This was making the rounds in my Facebook feed the other day. In light of the outcome of the Virginia governor's race this week, it may be particularly important to break the statements in this meme down.
Why tie this to the Virginia race? Well, the one-time governor, and one-time prohibitive favorite to be governor again, Terry McAuliffe, lost the election. It appears that he fared worse in prosperous Northern Virignia suburbs that had gone heavily for Joe Biden just a year ago. And, in particular, this statement, made by Mr. McAuliffe in the course of a campaign debate, has been linked to his downfall: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
On an individual level, this is surely correct: Mrs. Jones, the local chapter president of the Flat-Earth Society, can not demand that her little Johnny and all his classmates be instructed in her own peculiar brand of "science." Also, as the first paragraph of the meme above suggests, Mrs. Smith, who believes in Biblical inerrancy, is free to send her little Susie to a private school which respects that belief; she does not have the right to insist that Susie be instructed in these beliefs in the local public school.
But the second paragraph of the meme is where the problem comes in. It reads (with emphases as in original):
The purpose of a public education in a public school is not to teach kids only what parents want them to be taught. It is to teach them what society needs them to know. The client of the public school is not the parent, but the entire community, the public[.]
This statement, too, is substantially correct, in my opinion. The purpose of public schools is to produce good, productive, patriotic citizens, the kinds of persons who will hold good jobs in an increasingly complex economy. People who will respect the law and support the Constitution. People who will be kind and generous and sympathetic to the plight of their less-fortunate neighbors. People who will be proud of their communities, local, state, and national, and who will make their communities proud in turn. The types of people you'd like to live next door to, and associate with, and do business with.
At least, that's what any healthy society would want, and demand, from its public schools.
But, again, the above statement is only substantially correct because it fudges on clearly saying what society should demand of its schools, saying only that the purpose of the public schools is to teach students what society needs them to know.
How do we determine what society needs our public school kids to know? We determine it from collective expressions of public policy: State statutes, to start with. The several states have always had principal responsibility for public education in America. And every state has many laws dictating what the public schools must teach. Gym classes, perhaps (so that future grown-up citizens are healthy) or financial literacy classes (so future grown-up citizens understand how to write a check, or the uses, good and bad, of credit cards). Most states have specified required courses that must be taken, and passed, in order to obtain a high school diploma.
And here's where we run into trouble... certainly the person on whose Facebook feed I first saw this would be fundamentally opposed to any law purporting to ban the teaching of "Critical Race Theory" in the public schools. My Facebook friend would feel quite strongly that states should not carve out whole topics or areas of instruction as forbidden. I tend to agree with her. But if the client of the public school is not the parent but the entire community, and the entire community enacts such a law through its elected representatives, isn't that the end of the discussion?
Yes, the parents alone are not the community. But they are a part. The teachers alone are not the community. They are also merely part. Also part of the community is the grumpy old couple with no children who always oppose school bond issues. And the parents who send their kids to private schools. And the seniors worried about what sort of stuff is being taught to their grandkids. We are all a part of the community and we all should have a say in what is taught. And it is not offensive to nature, or good order, or to the Patriot Act for persons who have a particular interest (e.g., parents) to demand to know what goes behind closed school doors.
But all of this controversy, all of this anger, all of this angst can be substantially reduced if only all of us can recall the purpose of public schooling. I've given you my understanding. Let me give it to you again:
The purpose of public schools is to produce good, productive, patriotic citizens, the kinds of persons who will hold good jobs in an increasingly complex economy. People who will respect the law and support the Constitution. People who will be kind and generous and sympathetic to the plight of their less-fortunate neighbors. People who will be proud of their communities, local, state, and national, and who will make their communities proud in turn. The types of people you'd like to live next door to, and associate with, and do business with.
Can we agree on this much? If not, what should be added? What should be taken out?
One thing we should be able to agree on: The public schools should not be used to teach kids to hate America, or each other, or themselves. Our nation is not perfect. No human thing is. We can always learn from our mistakes and grow from them -- if we don't ignore them, that is -- and I firmly belief that we have learned and grown as a society in my lifetime. We can, and must, continue to grow and learn and adapt. But we need to work together.
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