Fundamental Questions About Education

“Failure to undertake such discussion means the triumph of prejudice“

Let’s ask some fundamental questions about education.

Why should the state, or government, educate?

Do we believe that others cannot be trusted?

What is the real basis of the common assumption that if the state withdrew from education and reduced taxes accordingly, most children would be worse off?

[…]

Do most people believe that education is really free?

Does the average parent on the other hand approve of the present system only because he or she thinks that other (richer) people are paying for most of his or her child's education?

Or does each parent continue to support the present arrangement in the belief that most other parents would be negligent if the state did not continue to do their educational spending for them?

That is from the preface of E.G. West’s Education and the State.

Such are the fundamental questions with which this book is concerned. There is no denying that this is an ambitious task and that these are enormous questions; to some of them there may be no final answer. But no apology is made for this enquiry. For it is a test of a mature and a free society that in each generation there are sufficient writers prepared to persist with awkward but searching questions and an equally sufficient number of patient individuals willing to consider them. Failure to undertake such discussion means the triumph of prejudice and an acceptance of institutions from mere habit or imitation rather than from any conscious and rational purpose.

I love that paragraph, especially his focus on “fundamental questions,” “enormous questions,” and “awkward…searching questions.” A failure take up discussion of these questions “means the triumph of prejudice.” Let’s look at the dictionary definition of prejudice.

prejudice /prĕj′ə-dĭs/

noun

1. The act or state of holding unreasonable preconceived judgments or convictions.

2. An adverse judgment or opinion formed unfairly or without knowledge of the facts.

   "a boy with a prejudice against unfamiliar foods."

3. Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular social group, such as a race or the adherents of a religion.

We certainly don’t want prejudice to triumph when it comes something as fundamental as our assumptions and justifications for public education.

So, we should ask these questions and be ready to explain why the state should educate. What is the evidence?

West’s next paragraph is equally good.

The story of state education might well illustrate the way in which societies can easily deceive themselves about their own institutions because of an insufficient and inconstant scrutiny of the reasoning and evidence which is supposed to support them. Once such a state institution has been launched, howsoever adequate or inadequate its first justification, there follows the danger that the original political exertion will adopt a momentum of its own and grow beyond all proportion. For instance the employees and administrators of the new institution may become a vested interest of significant political influence. Furthermore, the institution may condition successive generations into accepting it simply by habitual dependence upon it. The institution then becomes so precious and ingrained that when an enquirer has the audacity to question it he is received with stunned astonishment as if he had questioned the necessity of motherhood or universal suffrage.

I like these phrases: “societies can easily deceive themselves” because of “insufficient and inconstant scrutiny.” Self-deception is a fascinating thing. How can we know if we or someone else is self-deceiving? Recommendations for further reading on self-deception?

This part is true at all levels of public education: “the employees and administrators of the new institution may become a vested interest of significant political influence.” They become dependent. They are self-interested and they work to maintain their positions.

Incentives push the institution to “condition successive generations into accepting it.” Sounds a bit like Big Brother.

If you have the audacity to ask fundamental questions such as these, you’ll receive “stunned astonishment,” as if you “questioned the necessity of motherhood.” We can expect this type of reaction when a person’s status, self-image and career are threatened. But that’s not all. Even for those with no vested interests, there is dogma surrounding public schools. Challenging that dogma tends to bring out tribal loyalties: “Of course I support public schools.” Little progress can be made in a milieu of dogma.

Continuing…West cautions us from being impatient, biased and dogmatic for either side of the argument. This is not a “theological dispute but an impartial enquiry.”

This book tries to take especial care to avoid the impatience of the observer who, finding one or two obvious weaknesses in the present system, rushes to the opposite dogma of believing that state intervention in education is at all times, in all forms and in all cases absolutely misconceived. What is attempted is not a theological dispute but an impartial enquiry into the reasoning and the facts of the case for state education today. Where parts of the reasoning are found to be weak or if some of the facts do not seem to square with theory, an attempt will be made to maintain an open-mindedness and a readiness to believe that the findings point only to a modification or limitation of the present form of state intervention and not its total abandonment.

He encourages us to be open-minded, and impartial; to consider all the facts; not to tear down the whole system, but only modify it to fit the facts. That is helpful advice. Let’s trim to truth, where “truth” is “what works best.”

Switching gears…how did I learn of West’s book? From Milton and Rose Friedman.

In Free to Choose: A Personal Statement Milton and Rose Friedman reference E.G. West’s work on education.¹ They write

Beginning in the 1840s, a campaign developed to replace the diverse and largely private system by a system of so-called free schools, i.e., schools in which parents and others paid the cost indirectly by taxes rather than directly by fees. According to E. G. West, who has studied extensively the development of government's role in schooling, this campaign was not led by dissatisfied parents, but "mainly by teachers and government officials." The most famous crusader for free schools was Horace Mann, "the father of American public education," as he is termed in the Encyclopaedia Britannica article on his life.

Did you catch that? Public schools didn’t come about through parents dissatisfied with existing private schools, but rather through teachers and government.

And this term “free schools?” What a clever name. Who could be against that?

And who is this Horace Mann that helped bring about “free schools.” Take a peak here. A quick skim of Wikipedia yields this little gem:

While Mann affirmed that "our Public Schools are not Theological Seminaries" and that they were "debarred by law from inculcating the peculiar and distinctive doctrines of any one religious denomination amongst us ... or all that is essential to religion or salvation," he assured those who objected to this secular nature that "our system earnestly inculcates all Christian morals; it founds its morals based on religion; it welcomes the religion of the Bible; and, in receiving the Bible, it allows it to do what it is allowed to do in no other system—to speak for itself. But here it stops, not because it claims to have compassed all truth; but because it disclaims to act as an umpire between hostile religious opinions."

And do we see these Christian morals in public schools today?

This system of Public Schools will “found its morals based on religion.” Not any particular doctrine, but rather “all Christian morals.” Interesting. Is that even possible? Does this assume that all Christian doctrines agree? Or will the lessons conflict with each other? I’m skeptical.

And this last bit makes me nervous: public schools will “disclaim to act as the umpire between hostile religious opinions.” So the schools won’t act as the umpire between DEI and Christian morals?

Another excerpt from Free to Choose.

Professor West has maintained persuasively that the government takeover in Britain, as in the United States, resulted from pressure by teachers, administrators, and well-meaning intellectuals, rather than parents. He concludes that the government takeover reduced the quality and diversity of schooling.

So, not only was the take over conducted by teachers, administrators and intellectuals, but the takeover reduced quality and diversity. Get control of schools, eliminate competition and guess what happens? Quality falls. Diversity falls.

This seems like an important history to learn about. Is it taught in schools today? Is it taught in colleges?

If we are to reverse the moral and cultural decline brought about by public schools we should try to understand how this system of public schools came about.

I’ll end with two pieces of advice from Kevin Kelly.

“To transcend the influence of your heroes, 
copy them shamelessly like a student until you get them out of your system. That is the way of all masters.”

---

“Read the books
that your favorite authors once read.”

1. Here is some background on the book Free to Choose

It’s based on the ground-breaking PBS television series featuring Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize-winning economist. You can watch the entire 1980 TV series right here, for free. It consists of 10 one-hour programs in which Friedman provides a short introductory monologue, followed by a guided discussion with a panel of experts. So it resembles a college course—with lecture followed by discussion; or similarly, like a sophisticated TV talk show, only that Oprah and Donahue are replaced by Friedman. In his autobiography Friedman states that the making of this show—or actually its precursor, Milton Friedman Speaks—were the most stressful moments in his life.

The description for the 1980 TV series is

These programs, filmed on location around the world, have helped millions of people understand the close relationship between the ideas of human freedom and economic freedom. The interaction between those ideas has created in the U.S. the richest and freest society the world has ever known. Milton Friedman sees this success threatened by the tendency in the last few decades to assume that government intervention is the answer to all problems. In these programs, which first aired on January 11, 1980, Dr. Friedman focuses on basic principles. How do markets work? Why has socialism failed? Can government help economic development? The 1980 version consists of 10 one-hour programs

And an updated 1990 series is right here. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronald Reagan and David Friedman. If you’re familiar with David Friedman’s book The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism, you might remember that David starts his book off with the ethos of “being left alone.” How is “being left alone” similar to the wisdom of the First Amendment described above?

And the description for the 1990 series is

In 1990, Free To Choose was updated to five episodes. Each episode features an introduction by a well-known figure followed by a documentary. All episodes include an updated discussion forum that immediately follows the documentary. Episodes 1, 2, 4 and 5 include documentaries originally produced for the 1980 version. Episode 4 was previously titled "What's Wrong With Our Schools?"

For those completely new to classical liberal thought, I recommend watching the TV series first, then reading the book.