Is the school board placed over us?

And if so, how does it follow that school choice is unworkable?

I thought that, in our form of government, the people were the authorities.

Richard Day said...

Susan:

Somehow I escaped the Jesuits at Xavier University without a working knowledge of Pius XI's social encyclicals or the Westminster Shorter Catechism. I'm not sure if this is the result of my "defective" religion or if I'm just one more sad victim of a lousy private school education. I'm going to have to take myself back to Catholic school for those references.

Lee,

Sure...to a point, but our government is a republic where the authority of the people is manifested in their elected representatives. Governmental authority is granted by the people.

But to the point, in Kentucky, it is the General Assembly that has sole and nontransferable authority over the schools. School boards can only do what they are permitted to do by the legislature. If something's wrong with the system it is only the legislature that can fix it.

I'm not a lawyer, but I suspect that a fire marshals and school board members are civil authorities. They're not military or religious and they are permitted limited authority by specific legislation.

I assume you were referring to Romans 13:1. "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God." (NIV)

Lee said...

> I assume you were referring to Romans 13:1.

Yes, Richard, that is indeed the passage, but Susan brought it up first, by hinting at it in her proposition 4.a.

I don't think it is applicable in this discussion, however, since Waters (to my knowledge) wasn't saying we should break the law, but suggesting we may want to change it. In a democratic republic such as ours, that's not the same thing as disrespecting the law. In our country, authority lies first and foremost with the people, secondly in the law, and then finally in the enforcing officials.

And to suggest (as she did in 4.b. that Waters' proposal is not "workable") is a new proposition (though phrased to sound as if it followed from prior propositions). It is the parents who "let" the school board and its appointed supervisors run things. Just wanted to make sure we have the flow of authority correctly established.