It is all too often assumed that public educa-tion as we typically think of it today—schoolingprovided and controlled by government—consti-tutes the “foundation of American democracy.”Such schooling, it is argued, has taken people of immensely varied ethnic, religious, and racialbackgrounds and molded them into Americanswho are both unified and free. Public schooling,it is assumed, has been the gentle flame beneaththe great American melting pot.Unfortunately, the reality is very different fromthose idealized assumptions. Indeed, rather thanbringing people together, public schooling oftenforces people of disparate backgrounds and beliefsinto political combat. This paper tracks almost150 such incidents in the 2005–06 school yearalone. Whether over the teaching of evolution, thecontent of library books, religious expression inthe schools, or several other common points of contention, conflict was constant in Americanpublic education last year.Such conflict, however, is not peculiar to thelast school year, nor is it a recent phenomenon.Throughout American history, public schoolinghas produced political disputes, animosity, andsometimes even bloodshed between diverse peo-ple. Such clashes are inevitable in government-runschooling because all Americans are required tosupport the public schools, but only those withthe most political power control them. Political—and sometimes even physical—conflict has thusbeen an inescapable public schooling reality.To end the fighting caused by state-run school-ing, we should transform our system from one inwhich government establishes and controlsschools, to one in which individual parents areempowered to select schools that share their moral values and educational goals for their children.
Why We Fight
How Public Schools Cause Social Conflict
by Neal McCluskey
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Neal McCluskey is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom and author of the forth-coming book
Feds in the Classroom: How Big Government Corrupts, Cripples, and Compromises American Education
(Rowman and Littlefield).
Executive Summary
No. 587January 23, 2007
�
Introduction
Public schooling, we are told, is the linch-pin of American unity and democracy. “If common schools go, then we are no longer America,” writes Paul D. Houston, executivedirector of the American Association of School Administrators. “The original criticalmission of the common schools was . . . to beplaces where the ideals of civic virtue werepassed down to the next generation. They wereto prepare citizens for our democracy. They were to be places where the children of ourdemocracy would learn to live together.”
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In a similar vein, Benjamin R. Barber, author of thebest-selling
Jihad vs. McWorld
, asserts that pub-lic schools are “the very foundation of ourdemocratic civic culture . . . institutions wherewe learn what it means to be a public and startdown the road toward common national andcivic identity. They are the forges of our citi-zenship and the bedrock of our democracy.”
2
These are, without a doubt, very powerfulimages, and their widespread acceptance haslong undergirded Americans’ assumption thatgovernment-run schools have always been, andwill always be, essential to the nation’s unity.But “powerful” and “accurate” are far fromsynonymous. Consider: In the 1840s, disputesover the Bible’s place in Philadelphia’s publicschools sparked rioting that inflicted millionsof dollars in damage and killed or injured hun-dreds of people. In 1925, the Scopes “monkey trial” captured the nation’s attention as thelegality of teaching evolution in public schoolswas fought first in a Tennessee courtroom, andthen, to accommodate the thousands of peo-ple who showed up for the spectacle, on thelawn outside the courthouse. In the mid-1970s, court-ordered busing of children inBoston precipitated constant brawling in theschools and unrest in the streets. Finally, justthis past school year, tensions were so high inMiami over the removal of books from schoollibraries that one school board member report-ed that his colleagues feared that they “mightfind a bomb under their automobiles.”
3
These and countless incidents like themreveal deep cracks in the “unity and democracy”argument for public schooling. Moreover, as weshall see, history points to other American insti-tutions as being much more important to thenation’s harmony, freedom, and prosperity than government-run schooling. Overall, it hasbeen the nation’s commitment to limited gov-ernment and individual liberty—not publicschools’ ability to indoctrinate children intosome civic religion, or to mold them into “prop-er” Americans—that has been the key to America’s success.This paper reexamines the accepted story about public schooling’s role in creating unity and upholding democracy. First, it documentsoutbreaks over the past academic year of themost divisive kinds of public school conflicts—those pitting people’s deeply held valuesagainst each other—and makes clear that suchcombat is inevitable when everyone is requiredto pay for an official school system that only the most politically powerful control. Next, itexamines the historical record of Americaneducation and finds that conflict and divisionhave long been part of public schooling.Finally, the report identifies the true founda-tions of the nation’s unity and success, andexplains why the only system of education thatcan effectively support a free society is one thatis itself grounded in freedom.
The Balkanized Year,2005–06
Decisions debated literally every day inpublic schools thrust Americans into politi-cal conflict, whether over district budgets,dress codes, the amount of time childrenspend in art classes, or countless other mat-ters. To see this, most people need do littlemore than read about school board meetingsin their local newspapers.
4
But althoughschools and districts may confront their own,specific issues, the conflicts those issues pro-duce are all driven by the same dynamic: Alltaxpayers must support the public schools,but only those able to summon sufficientpolitical power can determine what theschools will teach and how they’ll be run.
2
The nation’scommitmentto limitedgovernment andindividualliberty—notpublic schools’ability toindoctrinatechildren—hasbeen the key toAmerica’s success.
Because of that, political fighting is inherentto the system. All public school conflicts have the poten-tial to inflict social pain, but the mostwrenching are those that pit people’s funda-mental values—values that cannot be provenright or wrong, and that deserve equalrespect by government—against each other.Because of the deeply divisive and insolublenature of such conflicts (and because it wouldbe almost impossible to track every single dis-pute in every school district across the coun-try), we tracked these sorts of values conflictsaround the nation over the last academic year.In doing so, we discovered that whereas mostconflicts had unique immediate causes, therewere several common refrains that arose timeand again. Moreover, we found that over thelast year only one state—Wyoming—appearedto have dodged divisive, values-laden schoolwarfare, and many states suffered numerousclashes. Even Wyoming suffered at least twosuch conflicts as recently as 2003.
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In all, wetracked nearly 150 values-driven public schoolconflicts over the past year.Below are the general categories of these bat-tles in the 2005–06 academic year. None, clear-ly, garnered more national attention thanwrestling matches over intelligent design, with18 states reporting some debate over it and con-flicts in Kansas and Pennsylvania grabbingheadlines across the country. Other flashpointswere almost as widespread, including clashesover students’ right to protest government poli-cies without facing punishment from govern-mental entities (i.e., public schools) and tusslesover “abstinence only” sex education.It is important to note, moreover, that thestories reported in this paper, and the trendsidentified below, are based only on publicreports in the press. As a result, this study may greatly
understate
the true number of val-ues conflicts caused by public schooling.Moreover, the bias in the numbers is towardschool districts in and around large cities,where sizable media organizations operate.Those factors further bolster the conclusionof this study: that forcing diverse people tosupport monolithic government school sys-tems inevitably causes political and socialconflict.
National Flashpoints
Intelligent Design.
Conflicts last year overthe inclusion of intelligent design theory inscience classes were really just the most recentskirmishes in the seemingly endless evolution-creationism struggle, a battle that pits peoplewho want only evolution taught in biology classes against those who want children tolearn about perceived flaws in Darwin’s theory or alternative explanations—often religious—for the origins of life.There were two major intelligent design bat-tlegrounds in 2005–06: Dover, Pennsylvania,and the entire state of Kansas. In Dover, a school district policy requiring biology stu-dents to hear a disclaimer stating thatDarwinian evolution is a theory, not a fact, anddirecting students to the intelligent designbook
Of Pandas and People
eventually ended upin a federal court. There, the policy was declaredunconstitutional. The damage, however, hadalready been done. As ABC News reported a few months after the school board approved thedisclaimer, the people of Dover were deeply torn over the school board’s actions, and it wasnot uncommon for townspeople to refuse toeven speak to those in their community whocame down on the opposite side of the issue.“Suddenly,” ABC News reported, “Dover was atwar with itself.”
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Kansas, for its part, continued a long-run-ning roller coaster ride that has seen the stateboard of education change its stance on evo-lution several times in recent years. In August2005, the board voted to include greater ques-tioning of evolution in state science standards,returning to a policy akin to one it enacted in1999 but reversed two years later. And thisappears to have been followed by yet anotherreversal: In August 2006, the evolution-skepticmajority on the board was eliminated in pri-mary elections, likely switching the board backto a pro-evolution majority.Despite the focus on Dover and Kansas,intelligent design provoked conflict nation-wide last year. President George W. Bush even
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All public schoolconflicts have thepotential toinflict socialpain, but themost wrenchingare those thatpit people’sfundamental values againsteach other.
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