[Vision2020] The 'Value' of Public Schooling

[heirdoug at netscape.net]

The 'Value' of Public Schooling
by Jacob G. Hornberger

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There are two major values of public schooling, from the perspective of 
government officials. One, this institution provides the means by which 
government officials can slowly but surely, over a period of 12 years, 
mold the mindsets of children into one of conformity and obedience to 
authority. Second, public schooling enables government officials to 
fill children’s minds with officially approved political, historical, 
and economic doctrine.

Public schooling is much like the military. What is the first thing 
that the military does to new recruits? No, not teach them to fight or 
kill. That comes later. First comes boot camp, a seemingly nonsensical 
period of time in which soldiers are ordered to drop down for pushups 
at the whim of an officer. Soldiers learn to march together in unison, 
mastering such movements as right-face and left-face. They’re taught to 
respond without hesitation with “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” to an officer 
barking questions a few inches away from their face.
Why? Why does the military spend time teaching those things to new 
soldiers? After all, none of them comes in very handy once the actual 
fighting begins.

The reason is very simple: to mold each person’s mindset into one of 
strict conformity and obedience. That is, higher-ups in the military 
know that if they can compel a person to do something as ridiculous and 
nonsensical as a right-face and a left-face, then there is a greater 
likelihood that that person will obey other orders without question.

Or if a person can be taught to obey orders to march in unison within a 
group of people, all of whom are wearing the same uniform, there is a 
strong likelihood that such a person will lose his sense of 
individuality and instead simply consider himself part of the 
collective.
That is the real value of military boot camp – it very quickly 
eliminates all notions of individuality within the human being and 
makes him feel that conformity and obedience are the only acceptable 
states of mind.

In principle, the public-schooling system is no different, although 
government officials have a much longer period of time – 12 years – in 
which to accomplish the same task – produce mindsets of conformity and 
obedience.

That’s not only what compulsory-attendance laws are all about but also 
the manner in which public schools are operated.
Compulsory-attendance laws are, in principle, no different from the 
compulsory draft that the military employs.

In the draft system, the government sends a notice to a citizen 
commanding him to appear at a military installation for compulsory 
service in the military. If the citizen refuses, he faces criminal 
indictment, prosecution, conviction, imprisonment, and fine.

In the public-school system, families are required to submit their 
children to a state-approved education. While this encompasses 
attendance at state-approved private schools and homeschooling, for 
most families compulsory-attendance laws mean sending their children 
into public schools in their neighborhood for education. Those families 
who refuse to submit their children to a state-approved education face 
the same things that draft resisters face: criminal indictment, 
prosecution, conviction, imprisonment, and fine.

Equally important, the operation of public schools tends to produce the 
same type of mindset that the military produces – one of conformity and 
obedience to state authority. Just as in the military, the student is 
taught to conform to what some people would ordinarily consider 
nonsensical rules and regulations that bear no relationship to a 
genuine love of learning.

For example, consider the rigid class schedules that are imposed in 
public schools. All students are required to attend a daily series of 
50-minute classes addressing several different subjects. When the bell 
rings at the end of one class, the student is expected to immediately 
proceed to the next class. If he fails to arrive on time, he is 
punished. Never mind that he might not be interested in the subject 
matter of the next class or that he might want to stay and talk with 
other students or the teacher about a subject that he is genuinely 
interested in. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that he respond to 
the bells and obey.

That rigidity, conformity, and obedience may be perfectly suitable for 
some types of people, just as the military way of life is perfectly 
suitable for some types of people. The problem, however, is that not 
everyone is suited to that way of life. For those who are more 
individualistic, more free-spirited, the public-school experience 
becomes a long, 12-year battle in which the military-like school system 
tends toward grinding away at the natural sense of individualism and 
independence that characterize those students, a process that such 
students naturally resist.

For example, suppose a student says to his public-school 
administrators, “I absolutely love playing the piano. I am totally 
uninterested in math, chemistry, and a foreign language. Therefore, I 
have made the decision to stay in music class six hours every day for 
the next three months and take no other classes.”

How would the public-school administrator respond? He would laugh out 
loud at such an audacious statement. He would firmly tell the student 
to follow the class schedule that the school has provided him . . . or 
else. In earlier years, the student would have even faced a paddling 
with a “board of education” if he insisted on skipping regularly 
scheduled, mandatory classes to play the piano.

One might respond that the student has the choice of dropping out of 
public school and receiving his state-approved education from a private 
school or through homeschooling. The problem, however, is that most 
private schools have the same rigid-type curriculum system that public 
schools have. After all, private schools must be approved by the state 
in order to meet the standard of a “state-approved” education. 
Moreover, many parents simply lack the competence or time to 
homeschool.

Under a free-market educational system, however, each family would be 
free to fashion the education that would fit each child in the family. 
If a child said, “I want to do nothing but play the piano for the next 
six months and study nothing else,” that would be up to the family, not 
the state. And before someone says, “It would be irresponsible for a 
family to educate the child in that way,” reflect on the fact that many 
students travel abroad each summer to study nothing but a foreign 
language and that they study that language for several hours every 
single day for several weeks at a time. No math or science classes. 
Just the foreign language.

The point is that in the compulsory state system, the military-like way 
of learning is imposed on everyone, even those who are not suited for 
that way of life. The result is an endless battle in which 
individualistic students come to hate school and learning in general.

In a noncoerced educational system – that is, one in which the state is 
not involved in any way – the family controls the educational 
environment of its children. Thus, if a child says, “I think I’ll just 
go fishing today and reflect on the ideas and philosophies I’ve been 
studying,” the parents are free to say, “That sounds like an exciting 
idea.” If the student tries that in the state system, he will be told, 
“Try it and you’ll find yourself in detention for the next three 
weeks.”

What happens to those public-school students who rebel against the 
military-like regimentation that characterizes public schools? 
Government administrators make them feel like something is wrong with 
them. Even worse, they convince their parents that something is wrong 
with them. The students are sent to school psychiatrists who diagnose 
mental disorders such as “attention deficit disorder.”

Think about how a new military recruit who announced “I’m going fishing 
today instead of learning how to march” would be treated. Would not 
everyone in his unit think he was crazy? That’s the same way school 
administrators would feel about the student who said the same thing. 
He’d be considered crazy – or at least distracted. Of course, in the 
mind of the state official, the malady is nothing that drugs, such as 
Ritalin, can’t cure. Given the right dosage of drugs, over time the 
mind of the recalcitrant, independent-minded student will be molded in 
the “proper” way, especially over the 12 long years that the state has 
control over him.

Indoctrination and textbooks

The other value of public schooling, from the standpoint of the state, 
is the ability of government officials to fill the minds of children 
with important, officially approved ideas, philosophies, and 
standpoints, especially with respect to politics, history, government, 
and economics.

After all, what textbooks are used in public schools? Those textbooks 
that have been carefully chosen by state officials. If a proposed 
textbook contains objectionable material or omits important officially 
approved material, what chance does it have to become the official 
textbook used in public schools across the state? Answer: No chance at 
all.

By the very nature of government schooling, the matter of what goes 
into school textbooks must necessarily be a political matter, to be 
decided by those in political power. And since the choice of textbooks 
customarily applies to public schools across the state, all children 
receive the same government-approved information.

Moreover, there is virtually no choice for the parents who cannot 
afford to send their children to private school or who are unable or 
unwilling to home-school. They must send their children to the public 
school in their neighborhood. That is, there is not a multitude of 
public schools from which to choose. And even if there were, they would 
most likely all be using the same textbooks.

Why is the textbook important? Because the teacher is expected to base 
his teaching on it. Sure, a teacher has some leeway to be flexible but 
imagine what would happen to a public-school teacher who announced to 
his classes, “What is written in these textbooks is claptrap, lies, and 
deceptions. I’m going to be teaching you the truth about the nature of 
the government, government schooling, free markets, individualism, and 
liberty.”

What would happen to that teacher? He would slowly (or perhaps quickly) 
be grinded down, to the point where he either got pushed out of the 
public-school system or be made to conform.

Here’s what would happen: A student would return home and report to his 
parents what the teacher was saying. A major political crisis would 
quickly erupt. His parents would call a member of the school board, 
which consists of elected officials, and complain. The school board, 
scared of the political consequences, would contact the principal, who 
would have a talk with the teacher. If the teacher refused to back 
down, the school board would call a public meeting, where the teacher 
would be given the opportunity to state his case to the board – and to 
the voters. Given the nature of politics, voter sentiment would play an 
important role in the school board’s ultimate decision.

Since the teacher’s teaching would be contrary to the official 
doctrines found in the textbook, he would have a heavy burden to 
overcome. Most likely, he would lose. The teacher would be left with a 
choice: stand fast and lose his job or give in and teach the 
information contained in the textbook.

Libertarianism and public schooling

That’s why it is extremely unlikely that one would ever find 
libertarianism taught as a philosophy in any public school. For one 
thing, libertarian principles would contradict most of the claptrap 
found in government textbooks. Do you have doubts? Well, imagine a 
public-school teacher openly announcing at the beginning of the 
semester that he would be teaching the following things in his 
government class:

    1.  The drug war is an immoral sham that has accomplished nothing 
more than enriching government officials and drug dealers. Drugs should 
be decriminalized.
    2.  Public schooling is nothing more than a system of socialism 
applied to education. It should be abolished, leaving education to the 
free market.
    3.  Abraham Lincoln waged war on the Confederacy for the purpose not 
of freeing the slaves but of preserving the Union.
    4.  U.S. intervention in World War I constituted a horrible waste of 
American life. It did not accomplish its purported goal of making the 
world safe for democracy and ending all future wars and actually 
contributed to the rise of N. Lenin and Adolf Hitler.
    5.  The federal government, not free enterprise, caused the 1929 
stock-market crash and the Great Depression.
    6.  Franklin Roosevelt intentionally lied to the American people when 
he said that he was doing his best to keep America out of World War II.
    7.  U.S. officials during World War II intentionally delivered East 
Germany and Eastern Europe into the clutches of the Soviet communists.
    8.  Lyndon Johnson won his 1948 U.S. Senate race by stuffing the 
ballot box with fake ballots and later, as president, he intentionally 
lied about the supposed attack on U.S. forces in the Gulf of Tonkin.
    9.  The U.S. government’s interventionist foreign policy in the 
Middle East gave rise to the 9/11 attacks.
   10.  Given that Iraq never attacked the United States, President 
Bush’s war on Iraq constitutes a “war of aggression,” a type of war 
that was punished as a war crime by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal.
  11.   Minimum-wage laws hurt the poor and should be repealed.
   12.  Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are immoral, socialist 
programs that should be abolished immediately, along with the taxes 
that fund them.

What do you think would happen to that teacher?

Public schooling and Cuba

I’m not suggesting, of course, that there are no libertarians teaching 
in the public schools. In fact, there are and they do a great job 
introducing libertarian principles to students. But they must be very 
careful about how they present their arguments. Usually they learn to 
carefully couch them in terms of improving the system.

In fact, that’s also how things work in Cuba, where public schooling is 
one of Fidel Castro’s proudest accomplishments (along with 
government-provided health care). It’s illegal for any public-school 
teacher in Cuba to challenge the Cuban system. But as long as arguments 
are couched in terms of “improving the Revolution,” teachers have some 
degree of flexibility.

As a matter of fact, a comparison of public schooling in Cuba and the 
United States will help to drive home the points I am making in this 
article. The systems in both countries are based on the same 
principles. Government officials are in charge of educating the 
children in the nation. Government-approved textbooks that contain 
government-approved doctrine are used. Government employees teach the 
students. The curriculum is set by the government.

So is there any difference? Yes, both in the mindsets that are produced 
and in the materials taught, which is why maintaining control over 
education is so important, both to U.S. officials and to Cuban 
officials.

For example, most Cubans know that public schooling and 
government-provided health care constitute socialism, and they are very 
proud of their educational and healthcare systems. They would not want 
to see them abolished.

On the other hand, most Americans honestly believe that public 
schooling and Medicare and Medicaid constitute “free enterprise,” and 
they are very proud of their educational and health-care systems. They 
too would not want to see them abolished.
The mindsets in both countries reflect the value of doctrines taught by 
government officials during the 12-year period when government 
officials had control over children.

Do you recall the big battle of Elián, the young boy whose mother died 
while trying to escape Cuba and make it to the United States? Everyone 
knew that whichever government school got ahold of him – and maintained 
a hold over him for 12 years – would ultimately win out in terms of his 
mindset.

Today, Elián praises Fidel Castro and the Cuban system. No doubt he 
thinks he’s free, especially given that the Cuban system involves free 
education and free health care. If he had remained in America’s public 
schools, he would very likely have felt differently about matters in 
Cuba but would have been nevertheless praising public schooling, Social 
Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in the United States.
That’s the power of public schooling.

Several years ago, I visited Cuba and was walking through a museum that 
detailed all the attempts that the CIA had made to assassinate Castro 
and effect “regime change” in Cuba, including the invasion at the Bay 
of Pigs. I saw a class of primary-school students and their teacher 
taking a field trip through the museum.

To no one’s surprise, the teacher was filling the students’ minds with 
the Cuban government’s officially approved doctrine. But it would not 
have been any different in principle if a class of public-school 
students from Miami had been taking a field trip through a CIA museum 
in the United States. The Cuban students would be taught that the U.S. 
government wrongfully interferes in the affairs of other countries, 
even making use of assassination. American students would be taught 
that their government spreads freedom and democracy around the globe 
and would probably not be told that their government uses assassination 
as one of its policy tools.

One amusing aspect of the comparison between the Cuban and U.S. 
educational systems appeared recently. A controversy arose in Miami 
because the library of some public school carried a book that praised 
public schooling in Cuba. There was an outcry because it’s considered 
improper and unpatriotic to say good things about Castro or his system 
in American public schools.

A Cuban woman who had served in the Cuban public-school system and who 
was now living in Miami said that the whole controversy confirmed the 
advantages of democracy over tyranny. She explained that at least in 
the U.S. educational system, there are discussions and debates among 
government bureaucrats over what books should be permitted in public 
schools, while in Cuba, only one official – Fidel Castro – makes that 
decision.

The woman obviously is convinced that public schooling in the United 
States is “freedom” because education in this country is centrally 
planned by government bureaucracies, while in Cuba, education is 
“tyranny” because it is centrally planned by only one government 
official.

Government schooling has proven invaluable to government officials all 
over the world, especially since the mindset of conformity and 
obedience that is produced lasts long into adulthood. As in the 
military, such a mindset has historically been the best friend of 
government officials. The good news is that the malady is not 
incurable, as so many libertarians who are products of public 
schooling, including myself, can attest.

February 22, 2007
Copyright © 2007 Future of Freedom Foundation

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