Two Books on Education
Arons, Stephen. Short Route to Chaos: Conscience, Community, and the
Re-Constitution of American Schooling. Amherst, Mass. : University
of
Massachusetts Press, 1997.
Dwyer, James G. Religious Schools v. Children's Rights. Ithaca, N.Y.
: Cornell
University Press, 1998.
Public schools have never been terribly successful at reflecting
or accommodating
diversity, whether religious, cultural, or individual. In its early
years public education
was expected not only to create a literate and educated population
of voters and
workers, but also to facilitate the assimilation of its diverse student
body into a
common American culture, uniting them in patriotism and appreciation
of democracy,
as well as a shared foundation of knowledge. Preserving or respecting
the differences
between students was not one of its goals. But in recent years, parents,
religious
leaders and special interest groups have engaged in increasingly hostile
battles over
the schools' perceived exclusion of or hostility toward their cultures,
beliefs, or world
views.
In Short Route to Chaos, author Stephen Arons joins these
diverse groups in their
appeal for greater flexibility, choice, and inclusion of community
values in education,
claiming that there is no "one best system" for educating children.
"America's cultural
diversity" he states "remains a significant source of its social and
economic creativity
and is essential to democratic discourse and sound political decision
making." He
blasts the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, the Bush/Clinton plan to
standardize
education on a national level, as a dangerous and tyrannical mandate
of conformity,
which he claims will "turn Americans against each other and ultimately
transform
potential unity into virtual repression".
Arons examination of the battles over education is fascinating
and thoughtful, and his
accounts of the various cases seem to be presented fairly and evenly,
giving as much
weight to secular concerns and liberal views as to conservative views
and religious
beliefs. The information contained in his book is valuable and well-documented,
and
its organization is coherent, presenting the dilemma of educators trying
to involve
parents in their children's education and incorporate the subject matter
and values
demanded by their community into the curriculum, only to meet with
bitter resistance
and legal challenges from opposing factions, while good teachers become
more and
more subject to bureaucratic control, unable to use their skill and
creativity to inspire
students in an atmosphere of intellectual freedom.
But throughout the book, while focusing on the "needs of
the students" as his primary
concern, Arons continually identifies the students with their families
and the
communities to which they belong. In citing Wisconsin v. Yoder, in
which an Amish
family won exemption in 1972 from the state's compulsory education
laws, Arons is
sympathetic to the family's claim that exposure of their teenagers
to the worldly ways
of public school students was a threat to their way of life. While
Arons is eager to
promote the freedom of communities to follow their beliefs, he forgets
that the
children of these communities are captives within them. He ignores
the need of
individuals to be exposed to alternatives to their community, and to
be prepared to
choose a different course, if they choose.
After quoting extensively from Alexis de Tocqueville's
Democracy in America, Arons
summarizes his position concerning families dealing with schools that
are
unresponsive to their needs: "Anybody who is forced to participate
in a community --
who does not have a reasonable way out -- will find that private negotiating
power is
diminished, personal integrity is devalued, and individual conscience
is trivialized.
Like any monopoly, an involuntary school community can easily ignore
the views or
needs of dissenting individuals who either cannot realistically go
elsewhere or who, if
they do leave, cannot take with them the resources they need to participate
in another
community." But Arons fails to realize that this is precisely the position
in which many
children find themselves, not only with their school communities, but
with their
families and the communities to which their families belong.
Arons recommendation, sure to receive a great deal of support
from many
disillusioned and disheartened parents and politicians, is to remove
all government
control -- federal, state, and local -- from schools. Arons proposes
a system of public
funding for the education of every child, unaffected by the family's
local tax base, to
equalize the educational opportunities for all children. And with that
grant of funding,
each family with a child would have the right to choose the school
that the child will
attend, including home school. Except as justified by a compelling
government
interest, no regulation would be applied by any agency of government
to any school,
teacher, curriculum, instructional materials, or any other aspect of
the content of
schooling.
If Arons believes that schools unfettered by government
regulations will experience a
flowering of free discourse and intellectual freedom among teachers
and students, I
think he is mistaken. Removing government from the picture places school
administrators, catering to like-minded communities of parents, in
charge of the
indoctrination of students. In many cases, the restrictions on teachers
and learners in
these unregulated schools will be far more severe than those imposed
by the
government. Inequality of education, as measured by students' ability
to formulate and
achieve their own goals in life, will continue and perhaps even increase
with such a
system.
Religious Schools v. Children's Rights by James G. Dwyer
provides a good response
to Arons' book. Dwyer's book examines not only the practices and consequences
of
parochial education, but the general concept of parental rights over
their children.
Using extensive legal arguments, Dwyer shows that the total control
granted to parents
over every aspect of their children's lives is contrary to the spirit
of the U.S.
Constitution and the case law precedents governing adults, even incompetent
adults.
While Dwyer accepts that most parents care for and should be permitted
to raise their
children unimpeded by government intervention, he believes that the
authority to make
decisions for one's children should be considered a parental privilege,
rather than a
sacrosanct right, and that the welfare of the child must be the primary
concern, rather
than the desires or beliefs of the parents.
Dwyer systematically examines the arguments that could
be used to suggest that
children born into certain communities constitute a special class of
children, with
different needs and deserving of different or special treatment. He
concludes that the
only characteristic they share is the beliefs of their parents, and
argues that this feature
is not sufficient to warrant unequal treatment or protection. Dwyer
also discusses the
case of Wisconsin v. Yoder and the argument that some minority communities
need
special protection to ensure the very survival of their distinctive
cultures. Dwyer
agrees that minority groups like the Amish need protection from the
intrusion of the
modern world upon their way of life, but insists that such protection
cannot go so far
as to ensure that their culture will never "dwindle and come to an
end" as a result of
succeeding generations choosing to leave the community. The continued
survival of a
community beyond its current generation of members, Dwyer maintains,
can not and
should not be protected by law, for the right of its members to form
and carry out
informed decisions to remain with or leave the communities into which
they were
born is not outweighed by the desire of their elders to have them carry
on their
traditions.
Dwyer would like to see governmental regulations expanded
to include private and
parochial schools, particularly with regard to Title IX of the Education
Amendments of
1972, which prohibits sex discrimination toward public school students.
The practices
of segregation by gender and denial of education to female students
are especially
common in parochial schools, and are no less damaging to their students
than they
would be to the rest of the student population.
While I don't believe that the recommendations in either
book constitute a complete
solution to the problem of providing a good education to all American
students, I do
recommend both books for their information and well-reasoned arguments.
Both
would be good additions to the bookshelves of any youth advocate.