{"id":6670,"date":"2015-08-14T11:00:44","date_gmt":"2015-08-14T16:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbu.edu\/seminary\/?p=6670"},"modified":"2022-12-05T08:08:22","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T14:08:22","slug":"school-choice-and-intellectual-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbu.edu\/seminary\/school-choice-and-intellectual-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"School Choice and Intellectual Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Dean 1<\/a><\/h3>\n

Education policy is like any other policy. The only question that really matters is, \u201cWho gets the money?\u201d Because whoever has the money will decide where and how children will be educated. \u201cSchool choice\u201d is the policy that parents\u2014not the state\u2014control the money allotted to educate their children.2<\/a><\/p>\n

School choice has many justifications. Educationally, it produces a better product. Economically, it costs less. Socially, it reinforces family and non-political \u201cmediating\u201d structures. Morally, it permits assertion of fixed standards of conduct. Spiritually, it permits escape from the intellectual schizophrenia that divides the world into six days under one set of rules and a seventh day under another.<\/p>\n

These arguments have merit. This article, however, examines school choice as a matter of political philosophy.<\/p>\n

Social Questions and Answers by Process: Democratic Education in the Free Market of Ideas<\/h2>\n

Two fundamental questions confront every society. First, how does society determine what its values and goals will be? That is, what should society be and do? Second, once the first\u00a0question is settled, how are citizens convinced to act in accordance with that decision?<\/p>\n

Education, even more than politics, is the primary forum in which America addresses these questions. According to \u201ccommon school\u201d mythology, public education is the democratic process by which students both synthesize and assimilate the answers to society\u2019s great questions. Public schools provide a \u201cmarket place\u201d free from \u201cprivate\u201d dogmas where all students participate equally in the give and take of ideas.<\/p>\n

By dint of sheer numbers\u2014over 90% of American children attend public schools\u2014\u201ccommon schooling\u201d is the dominant philosophy of American education. Even those who dispute that education is the \u201cself-synthesis\u201d of social values must still concede that the whole point of education is to develop knowledge, values, beliefs and habits that will continue to guide students once they reach adulthood.<\/p>\n

Fly in the Ointment: The Nature of the Child and Who Will Decide?<\/h3>\n

Despite our reverence for the \u201cfree market of ideas,\u201d there are fundamental problems with the myth. A free intellectual market between students and teachers is no less absurd than a free economic market between adults and children.<\/p>\n

In economics, we have the good sense to prohibit such \u201cbargains.\u201d In education, however, such arrangements are unavoidable, and the values, beliefs and presuppositions projected by teachers are by far the most influential at the exact times when students are least capable of \u201cinformed consent\u201d about what they are being taught. Thus the question is not whether children will be influenced, but rather who will do the influencing. The American political system has developed two possible answers to this question of \u201csovereignty\u201d\u2014either the state or the parents will control.<\/p>\n

The Dilemma of State-Sovereign Education<\/h3>\n

Government educationists argue that, as a general rule, the state must be sovereign. Parents simply cannot be trusted to do what is best for society. Left to their own ways, they will choose individualistic educations for their children, which perpetuate their own bigotries at the expense of the common good. Private schools are undemocratic by their very nature, selectively discriminating against both people and ideas.3<\/a> Common schools, on the other hand, if appropriately managed, ensure that children learn to value equality, tolerance, and the general interests of the collective. Social stability simply cannot exist unless a substantial majority of citizens participate in the unifying, democratizing experience of the \u201ccommon school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Public schools are thus both the foundation of American democracy and indispensable to its preservation. As a matter of public policy, therefore, public education must remain the only viable option for the vast majority of children.<\/p>\n

The union of government and school, however, contains an inherent conflict. The essence of government is\u00a0compulsion\u2014a fact at odds with the ideal of self-determination and free thought which is the essence of free society.<\/p>\n

[S]ome scholars have suggested that any government seeking legitimacy must preserve the liberal postulates of the autonomous individual and the value-neutral state. Any attempt to indoctrinate \u201cofficial\u201d values is inconsistent with the perspective of individual autonomy and, therefore, ought to weaken legitimacy. Inculcating values in children, however, is both essential and unavoidable, even in the public schools. The first amendment therefore functions, at best, only to protect the appearance of individual autonomy. Yet by preserving such appearances, government can retain its legitimacy while permitting official and private power elites to socialize and indoctrinate the populace to support \u201caccepted\u201d beliefs.4<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thus, government schools cannot really practice intellec-tual autonomy. Despite the professed value of \u201cfree inquiry\u201d and self-determination, collective beliefs and values must predominate\u2014even to the extent that the general public must be deceived to maintain the aura of legitimacy on which popular government is based.<\/p>\n

The Dilemma of Parent-Sovereign Education<\/h3>\n

In contrast, school choice recognizes that, historically, parents have been primarily responsible for socialization. Politically, school choice also recognizes that individual freedom must predominate over the collective\u2014that the \u201cmelding experience\u201d of America is freedom itself, not conformity perpetuated under the illusion of autonomy.<\/p>\n

Since the family is the most decentralized unit of authority capable of socialization, it is far more likely than the state to perpetuate traditions of individual freedom.\u00a0America survived and prospered without government schools, and a government which practices tolerance in honest fact and not in pretense is the best possible lesson in liberality and acceptance of diversity.5<\/a><\/p>\n

School choice, however, faces the same social problems as state education. Individuals coexist without compulsion only so long as they share common values and beliefs. Early in America\u2019s development, that cohesion was produced by a fairly universal conception of social arrangements referred to broadly as \u201cJudeo-Christianity\u201d or, occasionally, as \u201cpan-Protestantism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Government education advocates respond that not only do we no longer have such a dominant worldview within our social and political institutions, it is unconstitutional and repressive to impose such a view upon minority segments of society.6<\/a> More extreme advocates even argue that children\u00a0have a right to be educated \u201cfree\u201d from such narrow and oppressive beliefs. (Of course, the problem remains that children not educated according to their parents\u2019 views will nevertheless be educated according to someone else\u2019s.)<\/p>\n

In the last half century, the loss of this pervasive worldview threatens the tribalization of American society unless some other unifying factor takes its place. We must therefore obtain cohesion in some other way, and that way is the democratizing experience of public education.<\/p>\n

Examining the Metaphor<\/h2>\n

The great, Norman Rockwell-esque ideal of American polity is that everyone has an equal opportunity to obtain a hearing for his views in the \u201cfree\u201d market of ideas\u2014a \u201cneutral\u201d public arena in which those ideas are challenged and tried, and from which \u201ctruth\u201d emerges based on the merits of the ideas alone. Because this public arena is a \u201cfree\u201d forum, ideas perish or prevail solely on their own merits, not on the ability of their holders to maintain a captive audience insulated from opposing views.<\/p>\n

In Abrams v. United States (1919), Justice Holmes coined the \u201cmarket\u201d metaphor to express his faith in this free exchange of ideas. \u201c[T]he best test of truth is the power of thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.\u201d (In Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., a later court revealed more clearly the premise implicit in such a market: \u201cUnder the First Amendment there is no such thing as a false idea.\u201d7<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The \u201cmarket of ideas\u201d is a powerful metaphor, implying similarity with, and borrowing luster from, the American free market\u2014the most powerful economic engine in the history of the world. And since that metaphor is the primary\u00a0justification for transferring authority from parents to state, it is imperative to determine whether it is really apt.<\/p>\n

Markets and the Limitation of Ideas<\/h3>\n

The Nature of Markets<\/h4>\n

Markets of any nature, whether intellectual, economic, artistic, and so on, are aggregates of human action. They are amoral, merely reflecting the characters and aptitudes of the specific individuals that comprise them.<\/p>\n

Economic markets, for example, do not guarantee technological or material \u201cprogress.\u201d They merely facilitate progress if the market players are capable of and inclined to such a thing. Historically, some cultures have achieved material and technological progress, some have not.<\/p>\n

Likewise, intellectual markets guarantee neither moral nor intellectual progress. They merely reflect the morality, intelligence, character and acumen of those able and permitted to participate in them. As with economic progress, some cultures have achieved intellectual progress, some have not.<\/p>\n

Thus, an intellectual market provides no inherent guarantee that the ideas which prevail are better or truer or more useful than ideas which fail. Unquestioning faith in the \u201cmarket of ideas\u201d is merely an implicit, self-laudatory assessment that its participants are wise, capable and honest seekers, unburdened with anti-intellectual concerns about votes, egos, biases, profits, reputations, pensions, or book royalties.<\/p>\n

The Nature of Freedom<\/h4>\n

Examining the \u201cmarket\u201d metaphor also requires a look at \u201cfreedom,\u201d because \u201cfreedom of speech\u201d and \u201cacademic freedom\u201d are inseparable from the \u201cmarket of ideas.\u201d Political considerations have gotten us into the habit of qualitative nomenclature such as the \u201cfree world,\u201d but freedom is\u00a0relative and subjective. Bluntly, freedom is the ability to do what one wishes. It is the ability to act\u2014to do.<\/p>\n

This definition may offend moral sensibilities, because we customarily (and commendably) associate a moral content with personal freedom, usually asking \u201cought we?\u201d as well as \u201ccan we?\u201d But freedom is separable from morality. A despot may be evil, but he is certainly more free (in the usual sense of the word) than the martyr whom he holds in prison.<\/p>\n

When evaluating the \u201cfree market of ideas,\u201d therefore, we must bear in mind that any exclusion or restriction of a point of view is, to the degree of the limitation, an admission that we really do not believe in the efficacy of a totally unrestricted intellectual market.<\/p>\n

Notwithstanding, American jurisprudence has developed the dubious distinction between freedom of \u201cthought\u201d and freedom of \u201caction.\u201d Again, however, the freedom to act is the only freedom that really makes much difference. A prisoner has complete freedom to think whatever he chooses, but he certainly is not \u201cfree\u201d to speak or to act as we ordinarily use that term.<\/p>\n

Inherent Limitations<\/h4>\n

Following from the preceding discussion, it is obvious that there is simply no universal \u201cmarket\u201d in which all are \u201cfree\u201d and able to participate and in which all ideas and points of view are considered equally and \u201cwithout bias.\u201d Every market of any kind, especially the market of ideas, reflects inherent human limitations.<\/p>\n

In his seminal essay, Individualism and Economic Order, F.A. Hayek wrote,<\/p>\n

The peculiar character of the problem of rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently\u00a0contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess.8<\/a><\/p>\n

To the obvious rejoinder that experts in a field can be assembled to provide the \u201cbest\u201d opinions, he replied, \u201c[T]his is of course merely shifting the difficulty to the problem of selecting the experts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even more important, markets do not guarantee a \u201cneutral\u201d search for truth. We are accustomed to claims of \u201cobjectivity\u201d and \u201cneutrality,\u201d but only an omniscient God could be truly \u201cneutral,\u201d unburdened by circumstances of time and perspective. Hayek continued,<\/p>\n

What I wish to point out is that, even assuming that this problem can be readily solved, it is only a small part of the wider problem.<\/p>\n

. . . . [A] little reflection will show that there is beyond question a body of very important but unorganized knowledge . . . the knowledge of the particular circum-stances of time and place.9<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Again, there is no such thing as a \u201cuniversal\u201d market. If \u201ctruth\u201d is a function of the market, then truth is merely the accident of time and place. Thus, the more loudly a speaker proclaims his unbiased ability to consider all points of view, the more surely he is a sycophant or, worse, a self-deluded ignoramus incognizant of his own intellectual and moral limitations.<\/p>\n

Education and the Limitation of Ideas<\/h3>\n

Felt Presuppositions and Worldview<\/h4>\n

Every cohesive society has some worldview or belief system which its individual members hold more or less in common. Not every individual engages in systematic reflection on reality, life and meaning, of course, but everyone still has some conception of reality on which he bases his actions and decisions.<\/p>\n

Such conceptions are based on intuitions about the nature of things: how to tell right from wrong, what is \u201ctrue,\u201d how things \u201cought\u201d to be, and so on. These fundamental intuitions I will call \u201cfelt presuppositions\u201d because every belief system is ultimately based on \u201cself-evident\u201d presuppositions which are assumed and not proven. Such intuitions are articles of quasi-religious faith, in some respects insusceptible to reason and experience, the customary means of proof.10<\/a><\/p>\n

For example, no beliefs are more fundamental to western civilization than the notions that all men are \u201ccreated\u201d equal, that all possess inalienable rights, and that such rights include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Yet despite the indispensability of these notions, some of the most brilliant minds in history claimed only \u201cself-evidence\u201d in their support.<\/p>\n

In sum, though felt presuppositions are ultimately insusceptible to \u201cabsolute\u201d proof, they are nevertheless vital because they govern the approaches we take and the conclusions we make when confronted with social problems.<\/p>\n

Primacy of Elementary Education<\/h4>\n

Education is not merely \u201ctechnical\u201d learning objectives and the experiences designed to achieve them. Instead, it is\u00a0the sum total of the learner\u2019s experiences\u2014all environmental influences which affect his thoughts and actions.<\/p>\n

The \u201cactors\u201d which control that environment always communicate some worldview. It is impossible to engage in any kind of human action (education in particular) without evincing some conception of \u201cthe way things are.\u201d That conception may be coherent or chaotic, intentional or inadvertent. It need not even be communicated consciously, but it is communicated nonetheless.<\/p>\n

Through this process, children intuitively come to \u201cknow\u201d certain felt presuppositions when they are young and least able to understand what is being done to them. Transmission of a worldview is almost always implicit. Only rarely is a teacher aware of what he is doing, and even more rarely is he honest enough to state explicitly the presuppositions he is attempting to teach.<\/p>\n

Consider the familiar issue of \u201creligion and state.\u201d When authority figures in government schools consider all matters of human significance without reference to God, students cannot help but conclude intuitively that government considers theistic beliefs irrelevant. Thus the subconscious predispositions of generations of students have been imbued with the state\u2019s operational assumptions that neither the probability nor the consequences of God\u2019s existence are of sufficient magnitude to factor into their behavioral calculations.<\/p>\n

I am unconcerned here with whether it is rational, ethical or constitutional to include theological concerns in public education or public policy decisions. I only point out that one set of predispositions is being advanced and another rejected under a fundamentally dishonest guise of \u201cneutrality.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201creligion\u201d question is probably the most familiar instance of creating subrational predispositions, but the identical process goes on in much more subtle ways regarding virtually all subjects and ideas. Given the nature of the child, it is impossible for such a process not to occur. However, educators and power elites should at least\u00a0acknowledge that their asserted \u201cfree market of ideas\u201d and \u201cdemocratic processes\u201d are, to a degree, disingenuous.<\/p>\n

Education and the Control of Ideas<\/h3>\n

The Democratic Ideal<\/h4>\n

John Dewey made it clear that America would look to democratic education to establish social goals and achieve loyalty to them. In My Pedagogic Creed he stated,<\/p>\n

By law and punishment, by social agitation and discussion, society can regulate and form itself in a more or less haphazard and chance way. But through education society can formulate its own purposes, can organize its own means and resources, and thus shape itself with definiteness and economy in the direction in which it wishes to move.11<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dewey believed that children would be naturally loyal to democratic decisions in which they themselves participated.<\/p>\n

I believe that the only true education comes through the stimulation of the child\u2019s powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself. Through these demands he is stimulated to act as a member of a unity, to emerge from his original narrowness of action and feeling and to conceive of himself from the standpoint of the welfare of the group to which he belongs.12<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thus Dewey believed that the school should replace all other social institutions as the primary determinant of social goals and values.<\/p>\n

Economic Limitations<\/h4>\n

Despite Dewey\u2019s mystic reverence for democratic education, the idea of an \u201cintellectual free market\u201d in government schools has serious problems. A \u201cfree\u201d economic market is, by definition, one in which government regulation is minimized. Government exists only to maintain the rules of the market, and participation is based on persuasion, not legal compulsion. In contrast, American public education is one of the most pervasive monopolies in history, controlling by law almost all dollars available for education. The mere fact that disposable income is taken for government education means that most families are deprived of freedom to choose an alternative.<\/p>\n

Only the wealthier or most sacrificial parents have any choice other than state-provided education. Thus, govern-ment deprives the great majority of the public of free choice merely by eliminating their capacity to choose anything else. Religious education is an obvious example. Strict separationists talk about the \u201cwall of separation,\u201d but for the last 150 years, government has extended its \u201cwall\u201d at breakneck pace. Not only has its rapacious jurisdictional appetite consumed one enclave of the public life after another, its voracious economic appetite has devoured ever increasing percentages of private wealth (through taxes, inflation and regulation) to fund the advance.<\/p>\n

It is ironic that those advocates most willing to fall from the edge of the world defending a student\u2019s ineffable right to wear a smutty t-shirt are oblivious to Leviathan\u2019s economic annihilation of personal liberty. These same advocates generally labor indefatigably erecting an impermeable wall of separation between church and state, yet they are oblivious to the rampant destruction of the most important constitutional wall of all\u2014that between government and citizen. In fact, the very justification for government taxation and control of education is the fear of what parents might do if left to their own devices. Thus, while government education might conceivably be justified on other grounds, borrowing\u00a0metaphoric luster from free economic markets is unwarranted and disingenuous.<\/p>\n

Systemic Limitations<\/h4>\n

In government schools themselves, the \u201cmarket of ideas\u201d is supposedly guarded by \u201cacademic freedom,\u201d and we reflexively envision government education as an open forum. Whatever discretion a teacher has, however, exists within a very limited ambit.<\/p>\n

A carefully controlled environment is inherent in the idea of school itself, particularly in elementary grades where shaping thought and belief is most critical. Professor Ingber\u2019s \u201celite\u201d decide who will be permitted to teach, which subjects will be taught, which curricula and texts will be used, which teaching methods will be permitted, which books and materials will be available or feted in the library and which will not be purchased.<\/p>\n

Political Limitations:\u00a0Truth and the Views of the Dominant Forces<\/h4>\n

If \u201ctruth\u201d is merely a function of the market, then whoever controls the market controls truth. In The Common Law, Justice Holmes was candid about the way society really functions.<\/p>\n

So when it comes to the development of a corpus juris, the ultimate question is what do the dominant forces of the community want and do they want it hard enough to disregard whatever inhibitions may stand in the way.13<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This conclusion is disturbingly consistent with Ingber\u2019s views that the first amendment functions best as a subterfuge, preserving the appearance of individual autonomy so that the general populace do not suspect official\u00a0and private power elites of indoctrinating students to support \u201caccepted\u201d beliefs.\u201d<\/p>\n

GOVERNMENT-DOMINANT EDUCATION: PERPETUATING THE ILLUSION<\/h2>\n

State Sovereignty and the Market<\/h3>\n

The Illusion of Competition<\/h4>\n

As we have seen, an \u201cintellectual market\u201d of six-year olds is ludicrous. Elementary and secondary government schooling is not at all about preserving the market of ideas in larger society, it is about restricting that market to establish ideas which government hopes will persevere into adulthood. Government education exists precisely to prevent an adult population with unacceptably diverse ideas.<\/p>\n

As Ingber points out, however, this restriction must be accomplished as a subterfuge to perpetuate the apparent legitimacy of the \u201cpopular\u201d state. Government education has dishonestly turned its greatest weakness\u2014the deliberate exclusion and suppression of impermissibly divergent ideas\u2014into its greatest propaganda piece: the preservation of \u201cintellectual freedom\u201d and \u201cdiversity.\u201d<\/p>\n

In light of this mindset, the advent of \u201cpolitical correctness\u201d should hardly shock. It is a direct result of people educated in a system based on exclusion of ideas in the name of neutrality and tolerance. The result of such a system may well be the greatest intolerance of all: a society full of people who in good conscience deliberately exclude viewpoints (and their adherents) from meaningful participation in social processes\u2014all in the name of tolerance, liberalism and open-mindedness which they believe they truly possesses.<\/p>\n

The Illusion of Self-Determination<\/h4>\n

Government education controls ideas in least three specific ways. The first is obvious. In most states, for\u00a0example, schools must teach specifically in favor of democratic processes and against antagonistic processes such as communism or socialism. Other more controversial regulations require teaching of human growth and development, environmental education, values clarification, outcome-based education, and so on.<\/p>\n

Second, and less overt, is the deliberate exclusion of theistic belief. Though most teachers are unaware, it is still legally permissible to teach \u201cabout\u201d religion. But it has been held violative of the First Amendment for a teacher to say, \u201cI believe.\u201d While the system permits authority figures to model approved beliefs, it absolutely prohibits the modeling of other beliefs. One who believes that this kind of policy is \u201cneutral\u201d toward theistic belief would probably enjoy a football game in which one team is not permitted on the field.<\/p>\n

Third, and least discernible of all, is the effect of the inherently cynical character of the market process itself discussed below.<\/p>\n

Products of the Process<\/h3>\n

By disguising the philosophical presuppositions on which it is based, American public education perpetuates perhaps the most restricted experience of all\u2014one in which the child is manipulated to accept certain presuppositions without any awareness of the implicit forces and ideas which have shaped his thinking.<\/p>\n

Specifically, this means that any \u201cdivisive\u201d beliefs must yield to the common democratic good. Thomas Jefferson once wrote to a director of the University of Virginia,<\/p>\n

By bringing the sects together, and mixing them with the mass of other students, we shall soften their asperities, liberalize and neutralize their prejudices, and make the general religion a religion of peace, reason, and morality.14<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jefferson\u2019s vision has been remarkably powerful, and the deliberate substitution of democratic process for individual belief has historically been dubbed America\u2019s \u201ccivil religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Civil Religion and Displacement of Theistic Principle<\/h4>\n

One familiar result of American civil religion is the progressive exclusion from public life of those with theistic viewpoints. At the beginning of our constitutional history, the free exercise clause actually meant something. Whether or not the wall of separation was a valid metaphor in our early history, it still was of little significance because government (federal government in particular) had very little to do with lives of citizens.<\/p>\n

Over time, however, government has expanded into more and more areas of the public life previously reserved to private action. Concurrently, the United States Supreme Court developed the \u201cwall of separation\u201d doctrine, which prohibits integration of theistic beliefs and governmental activity. The result is that as government keeps \u201cmoving the wall,\u201d individuals acting out of a theistic worldview are necessarily \u201cquarantined\u201d in a few limited, ever-shrinking sectors of the public life.<\/p>\n

As these principles filtered down into elementary and secondary schools, it inevitably resulted in the now-dominant view that religion is of purely private concern and has no place in public life. What Jefferson viewed as the \u201csoftening of asperities,\u201d others view as the removal of objective cultural standards by which to judge and restrict government action.<\/p>\n

Civil Religion and Displacement of Moral Principle<\/h4>\n

The removal of transcendent religious principle from public life has been a high profile affair. Much less noticeably, however, democratic education has also removed traditional moral and civil standards by its disastrous merging of morality and legality.<\/p>\n

Popular savants bemoan the loss of \u201ccivility,\u201d but that phenomenon is to be expected. Morality and civility have traditionally been a function of private authority imposing standards of conduct thought to be rational and desirable, making possible the learning of moral and social codes more restrictive than those imposed by government.<\/p>\n

However, since the Viet Nam era Tinker case, government schools are prevented from imposing behavioral standards higher than the \u201couter limits of legality\u201d prescribed by the Constitution. Thus, as social limits have become identical to legal limits during children\u2019s formative years, behavior has tended ineluctably toward the lowest common denominator.
\nA fearful by-product of the \u201clegalization\u201d of America is that the American public now views government as the only legitimate source of limitation on personal freedom. A free society, however, is based on self control, not imposed control. Once government is seen as the only legitimate sanction remaining, society is one small step from a police state.<\/p>\n

Civil Religion and De Facto Cynicism<\/h4>\n

This removal of transcendent principle is not new, however. In the fourth century B.C., the Cynics first formulated the organized doctrine that the ultimate nature of reality is unknowable. Therefore, instead of wasting time speculating about knowledge impossible to obtain, Cynics devoted themselves strictly to \u201cthis worldly\u201d concerns. (\u201cVirtue\u201d was still in vogue, and the Cynic Diogenes walked about with a lantern looking for an honest man.)<\/p>\n

In more recent times, Hume and Kant much more thoroughly demolished any confidence that ultimate reality is knowable. Prior to their work, epistemology had always been subsequent to cosmology. Hume and Kant reversed the order. Without the assumption of the efficacy of reason, it became increasingly obvious that nothing could be known \u201cfor sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Augustus Comte provided an historical characterization for these views. Man\u2019s early, ignorant stage was \u201creligious\u201d in which he looked for truth through revelation. Man\u2019s second stage was \u201cphilosophical\u201d in which he looked for ultimate answers through speculative reason. Finally, man has now reached the enlightened \u201cscientific\u201d stage in which the only knowledge of significance is empirical and experiential.<\/p>\n

As logic took its course, Cynicism led to Sophism. And just as the Cynics in ancient times, modern education\u2014particularly elementary education where it most counts\u2014has totally abandoned any search for ultimate meaning, either religiously or philosophically. Elementary and secondary curricula are utterly devoid of any discussion of the nature of truth or questions of ultimate significance. Hastened by public education\u2019s removal of objective religious and moral principles from consideration, the same skepticism now dominates modern intellectual life. The significance of this void is not so much that students intentionally disbelieve in transcendent principles, but rather that they intuitively absorb the state\u2019s operant presuppositions that such concerns are irrelevant and inappropriate. State education thus teaches students its own brand of institutional cynicism. Far more deadly than producing students without some faith or belief in the nature of things, this system produces students without even the capability of recognizing their own narrow presuppositions.<\/p>\n

For \u201cphilosophers,\u201d such cynicism may be a functional way to live. But as a practical matter for society, it destroys the very fabric on which the vast majority of society has traditionally based their lives and by which self-restraint has seemed reasonable. Like the Cynics, American society is obsessed exclusively with \u201cthis worldly\u201d concerns. Unlike the Cynics, however, \u201cvirtue\u201d is not still in vogue.<\/p>\n

PARENT-DOMINANT EDUCATION: ACKNOWLEDGING REALITY<\/h2>\n

Parental Sovereignty and the Market<\/h3>\n

Acknowledging Personal Limits<\/h4>\n

School choice does not engage in disingenuous posturing about \u201cunbiased\u201d and \u201cneutral\u201d education. It acknowledges human limitations, readily admitting that the universal cannot be replicated in the individual. It demands for parents the personal liberty to engage in individual decisions about education and permits other parents the same liberty.<\/p>\n

Competition among Equals<\/h4>\n

School choice posits a market of ideas no less than public education. However, school choice is honest in recognizing that an intellectual market is meaningless among children generally lacking the intellectual sophistication and moral constitution to believe and do other than what they are told.<\/p>\n

In contrast to the phony market advertised by government education, the market of ideas proposed by school choice is meaningful\u2014one in which a would-be educator must convince a competent adult that the educator\u2019s particular approach to education is most suited for that parent\u2019s child. Like their counterparts in the economic market, the \u201csellers\u201d of education must convince the \u201cbuyers\u201d that purchase of a particular product is the best possible use of the buyer\u2019s resources.<\/p>\n

Products of the Process<\/h4>\n

School choice accomplishes the ideal which state education only professes\u2014preventing imposition of official \u201cstate doctrine.\u201d With choice, parents have the actual capability to obtain an education based on transcendent spiritual or moral presuppositions rather than the cynicism of the government monopoly. It makes possible real intellectual and cultural diversity.<\/p>\n

Still, choice does not ignore the need for social cohesion. The real melding experience of America was and is freedom.15<\/a> A free society best obtains tolerance by exhibiting tolerance\u2014not by surreptitiously repressing real diversity.<\/p>\n

A SUGGESTION FOR ACTION: TAKING THE OFFENSIVE<\/h2>\n

The Retreat<\/h3>\n

Individualists are at a disadvantage against statists because they have inherent reservations about employing political force rather than individual persuasion. In contrast, statists believe government compulsion is fundamentally moral to modify and shape otherwise free choices of citizens.<\/p>\n

An individualist\u2019s inhibitions make it inevitable that he will be more reticent than the statist to use taxation and other forms of official compulsion to impose his views, so the current dominance of government education over individual liberty is understandable.<\/p>\n

How then, may individual liberty in education and society be recovered?<\/p>\n

The Offensive<\/h3>\n

Moral and Intellectual Offensive<\/h4>\n

Fundamental change in popular government usually occurs only when the populace at large believes in the\u00a0fairness or morality of the change. Unfortunately, it is still reflexive among major segments of the population that opposing public education means supporting ignorance. (We have a great deal of work to do.)<\/p>\n

The first step of the counter-offensive thus must be to establish that parental sovereignty is the policy truly in keeping with American traditions of personal liberty and tolerance. As to liberty, it is outrageous that government taxes a parent into oblivion, uses that money to educate his child in ways or with views and beliefs with which he disagrees, then bids him go elsewhere if he objects.<\/p>\n

As to tolerance, unlike the forced conformity of govern-ment education, school choice both respects intellectual and cultural diversity and preserves its possibility. We should not fear that choice allows other parents to educate their children as strong Moslems or Catholics. Nor should we fear that Black or Hispanic parents will take education into their own hands and produce self-confident children and powerful cultural and economic communities. Instead, we should fear what may happen if such groups are marginalized and manipulated by an unresponsive educational system controlled by elite political interest groups.<\/p>\n

School choice is the truly \u201cdemocratic\u201d process, because it involves virtually every parent in the decision process. Education is no longer the exclusive domain of the elite in charge of government agencies. The real melding experience of America is individual liberty, not imposed conformity masquerading as tolerance.<\/p>\n

Legal Offensive<\/h4>\n

On the legal and constitutional front, we must look to established principles with which the courts are familiar because few successful offensives are mounted as outright assaults on established principle.<\/p>\n

First, we must ask courts to give the public \u201cintellectual informed consent.\u201d That is, ask the courts to deal honestly with the philosophical issues. Cease, either deliberately or\u00a0accidentally, from perpetuating the false notion that government schools somehow tolerate unrestricted diversity in an intellectually neutral forum.<\/p>\n

Second, the courts must scrutinize their traditional compartmental analyses. The interminable calls for separation of religious and secular functions seem simple enough applied to church and state as discreet corporate entities, but when applied to the real parties in interest\u2014individuals with integrated theistic beliefs\u2014they amount to psychological vivisection.<\/p>\n

Education is not easily divisible into discreet \u201creligious\u201d and \u201cnon-religious\u201d functions. Virtually every comprehensive religion speaks to social and political questions as well as to purely \u201cspiritual\u201d concerns. If both theistic and non-theistic belief systems address the same issues, it is hardly \u201cneutral\u201d to exclude one set of views from consideration.<\/p>\n

The greater the effort necessary to parse the conjunction of church and state in education, the more obvious it should be that such issues may be nonjusticiable. School choice solves the problem\u2014not by providing better legal analysis, but by eliminating education as a \u201cstate action\u201d altogether.<\/p>\n

Buying education with a voucher is itself no more an establishment of state religion than buying kosher with food stamps or a social security check. That a significant number of parents would purchase education from a religious provider simply proves that education is a religiously integrated enterprise for a great number of people\u2014one in which the state\u2019s secular monopoly amounts to invidious discrimination and religious disestablishment on a massive scale.
\nThird, it is customary to speak of \u201caccommodating\u201d religious people. This presupposes that it is the state which is legitimate and that the individual believing parent must go like a mendicant, hat in hand, begging for something which legitimately belongs to the state.<\/p>\n

In truth, it is the state which has distorted the normal equilibrium of human action. Left alone to make their own\u00a0economic decisions, a great percentage of the populace would seek religious or morally distinctive educations. It is incredibly cynical to claim that school choice will have a \u201creligious effect\u201d when in reality it would merely facilitate the restoration of cultural equilibrium. School choice merely allows the public to do with their money what they would have done anyway had government not taxed it away to begin with.<\/p>\n

Fourth, we must cease viewing individuals, religious or not, as members of ostracized factions at war with each other. Citizens voluntarily associate in groups based on race, religion, ethnic background, labor interests and political interests. Unless checked, the state through economic and political pressure will gain the ability to eradicate free choices which make such individual distinctions possible. The real war is not between the \u201cpublic\u201d and religious or ethnic minorities, but between the state and individual citizens.<\/p>\n

Fifth, the courts must recognize that individual and familial liberties are meaningless if government succeeds in destroying citizens\u2019 economic ability to exercise them. A government is despotic in direct proportion to the extent that it taxes away the economic ability of the people to speak, associate, assemble, publish or practice religion. If government taxes away the marginal ability of individual citizens to engage in those vital functions, their exercise will become the exclusive domains of massive corporations, foundations, trade organizations and bureaucracies economically powerful enough to overcome governmental impediments.<\/p>\n

Without too much exaggeration, the fundamental evil challenged by the American Revolution\u2014economic dominance of government over private citizen\u2014is virtually lost in the modern civil libertarian\u2019s weird fascination with felons and topless dancers. The courts must be re-sensitized to government\u2019s economic threat to liberty. Once sensitized, they will be much less reticent to accept policies which return a measure of control to individuals.<\/p>\n

Political Offensive<\/h4>\n

Government education proponents have masterfully succeeded in building a quasi-religious devotion to government schooling. Once that devotion has been tempered by exposing the fallacies of the system, it will be much easier for individual members of the public to understand that their best interests are served by deciding themselves how to spend their own money.<\/p>\n

It is unrealistic to believe that government will cease funding education. So as long as government remains in that business, the ideal mechanism would be \u201cIndividual Education Accounts,\u201d which provide each child with a fixed dollar amount for education based on the child\u2019s particular educational needs. Funds not used for a current year would be rolled over into an individual account and made available for post-secondary technical, professional or academic training.<\/p>\n

Such a device gives parents a real incentive to maximize results and minimize cost. Once accustomed to actually making their own decisions with their own money, parents will never go \u201cback to the farm.\u201d<\/p>\n

CONCLUSION<\/h2>\n

It is statists who are terrorized by real diversity. They are more than willing to sacrifice history\u2019s greatest experiment in liberty for the security of the hive. Educational choice is not the end of intellectual and cultural diversity; it is the last, best hope for its preservation.<\/p>\n

Educational choice is truly the greatest public policy issue of the century. Who controls the schools, controls the future.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

1 Michael D. Dean, Esq., is the General Counsel for First Freedoms Foundation, Inc.<\/p>\n

2 It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss whether the state should be involved in education at all. At present, there is no realistic possibility that it will remove itself, so this paper deals only with the practical political situation as it actually exists.<\/p>\n

3 Although it also beyond the scope of this paper to discuss the sociological aspects of school choice, a brief comment is necessary because the charges of racism against school choice are so pervasive.<\/p>\n

As a practical matter, the vision of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) is largely unrealized. The great enclaves of segregation are still urban public schools, not private schools. Court-ordered integration has often exacerbated social problems and created new ones more intractable than ever.<\/p>\n

In contrast to \u201ctop down\u201d solutions to social problems, school choice recognizes that it is beyond the right or ability of government to know what is best for every child. Because school choice is \u201cconsumer driven,\u201d it facilitates creation of a wider variety of schools from which parents may select the education most appropriate for their children.<\/p>\n

4 Stanley Ingber, \u201cSocialization, Indoctrination, or the \u2018Pall of Orthodoxy\u2019: Value Training in the Public Schools,\u201d University of Illinois Law Review 1 (1987): 71.<\/p>\n

5 The recent fervor for \u201cmulticulturalism\u201d in government schools is, to a great degree, the guilt reflex of the very institutions which for decades attempted to eradicate diversity. (As with earlier \u201ctop down\u201d integration policies, these efforts have also been frequently counter-productive, even in purely social terms.)
\nThe landmark parents\u2019 rights cases resulted from state efforts to impose uniformity. In Pierce v. Society of Sisters, a Supreme Court generally considered \u201creactionary\u201d declared that children were not \u201cmere creatures of the state\u201d and held unconstitutional Oregon\u2019s attempt to force all children to attend government schools. In Meyer v. Nebraska, the same Court held unconstitutional a Nebraska law prohibiting teaching of the German language, the purpose of which was to subjugate German cultural heritage.<\/p>\n

6 One might argue with some justification that the loss of a general Judeo-Christian worldview and resulting cultural Balkanization are the direct results of two government policies. (1) Constitutional decisions in the 40\u2019s, 50\u2019s and 60\u2019s purposely disestablished that view from American schools and, ultimately, from American society. (2) Government first enforced slavery of blacks, then deliberately segregated them and other minorities from participation and opportunity in society\u2014frequently with the\u00a0apparent sanction of those claiming a Judeo-Christian worldview \u2014leading inevitably (and understandably) to caustic resentment against Judeo-Christianity and society by those unjustly excluded.<\/p>\n

7 The troubling corollary of such a proposition is that there is no such thing as true idea, either.<\/p>\n

8 F. A. Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1948), 77.<\/p>\n

9 Ibid., 80.<\/p>\n

10 This is not to discount natural law bases of common reason and experience, nor is it to take sides in the debate between \u201cclassical\u201d and \u201cpresuppositionalist\u201d philosophy and apologetics. But classical natural law thinkers, pagan Cicero and Christian Aquinas among them, did refer frequently to \u201crecta ratio,\u201d not \u201csola ratio.\u201d Even more basic, they began with the \u201cself-evident\u201d assumptions that there is such a thing as \u201creason\u201d and that \u201creason is reasonable.\u201d<\/p>\n

11 John Dewey, My Pedagogic Creed (New York: E. L. Kellog, 1897), 17.<\/p>\n

12 Ibid., 3.<\/p>\n

13 Oliver Wendell Holmes, His Books, Notices, and Uncollected Papers, ed. Harry C. Shriver (New York: Central Book, 1936), 187.<\/p>\n

14 Herbert Baxter Adam, Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia (Washington: Government Printing Office (1888), 91.<\/p>\n

15 In addition to mere liberty, commonly accepted moral and behavioral restraints are also indispensable to what the founding fathers called \u201cordered liberty.\u201d It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss how common moral assumptions arise apart from government compulsion. As only one example, C.S. Lewis noted moral axioms common to all religions which he called the Tao. It is not the selection of a particular set of moral absolutes that makes government education so destructive, but rather the implicit denial that confidence in moral absolutes is even possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Dean 1 Education policy is like any other policy. The only question that really matters is, \u201cWho gets the money?\u201d Because whoever has the money will decide where and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":6692,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1729],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baptist-theological-journal"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbu.edu\/seminary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbu.edu\/seminary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbu.edu\/seminary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbu.edu\/seminary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbu.edu\/seminary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbu.edu\/seminary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbu.edu\/seminary\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbu.edu\/seminary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbu.edu\/seminary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbu.edu\/seminary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}