Myths of Government Schooling
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Mount Rushmore
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Myth #1: The United States was founded on a philosophy or principle of public education.
AKA "Public Education is the Cornerstone of Our Democracy" and "Public Education is Necessary For a Working Democracy."
But as Karl Bunday points out, ". . . democratic republican government developed first in countries without government-operated schools; the founders of the United States learned without a public school system. By contrast, the first countries to have compulsory school attendance laws were all militaristic dictatorships, including the countries that later formed Hitler's Third Reich, a fact well documented in books on school and state relations throughout history."
Apart from the Old Deluder Satan Act and other local laws passed (largely in New England, and largely in furtherance of and favoritism toward the locally prevailing organized religion), government control and management of universal, compulsory, tax-funded education didn't even begin until the mid-nineteenth century, and not until the 1920s did it spread to every state.
A point made above is so unknown to modern-day, state-schooled Americans that it bears repeating: Not a single founder of this country was educated in a "public school" as we know them today, and such schools did not exist until the mid-1800s. Most people in Colonial times were home-educated to some extent, because to enroll in most schools or engage a tutor a child was expected to have already some degree of literacy and numeracy (in other words, schools generally did not exist to impart basic skills that were easy to teach and learn, but to expand on them). But this was in no way an impediment to enrollment because, contrary to the current educational philosophy, reading is for most people a fairly easy thing to learn (if not taught badly), and various opportunities existed for children whose parents were not able to help them learn to read (dame schools and traveling schoolmasters, for example). For several of the Founders, home-based education constituted the sole form of education until admission to Harvard. Private tutors and various types of small, private schools were also used selectively by some families.
To the limited extent any sort of public establishment of schools did exist prior to the mid-nineteenth century, such schools were entirely under the control of the local citizenry, and funding came from a combination of family tuition, charity, and, rarely, limited public funds, on an as-needed basis. They were not "public schools" owned and under the jurisdiction of the government so much as they were private schools with some tax-funded tuition help (something like the "vouchers" of today).
It is true that some founders promoted certain aspects of government involvement or funding of education, but it is safe to say that few of them could have envisioned or would have desired the drawn-out, monopolistic, bureaucracy-laden, union-manipulated, forced government schooling we have today. (An possible exception would have been Benjamin Rush, who favored compulsory government schooling and the use of the Bible as a foundational text.)
It is also true that inequities in the otherwise wide-spread availablity of education often put education out of reach (or at least harder to reach) for some people than for others. But one has only to know a little history to know that public schools did not, merely by their existence change that state of affairs. Public acceptance of education for women and non-whites evolved of its own accord, and the opening of public schools to non-whites often had to be FORCED on the schools, not the other way round. Open-mindedness and plurality were not products of State schooling; they evolved in society, and the schools eventually reflected that.
Clearly, to suggest that compulsory government-controlled schooling had any relationship to the founding of this country or that State schooling in any way supports "freedom" is ridiculous. On the other hand, many regimes and governments have relied heavily on compulsory government-controlled schooling from the get-go: the USSR, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the Pol Pot regime, and Sparta all found compulsory government-administered schooling an essential tool in controlling their populations, as do Cuba and China today.
For more on the history of education in the United States, please see How Did Government Come to Control Education in America?
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Myth #2: Government schools are truly "public" schools.
As Douglas Dewey points out in How to Separate School and State: A Primer (Foundation for Economic Liberty), "Government schools are public the way jails and departments of motor vehicles are public, not the way parks, libraries, or hardware stores are public. Try living in southeast Washington, D.C., and sending your child to the "public" school a few miles away in McLean, Virginia!"
Most "private" schools, on the other hand, will accept just about any child who wishes to attend, no matter where the child lives, even across state lines.
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Myth #3: "Private" schools are more expensive than "public" schools (and it follows, therefore, that only the rich can afford them; that's why we need "public" schooling).
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average tuition for private elementary and secondary schools is less than half the average per-pupil cost of public schooling.
In 1993-1994 (the last year for which comprehensive private school figures are available), the average annual private school tuition was $3,116, ranging from $2,138 for elementary tuition to $4,578 for secondary grades.
Some 67 percent, or more than 17,000, private elementary and secondary schools charged $2,500 or less, and 19 percent charged less than $1,000 per year.
Average public schooling spending per pupil during the same period was $6,492.
As of the 2000-2001 school year, the average per-pupil cost of public schooling was $8,830.
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Myth #4: We are a more literate nation today than we were prior to compulsory government schooling.
Between 1650 and 1795, male literacy climbed from 60 to 90 percent and female literacy rose from 30 to 45 percent. Between 1800 and 1840, literacy in the North rose from 75 percent to between 91 and 97 percent, and from 50-60 percent to 81 percent in the South. Literacy was growing across every population in the years prior to the government take-over of education.
Today, after more than 100 years of government schooling, according to the US Department of Education National Adult Literacy Survey (PDF file - opens in new window), 25% of adult Americans read (if they can read at all) at the lowest, rock-bottom level of literacy. Examples of Level 1 literacy are: being able to locate one piece of information in a sports article, locating the time of a meeting on a form, and totaling a bank deposit entry. Another 25% function at Level 2 literacy, examples of which are: locating two features of information in a sports article, locating an intersection on a street map, or determining the difference in price between tickets for two shows. One-half our adult population is unable to function at full Level 3 literacy, which includes such abilities as writing a brief letter explaining an error made on a credit card bill; using a sign-out sheet to respond to a call about a resident; or using a calculator to calculate the difference between the regular and sale price from an advertisement.
What this means is that half our adult population can not comprehend the contents of a voter pamphlet (so much for Jefferson's "informed discretion"). Furthermore, colleges and universities complain that incoming high-school graduates require remedial courses in writing and math, and businesses complain that an alarming number of college graduates have skills insufficient for performing entry-level jobs.
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Myth #5: Prior to the government take-over of education, there weren't enough schools, and many parents neglected their children's education.
Private education was in wide demand in the decades prior to compulsory schooling, with the result that tutors and privately run schools were widely available, and large numbers of children from all classes of society received several years of education.
More to come....
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Myth #6: The "public" schools would improve if only they had enough money to do the job right.
The government schools have more money, in constant dollars, than they have ever had. Their funding has grown steadily (again, in constant dollars) over the decades, yet the data show, over and over and over again, that increased spending is irrelevant to student achievement.
Straight Dope on School Spending
Brad Edmonds
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| For more information, see our selection of books and links to articles, essays, and commentary on the history and current state of education. |
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© FreedomOfEducation.net | Last updated 5/6/2006 |
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