G.W., the Privatization of Education, and American Values.

As George W. Bush proceeds through his minority presidency, one of his supposedly chief areas of emphasis is education. Both he and his brother--Florida Governor Jeb--have expressed their desire to be remembered as "education" politicians. G.W. is now in a position to have enormous influence over the direction of education in the United States, so it is certainly time to ponder how he wants to improve schools and the implications of those "improvements."

A central feature of both G.W.'s and Jeb's agenda on education includes vouchers or so-called scholarships. The purpose of these government grants or tax credits, however they are provided, is dubious at best. Vouchers are a central feature of a wider educational program intended to improve education in the United States by allowing parents to remove their children from ineffective public schools in order to send them to private schools. Since voucher programs thus weaken public schools, one must believe that the Bush administration, in fact, has a clear but unstated objective: to turn the educational system in this country over to the private sector. This conclusion is entirely consistent with G.W. and Jeb's fundamentalist, laissez-faire capitalist philosophy, rooted in Social Darwinism.

If G.W.'s plan is implemented, the issues surrounding the voucher plan in Florida will come to the fore on a national scale. When Jeb pushed his policy through, the rationale for it centered on a "struggle for survival" among public schools. Proponents of vouchers claimed that poor schools would be forced--even with less funds--to improve. If they did not, it was argued, then they deserved to close their doors. At the same time, private schools would upgrade and expand in order to compete with public schools. Thus, the educational system would be improved through a sort of Darwinian survival of the fittest among schools competing in an environment of financial scarcity--a "level playing field" in the terms of the laissezfairests. Educational policy, the argument continues, is then left to the market jungle, and this struggle would end with better schools--proof of the efficacy of the free market.

No one should take this theory seriously. Less funds to public schools--where the majority of U.S. youth are educated --means fewer teaching materials, lower teacher salaries, inferior facilities, and a general lowering of already embarrassing standards. Inevitably, the poor and the disadvantaged, regardless of vouchers, will take the brunt in terms of an even poorer education. One looks in vain for any "level playing field" in the impending struggle and must conclude that better education for all is not the major motive behind the voucher system.

On the contrary, vouchers are intended as weapons to destroy the public educational system in order to clear the way for educational corporations to take over the nation's public schools. Pubic schools comprise the largest sector of society not privately owned. Therefore, as the profits to be gained are enormous, it only stands to reason that corporate America wants control over the educational system. And, of course, the Bush Brothers are only too willing to oblige them.

The basic principle of laissez-faire capitalism--the ideology of U.S. conservatism --is that private enterprise can always outperform government-run programs. Hence, according to this logic, private schools could do a better job of educating our youth. As more and more traditional functions of government--prisons, garbage collection, utilities, mental health facilities, and many others--are being turned over to the private sector, there is no reason to believe that U.S. conservatives have any philosophical objections to a vastly expanded private school system free of government "interference." As governors, the Bushes have been consistent advocates of privatization; as president, G.W. has already announced his intention to remain so. The intent of vouchers certainly becomes clear in this context.

The implications of an expanded or even totally private educational system are awesome and contradict the spirit of the fundamental ideals upon which the United States was founded. Public schools dedicated to equal opportunity, where children study free of denominational bias and corporate influence and among fellow students representing a variety of religious and ethnic backgrounds, are essential for a democratic society based upon pluralism and tolerance. Regardless of how good religious schools are from an educational perspective, by their very nature they are not dedicated to pluralism and are often intolerant. And schools run by corporations would likely be dedicated more to profits and "educating" consumers than to educating free-thinking citizens for democracy. Nevertheless, given the condition of education in the United States today, vouchers--or some other program leading to private/corporate school systems--could easily become a reality.

Since at least the early 1970s, many U.S. public schools have suffered from deteriorating facilities, overcrowding, increased violence, a lowering of standards, and diminishing results. For whatever reasons, politicians and citizens have been unable or unwilling to make a financial commitment and agree on a policy to improve these schools. Given this situation, vouchers certainly have their appeal.

Under the present system, parents are required to send their children to local public schools supported by local school taxes paid primarily by the parents themselves. If parents want to send their children to another school, they must pay tuition as well as their taxes. As tuitions are usually expensive, most parents who are dissatisfied with local schools are unable to afford an alternative and therefore see vouchers as the answer.

Among conservatives, there is substantial dissatisfaction with public schools and advocation of voucher plans--even on the part of many poor urban and rural families. This is certainly understandable given the traditional belief in the United States that education represents an opportunity to improve one's lot in life. Vouchers are therefore used as a political carrot by conservative politicians to attract votes from constituencies that traditionally vote liberal.

Even if enacted, vouchers would merely be a short-term answer to present parental anxieties. If the private sector takes over education, the gap between the rich and the poor would inevitably widen. The affluent middle and upper classes, which can and do afford private tuitions, will simply use voucher money to defray expenses, while those not affluent will only be able to send their children to those private schools whose effectiveness is questionable at best. The net gain--as always with privatization, and as usual with Bush policies--will be in favor of the affluent.

The main defense against vouchers rests upon the separation of church and state--an eighteenth-century concept of the Enlightenment that few of the nation's citizens could articulate today because, ironically, the fundamental principles of our democracy are not consistently taught in schools. Be that as it may, and as jeopardized as the principle of separation may be, given the positions of the present members of the United States Supreme Court, the concept is vital for any adherence to the fundamental rights of citizens. Private schools should not receive public funds because this forces citizens to support beliefs and principles with which they do not agree and, in some cases, abhor.

In his 1777 Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, Thomas Jefferson states the principle upon which the separation of church and state rests:

   To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of
   opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.

This is certainly a difficult principle to follow in a vast, complicated, diverse, and problematic democracy. In fact, one could argue that this principle is impossible to follow. For example, one could extrapolate that, because one abhors the national defense policy, one should not be required to pay taxes. However, as Jefferson was well aware, matters of public policy and matters of conscience are two different things, and this distinction is fundamental to democracy.

In matters of public policy, determined through democratic process, one agrees to follow the dictates of the majority but one still has a voice. However, if a government forces a citizen to give funds to a private organization that promotes a set of beliefs to which that citizen objects, this is tyranny because the citizen does not have a voice. Jefferson's conclusion is that government should not be in the business of supporting matters of belief and conscience. Or, put more simply: government should not legislate or support any individual faith or set of moral principles in deference to individual conscience.

One could argue that the majority could decide to support giving funds to private organizations and the citizen must comply, but constitutional law has consistently limited what Jefferson would call this "tyranny of the majority." This situation is a chief example of the protection of the conscience of the citizen--a protection, said Jefferson, to which the citizen has "a natural right." (Furthermore, when put to the majority test around the country through referenda, the people have consistently, democratically voted down vouchers.)

The vast majority of private schools are faith-based; both their approach and curriculum are framed in the context of some sect of Christian or other principles. Therefore, vouchers force citizens to give their tax dollars to private organizations that promote religious, sect-based education. This is a fundamental violation of the citizen's right to freedom of conscience; and for those opposed to the privatization of the U.S. educational system, the separation of church and state remains the vital argument.

Ominously, however, corporate-owned private schools that are not faith-based may be able to get around the separation of church and state safeguard. Consequently, there are trenchant issues concerning vouchers and the lurking privatization of education that have wide implications, and no public debate has arisen yet that recognizes corporate profit as a matter of conscience, even if it should be recognized as such.

A vastly expanded voucher system necessarily involves the expansion of the private school system on the part of corporate interests. Since G.W.'s plans are similar to Jeb's, disaster would be imminent. Under the Florida plan, which at least temporarily has been struck down by the Florida Supreme Court, public schools were tested and "graded." If a school failed, parents of students attending that school were eligible for vouchers to send their children to private schools.

The idea of testing public schools is especially insidious because it is intended to publicly humiliate them for political reasons. By publicizing the failure of public schools against an arbitrary, simplistic, and generalized test, G.W.--as little brother Jeb did--can stand in front of the people and announce the failure of the public school system, implying the necessity of private schools.

The utter hypocrisy of this policy, however, is apparent in the lack of concern demonstrated over the quality of private schools. In the Florida plan (and one assumes in the Big Brother plan), there is no provision for testing the private schools that should receive public voucher dollars. If the honest point of the voucher system is to improve education, then private schools should be publicly scrutinized and rigorously tested. However, the Bush Brothers are no more interested in the quality of private schools than in the quality of public schools. Their real interest lies elsewhere entirely; their intent is to further weaken public schools in favor of privatization. As evidence, one may consider that the voucher program would pump millions of dollars into a private educational system. But the Bush Brothers have never mentioned the expansion of the private schools or the policies necessary for dealing with such--an all too obvious and revealing omission, intended to deflect attention from the true purpose of vouchers.

Adopting a laissez-faire attitude toward private schools naturally accords with Bushian philosophy but makes no sense as public policy. Logically, one cannot simply assume that private schools will be better, especially if there is no system of evaluation. The possibility of evaluating private schools, however, is even more problematic. Private schools do and would certainly continue to resist government interference, and the present administration would make no serious effort to regulate private schools since it is inherently opposed to government regulation in almost any form.

The hypocrisy here is remarkable: the government is interested in evaluating and condemning public education but has no interest in ensuring the quality of an ever-expanding private school system. Thus, the voucher system as it existed in Florida and as it is proposed by G.W. has no method of evaluating whether or not it would improve education in the United States by an expansion of the private school industry. In other words, the voucher system makes no sense as it is presently understood in the context of improving education. However, the plan does make sense if it is understood as a program to privatize the U.S. educational system.

When financially strapped public schools are deprived of even more funds, they can do nothing but become less effective. An expanding voucher system would become an increasing drain on public school funding. One could easily imagine, in the not too distant future, the widespread closing of public schools. Fewer students and less funding would naturally lead to such a scenario.

On the other hand, more students and public funds constantly diverted to private schools would lead to a vastly expanded private school industry. As the private sector geared up, there would be advertising on television by new educational corporations touting the efficiency of their schools. Public schools would not stand a chance in competition with the marketing skills of the free enterprise system. Education would be sold like deodorant and mouthwash. The implications of this new education, concerning subject matter and the schools themselves, are simply Orwellian.

Being adamant in resistance to government interference and being a powerful corporate entity, the private school industry would be able to use its influence in Washington to limit regulation. It hardly takes much imagination to understand the implications for the structure and content of the education itself. Students would be subjected to a constant barrage of corporate advertising the entire length of the school day (some schools have already approached this model). The content of courses would be slanted toward and subject to a corporate design. In other words, the profit motive of corporations would discourage or even avoid basic knowledge of subjects that might impinge upon the success of their corporate plans. The study of ecology, for example, would take on very strange dimensions. U.S. history would, compared to the traditional model, be quite another thing.

Corporations have proven through the years that objective fact is much less important than--in reality, usually inimical to--corporate profit. "Education" would become banal and as relevant to life as an automobile commercial. There are, of course, serious implications for the teaching profession as well.

It is no secret that the conservative, corporate forces of U.S. politics despise the National Education Association and other professional organizations in education, especially teachers unions. These organizations tend to be liberal and, understandably, firmly support public education, seeing the encroachment of private schools as a diminishing of their influence over their profession and a threat to their prestige and standard of living.

Private school corporations would oppose, and probably successfully block, teachers unions--as corporations have so successfully done to labor unions since the Reagan years--in order to control pay, benefits, working conditions, and educational content. Academic freedom would become a thing of the past, and the teaching profession would be reduced to a lower-paid, fewer-benefits job, better to increase profits and returns to stockholders. In fact, the future educational system in the United States--except, of course, the affluent schools--would resemble Disney World, McDonald's, and Big Lots, not only as a "place to work" but also in banality and lack of human spirit.

The condition, effectiveness, and morale of public schools in the United States today are already low. There is no question that the general education of its citizens today compares poorly to both the past and to other countries. Besides the many who graduate unable to read and write on an adult level, the basic ideas behind U.S. democracy are rarely taught effectively. As a result, citizens in general do not understand their citizens' rights, the proper limits of corporate control of their lives, or the possibilities of democracy and change provided in the founding documents.

The old cliche comes into play here: if a people loses touch with its freedoms, it loses them. Therefore, a public educational system is needed that effectively develops basic skills and also teaches the student the concepts of justice, equality, and fairness for all as they are defined in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States of America, and the Bill of Rights, understood in the historical context of the Enlightenment. These are American values.

If these are not the values of this country and consequently central to education, then the only alternative in a U.S. sense is the individualistic greed of laissez-faire capitalism, expressed so "eloquently" by Andrew Carnegie in The Gospel of Wealth:

   We accept and welcome ... the concentration of business, industrial and
   commercial, in the hands of the few and the law of competition ... as
   being, not only beneficial, but essential to the future progress of the
   race.... We start, then, with a condition of affairs under which the best
   interests of the race are promoted, but which inevitably gives wealth to
   the few.

Of course, the justification of this fundamentally undemocratic ideology is firmly rooted in the Calvinist tradition of U.S. capitalism (see: Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism) as expressed by John D. Rockefeller:

   The growth of a large business is merely the survival of the fittest....
   This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working out of a
   law of nature and a law of God.

In other words, God helps those who help themselves, the rest be damned, literally, and government can do nothing about it. Democracy, fairness, and the equality of citizens simply is not a part of this authoritarian world of Calvinist, laissez-faire, Darwinian capitalism--this Bushian vision, this "passionate conservatism" that speaks softly but carries a big stick.

The answer to the problems of U.S. education is not to turn the system over to corporate America, which in the past twenty years has managed to widen the gap between the wealthy and the rest further than during any other period in the history of the republic. Large and powerful educational corporations would simply have no interest in educating citizens, especially about alternative economic systems, sane energy and ecology policies, redistribution of income--in general, any subject vital to intelligent and effective public policy debate, and, in turn, vital for democracy.

Jefferson's enlightenment vision of an educated citizenry debating issues of public policy in an informed and rational manner is hardly shared by corporate America, but it should be the goal of U.S. education. Instead of meeting this goal, a privatized educational system would move more in the direction of a nightmarish 1984-style society in which "citizens" would exist as cogs in a necessary "free market," and "choice"--almost as it already does today--would have little to do with citizens choosing important alternatives in social and economic policies but, rather, choosing from among a bewildering selection of morning cereal brands.

Michael C. Milam teaches humanities at the University of South Florida at Tampa and is presently writing a book about Russia.