Recently, I posted a comment on our ROPE Facebook page about the socialist nature of public school. It was in response to another comment made by someone who disagreed with an earlier post (incidentally, I wish ALL dissenters could be as polite as this commenter - we've had a great time talking back and forth and even found things to agree on over the course of numerous exchanges).
As we were talking about the district of Glenpool - whose superintendent was able to save money to give all teachers a $1,000 bonus by cutting some services such as cleaning services - we had a lively discussion about teachers being asked to help clean their school.
During the discussion, I was trying to explain the difference between a corporation and publicly funded education. Toward that end, I made the following comment. I want to include it in the blog because it speaks to three issues to which public school funding advocates continuously defer:
- 1. Public education is a 'common good' and therefore requires public funding
- 2. Public education is 'the great equalizer', therefore public schools are required in order to equalize the opportunities of all children in the state
- 3. That everyone must pay for public education whether we use it or not - just like roads and bridges - because it falls under the category of 'public good'/public necessity.
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COMMENT: I'm flummoxed. Isn't public education socialist in nature period? I can promise that ALL residents of the state are forced to pay for it under the heading of equalizing access to education for every student under 16 in the state - right? Being forced to pay for something which is ostensibly good for everyone, is the definition of socialism.
When my kids were in public school even the nature of classroom materials was socialist. I would pay for my kid's own pencils, paper, erasers, etc., and then when they would get to school the teacher would put them all in the cabinet and hand them out to each child no matter who brought them. I found pencils my child liked, but they might not even have gotten any of them - anyone who needed a pencil got the pencils I bought for them.
The nature of public school education is socialist. Every child sits in a classroom for a certain period. Every child moves from one classroom to another. Every child learns the same thing in all of seventh grade for science (and all other subjects/grades) according to educational standards meant to be appropriate for every child.
There is no conflation here, there is simply fact based upon definition. Public school is a socialist institution. I think the problem today is that we say the word, but then we either don't understand it and get offended at the way it is used, or overlook actual examples because we don't know what it means.
Roads and bridges are different. The vast majority of all Oklahomans must use roads and bridges in their daily lives (work, school, shopping). As a taxpayer, I use what I pay for.
I don't know the percentage of those paying taxes for public schools that don't use public schools, but it has to be fairly high - 35% maybe? (The number of Oklahomans under the age of 18 is 24.5% - and not all those use public education) Consequently, there are many people - like our family - that pay taxes for a service we don't use.
You will say this doesn't matter, however, because education is a public good, therefore it must be supported by the public.
I disagree that public education is a public good. Since the 1970's ACT scores have fallen or remained stagnate**. We're to the point now where - in Oklahoma - only 1/3 of state students in public schools are proficient in math or English***. That's HORRIBLE. That is not a number that reflects the public good at all - that's the public being uneducated. Frequently students are not taught the founding documents of this country, the Founders themselves or the reason for the founding of this country. Most students can't name their own Representative or Senator, let alone the name of the Vice-President or Secretary of State. Many times students have been given the civics test given to emigrants but can't pass. How do you keep a free population when the majority of students are never taught that information?
Our college remediation rates are ridiculous across the country. My father is a college professor. Many of the students who come into his class for journalism can't write a coherent sentence or know how to conjugate a verb properly - after high school. You say public education is the great equalizer - and I would agree with that. IT brings everyone down to one level based upon what is fair for all. If the more money we put into the system the more things stay the same, how can we justify adding more to the system by saying that "we just don't have enough money to produce excellent results"? How much money will ever be enough to produce results for public education when homeschooling families with many times less money than $7,000/student are matriculating students through college and into successful careers or family life?
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While many see socialism as an economic system, public schools can be none other than socialist simply because, the government holds the "means of production" of a 'common' education. In fact, as I stated earlier, from buildings to desks to books, all are owned by the government, there is no 'private' property.
Unfortunately, none of this speaks well of public education. The more money put into public education, the less return on our investment there is every year.
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| Taken from State Education Trends; Academic Performance and Spending Over the Past 40 Years https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa746.pdf |
Until the Oklahoma State Department of Education is audited, administration costs curtailed and results accumulated for the ACT/SAT and standard Oklahoma tests, taxpayers should not foot further bills to fund public education via edict by our state legislature.
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* Information on Tom L. Johnson, the Democrat Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio from 1901 - 1909.
***This is a graph of Oklahoma's 2015 8th grade math results.
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