The Death of Public Education

It will start in one of the Southern states. One of those states that always comes in near the bottom of all those well-publicized, all-important lists of educational effectiveness: the annual “Student Performance on Standardized Tests” list, the “Percent of High School Students Who Graduate” list, the “Money Spent Per Student” list.

One of those states that has a history of struggling to keep teachers because the job conditions are onerous (huge classes, no support services, hours of unpaid extra duties, unsafe classrooms), because they aren’t being paid a living wage (also in no way commensurate with the level of education required), and because the teachers have grown tired of being used as political punching bags (like being forced to teach, unvaccinated and unmasked, during a pandemic).

One of those states that barely skirts past mandatory federa

l guidelines by engaging in such manipulations as lowering the difficulty of standardizing tests, inflating grades, and exploiting loopholes that allow them to avoid testing struggling students – especially English language learners and students with special needs.

One of those states that, frankly, would be okay with a less populated citizenry, because uneducated voters are easier to manipulate, which comes in handy when you need to persuade people that building roads through long-established minority neighborhoods is necessary, that brown tapwater that smells of sulfur is nothing to worry about, or that there’s nothing wrong with a governor accepting huge donations from companies that are later awarded sole source contracts for big state-funded initiatives.

One of those states that teachers are abandoning not in a steady stream, but in a tsunami-like wave.

Which, ironically, will provide the state with the cover they need to announce that they are moving to a four day school week, because in times of emergency one has to take drastic measures, and no one wants to cut electives like music, art, and health, but when you get right down to it, schools have gotten too involved in social issues anyway – like teaching that evolution is real, that climate change is happening, and that U.S. history contains fairly significant incidents of social injustice – so, really, it’s a mark of political and moral leadership to be reigning in the excesses of public education by limiting it to readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmatic, right?

Which will last for a while until, facing increasingly serious teacher retention issues, the state announces that they will be moving some more rural students onto virtual learning, because in times of emergency one has to take drastic measures, and no one wants to single out kids who live in underserved rural areas but, hey, those districts are already safely gerrymandered and with all the money that the state saves on efficiencies – shutting down schools, selling school buses, reducing free meal programs – it’s really a mark of smart governing to be reclaiming this money and directing it towards more urgent issues, like giving tax breaks to chemical and petroleum companies with reprehensible environmental records so that they’ll provide the kind of low-paying jobs perfect for people who never finished high school.  It’s a win-win!

Which will last for a while until, now facing whole-scale failure on every possible measure (standardized test scores, high school graduation rate, students mental health, teacher retention, etc.), the state announces that they will be moving everyone to charter schools, because in times of emergency one has to take drastic measures and what better way to fix broken schools than to turn them over to businessmen who know how to get things done better than a bunch of radicalized teachers, union-controlled school boards, and godless curriculum experts?  Sure, no one wants to give up on public schools, but given that private schools have so much more leeway to hire cheap (albeit wholly unqualified) teachers, omit content that may offend local citizens, ban books, openly teach religion, adopt factually dubious textbooks, fudge test scores, circumvent federal laws protecting the rights of students with special needs, and refuse outright to educate anyone with dubious citizenship status  – then, really, isn’t this the “big government, keep your hands off my children!” leadership that the citizens have been asking for all along?  

Which will last for a while until other states - states that have heretofore been watching from the sidelines – announce that they too will moving everyone to charter schools, because in times of emergency one has to take drastic measures and what could be bolder than copying what other states have already done? Sure, no one wants to be seen as racing to the bottom, but given that other states have already embraced the model and getting rid of public schools frees up a lot of money to fight court cases brought by outraged stakeholders, then, really, isn’t it time to embrace the idea that the way we deliver public education needs to change to meet the needs of a new century?

Sure, there will be complaints. Complaints from liberals concerned that charter schools undermine the purpose of education, which is to ensure an informed and considered electorate. Complaints from minorities claiming that charter school entrance policies effectively restore segregation, discretely sorting students in ways that abet and reinforce racial homogeneity. Complaints from the families of students with special needs claiming that charter schools either (1) refuse to admit their students or (2) refuse to provide them a fair and appropriate education. However, the Supreme Court is now stacked with justices prepared to address these complaints by overturning misguided past rulings and asserting that the federal government really has no role to play in how states choose to provide education, that racially segregated schools can be equal (if parents rather than laws are doing the selecting), and that special needs students shouldn’t have to be tested (if states don't think it's necessary).  After all, hasn't the Supreme Court has already decided that racism has been extinguished, that judicial precedent is immaterial, and that the federal government should get out the business of protecting individual rights?

But just think of the benefits! No more parents complaining about teacher indoctrination, because parents will have the power to pick a school that delivers exactly the level and manner of indoctrination they demand.  What with liberal charter schools for liberals and conservative charter schools for conservatives, we're eliminating the need to acknowledge (much less evaluate) opposing viewpoints ... think of the unpleasantness this will save!  Also, there will be no more bickering over school boards or school superintendents, because charter schools operate independently of virtually any oversight.  No more teacher shortages, because a certain fairly stable number of high school graduates are always going to prefer teaching over careers in fast food, and since all the curriculum is going to be scripted and/or online anyway, they don’t actually have to know anything. No more worrying about troubling educational gaps between majority and minority populations, because charter schools have proven themselves adept at manipulating data. Even students benefit, because think of the stress that will melt away when they no longer have to demonstrate any actual content mastery in order to earn As.

Best of all, the politicians finally get what they’ve wanted all along – a populace that’s ignorant of history (and therefore contentedly clueless as we repeat the errors of the past), ignorant of science (and therefore content to trust politicians to protect their health, their communities, and their planet), ignorant of math (and therefore happy to vote for regressive tax structures that profit everyone but themselves), incapable of deep reading (and therefore unable to access any lessons literature might have to teach), ignorant of human rights (and therefore complacent when those rights are gradually stripped away), and marvelously, blissfully unable to engage in critical thinking, making them delightfully easy to manipulate.  

For those of you who have gotten this far and are now wondering: what is this woman’s problem? Has she been reading too much dystopian fiction? Overdoing the doomscrolling? All I ask is that, before you judge, go back through the steps in the process I’ve laid out and tell me precisely where you think my reasoning goes astray. Tell me where the political support will come from to protect public schools, where the institutional changes will come from to keep teachers from fleeing the field, where the motivation will come from to save a system that almost everyone seems to believe is either inefficient, out-of-touch, inept, unjust, unnecessary, godless, biased, bloated, bureaucratic, or a bastion of indoctrination. Convince me, if you can, that this clumsy, cumbersome and yet profoundly noble ideal, the right to a fair and equal publicly-funded education, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure against the rapidly advancing forces of political immorality, unconstrained capitalism, ideological extremism, and unravelling civil protections.

Please, convince me. Because God knows this isn’t the future I want – it’s barely a future I can endure contemplating - but it is the future that I have begun bracing myself for.