After reading a recent opinion piece by a ‘conservative’, Oklahoma law professor (Right Thinking: Grumpy suburbanites and the populist conservative base, by Andrew Spiropoulos) I had to laugh. While I agreed with 9/10ths of his very excellent treatise on populism vs conservatism, I had to part company altogether when this man began discussing education – particularly relating to Superintendent Barresi’s election loss and Governor Fallin’s recent drop in the polls.
To him, Barresi lost and Fallin has dropped in the polls – not because their education reform initiatives were too heavy
handed, but because they were not heavy handed enough.
This makes me laugh because elitists tend to recognize elitism in
everyone but themselves. Hilariously, this law
professor outs himself as elitist by saying, "… our
(Oklahoma) business elite does not have a strong
intellectual grasp of the tenets or policy successes of conservatism",
after which he calls dissenters of big government education reform, such as I,
'grumpy suburbanites' (wasn’t it Arne Duncan (a Democrat) who blamed the
failure of education ‘reform’ on “white
suburban moms”?).
This professor appears to understand conservatism in every
area but public education. To him,
conservatism in this venue should be state-control under the virtuous flag of
'accountability for taxpayer funds'.
Conservatism is a political philosophy most in line with the
majority of American Founders. To them,
conservatism, “conserves” power to the individual OVER the state – in point of
fact, conservatism imbues the notion of individual rights. Conservatism doesn’t parse itself across each
segment of our lives. It doesn’t break
down into fiscal ‘conservatism’ versus individual rights, or political ‘conservatism’
versus individual rights. To the
elitist, however, "fiscal conservatism" relates to ‘conserving’ assets,
therefore if local school boards overspend, the state must force ‘conservatism’ by subjecting
individuals on school boards all across the state to laws addressing
overspending in public education. This notion is fallacious as it necessarily embargoes individual rights. It also usurps the ability of individuals to
learn by removing negative consequences – but that’s another topic for another
day.
Either individuals or government have the power - it can't
be both. In some circumstances, the
people delegate their power to government (ie; traffic laws), but government
cannot usurp the right of individuals because it doesn't like the way the right
is utilized. Certainly, government
cannot usurp a parent’s right to direct the education of their own children
(child endangerment issues notwithstanding), yet that is exactly what happened
with Oklahoma’s 3rd grade reading retention law, (as one of many examples - Common Core being another).
It is a parent's duty to hold their children accountable for
whether or not they are reading by the end of third grade. When Governor Fallin vetoed the MINOR change
to the third grade reading retention law (simply adding a PARENT to the group
of school personnel deciding whether their child should graduate), parents felt
cut out of the process of educating their children. Since parents maintain the right and
responsibility to care for their children as they see fit, parents recognized
this as a usurpation of their individual rights. I believe one of the reasons for the downturn
in our Governor's poll numbers resulted from a parental awakening to this kind
of elitism rampant in our currently Republican-controlled government.
The elitist thought process eschews personal responsibility
and individual rights when they are exercised in a way seen as inappropriate by
the elitist – particularly in education.
“Many parents are _______ (‘poor’, ‘ill-educated’, ‘drug addicts’, ‘grumpy
suburbanites’) and cannot be trusted to educate their children appropriately.” This leads elitists to gravitate toward state
controlled education – not education of the public provided by churches and
communities with local/parent control as the Founders advocated.
I personally believe a majority of today’s parents remiss in
their duties regarding their children’s education. Far too many times as a teacher I sent items
home in backpacks that were never opened, or I sat in a quiet classroom of an
evening because parents couldn’t be bothered to attend parent/teacher
meetings. I am, however, a staunch
believer in individual rights – even if it means the right to have a child living
in your basement until age 30 because you couldn’t be bothered to assume the
responsibility necessary to appropriately direct their education, or I as a
taxpayer have to cough up money to the criminal justice system to ‘rehabilitate’
the child you refused to rear or educate when you were tasked with that responsibility.
For hundreds of years, the state was an actor prevented from
even reading for the part of parent. Actually, it wasn't until the early 1960’s, when tax exemptions provided
the excuse for many to abandon their missions, churches stopped assuming the
role of responsible party for the uneducated/undereducated, teaching them their
rights and responsibilities and setting them on the path to fruitful
citizenship.
Though to invoke the words of American Founders today seems
to be to invite derision in many circles,
John Adams well illustrated the current breakdown in understanding between
elitists and conservatives, parents and parental responsibility,
“…we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
I believe In today’s vernacular we would say; “Know your rights and
responsibilities – govern yourself – or men will do it for you in your name.” Look around. Isn't that just what we're seeing today?
