PUBLIC EDUCATION IS UNDER ATTACK

Public Education is under attack in America. Right wing conservatives and Christian nationalists have launched cultural wars against teachers unions, masking policies during the pandemic, the content of school libraries and textbooks, school districts that teach accurate history and LQBTQ students in public schools. Public education is the crown jewel of our democratic, constitutional republic. It is time for concerned citizens to take a stand.

By the mid-1800s, most states had adopted three basic assumptions governing public education. First, public elementary schools should be free and supported by taxes. Second, teachers should be trained educators. Third, children should be required to attend school. With this blueprint, the US population quickly developed one of the highest literacy rates in the world.

There are many advantages to a robust public school system. While the average private school tuition is $20,000/year, public schools are free. There is access to education for every child in the community. Students are exposed to diversity with classmates from different cultures and income levels that do not think, act or look exactly like them. Public schools offer advanced educational and extracurricular opportunities. They have a staff of special education and learning specialists, typically not found in private schools. While teachers in public schools are required to be certified, there is no such mandate in private schools.

To understand why an education system with these assets is now on the defensive and under attack, a review of recent cultural history is in order. Until the civil rights era, public and private schools coexisted with little conflict. In the 1960s, two Supreme Court cases removed religion from the public schools to preserve the separation of church and state.  It became illegal for public school districts to require religious studies or for school authorities to perform prayer. When this mandate was added to the previous Supreme Court decision to integrate public schools, many white evangelical parents rebelled. The widely held suspicion was that the federal government had schemed to put Blacks into schools and drive God out. Immediately, hundreds of alternative private schools were established attached to evangelical churches. Most had no minority students.

In the early 1970s, the IRS threatened to take away the tax-exempt status of private church schools that were not integrated. There was a new uproar criticizing government interference in the business of the church. Christian families who wanted unfettered school choice claimed they were being persecuted for their religious beliefs. It did not take long for former right wing supporters of Senator Barry Goldwater to mobilize evangelicals into the powerful political force that dominates today’s Republican Party.

With similar goals, radical conservatives and evangelicals concluded, both figuratively and literally, that their political merger was “a match made in heaven.” Today they maintain that only their movement can save the nation from the apocalypse, even if it means adopting anti-democratic views and a conspiracy based approach to politics.

White Christian nationalism has set its sights on disrupting numerous well-established democratic institutions.  Public education is at the top of this list. Republican activist, Christopher Rufo, recently spoke at the conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan. He emphasized his strategy “To get to universal school choice, you really need to operate from a premise of universal public school mistrust.” He advised the students “to be ruthless and brutal” in creating their own narrative. If public learning does not look, sound and feel white and Christian, than it must change or be removed. Lies, smears and distortions that create fear and anger in parents are the right wing formula for attacking public education.

School administrators are now forced to confront a host of disruptive cultural issues. Moreover, extremist parents are demanding academic content that omits diversity. Radical school choice legislation further diminishes the public schools.

This is unfortunate because parents and schoolboards should be working to strengthen public education following the learning setbacks caused by the pandemic. Critical issues include expanding pre-K education, addressing shortages of teachers and bus drivers, focusing on post-pandemic behavioral problems and finding ways to replace lost learning. Our youngest students in reading and math have fallen the furthest behind.

Republicans interested in entering the 2024 presidential primary are using right wing education demands to gain momentum with these primary voters. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law the Parental Rights in Education Act, (the Don’t Say Gay Bill) banning instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity through third grade. He has limited what the public schools can say about racism and rejected 41% of textbooks because the content conflicted with the personal beliefs of religious conservatives in the Education Department. Most recently, DeSantis banned the College Board’s Advanced Placement course in African American studies for high school students.

What is to be done? One positive development is the recent Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruling that found that our state's funding of public education falls woefully short and violates students' constitutional rights. The opinion sides with poorer districts in a lawsuit that was first launched eight years ago. If the opinion stands, there will be billions of dollars in additional annual support for public education in Pennsylvania.

Concerned citizens can support this court ruling and demand more state funding for deprived school districts. Locally there are opportunities to mentor a student, join a parent organization or attend school board meetings to show support. Our public schools are worth the effort.