The state control and the schools

Title

Creator

Scott, Ben

Language

English

Source

Panorama Volume XXI (No. 4) April 1969

Year

1969

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

Government subsidy to education need not mean government control of public education.

Fulltext

■ Government subsidy to education need not mean government control of public education. THE STATE CONTROL AND THE SCHOOLS Participatory government requires an informed citi zenry, but the way citizens analyze and judge the infor mation is determined by the precepts and attitudes instill ed in them as they grow to adulthood. The nature of the society depends not so much on the factual infor mation known to the citi zens, but on their philoso phic conditioning, resulting from their total environment of which the school is one of the most important ele ments. The purpose of schools has ever been to pro duce the kind of adult com ponents needed to insure the survival of the tribe. Schools have never been for child ren’s benefit but for the pro fit of society, and those who refuse to be molded by the school are indignantly ex cluded from society’s best benefits. The mastering of techniques has never been a sufficient goal for schools since a skilled and trained adult who refuses to play his ordained role because he doesn’t accept the goals of the society, is a hazard to it. This attitudinal condi tioning is in fact the thing by which society judges the success of the school. More over, acceptance of the phi losophical basis by the stu dent is vital to the success of the transmission of tech nique. The delicate emo tional part of the learning process is turned on or off by the substance of the phi losophy and by the way it is projected. Free peoples in a pluralis tic nation must decide the kind of adults that the schools are to produce. To yield this right to the bu reaus of the state is to in vite fascism, and to risk the oppression of one tribe by the majority. But the case for commu nity control does not depend 32 Panorama solelv on the fact that with out it school systems fail to educate. City school boards, by regulations designed to protect the professional edu cators from capricious inter ference have usurped the pa rental authority. The legal requirement that parents be responsible for the training of their young have been countermanded at the school door by regulation not law and, in the case of black parents, without their con sent. Such usurpation is more reprehensible in states where education is compul sory and operates most de vastatingly on the poor who must keep their youngsters in public school. The requirement that the state insure a chance for edu cation to all its young citi zens does not inherently mean that a governmental agency must actively run the schools and it is unfortunate that public support of schools developed this way. The proper distribution of governmental subsidies, edu cational or otherwise, is di rectly to those subsidized, in this case the parents of the children. Tuition vouchers adequate to the cost of good education and redeemable by schools in good standing, is by far the better way for government to support the intimate process of educa tion. All cultural and reli gious issues raised by the doctrine of separation of church and state would become moot. The child is subsidized period, and he takes his voucher to the school of his and his parents’ choice. Also there would be no confusion in the minds of the faculty about where their loyalties were owed, they would be true profes sionals with clients again. — From the UUA Now by Ben Scott, March 5, 1969. April 1969 33

pages

32+

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