The Death of Public Schools: How Conservatives Won the War on American Educationwritten by Kara Fitzpatrick
Kara Fitzpatrick’s first book, The Death of Public Schools, begins with a masterful examination of the political, cultural, legal, and natural forces that are undermining public trust in our nation’s schools. Horrible disruption caused by the pandemic. The culture war fueled by Republicans is over gender and race in the curriculum. The decades-long conservative movement to legalize private school vouchers reached a new high last year when parents must be allowed to use vouchers at religious as well as secular schools. It culminated in a court ruling.
More than a dozen states have created or expanded voucher programs in response to the pandemic, and more than half of all states now offer publicly funded options to help parents pay for private education. This means less funding for traditional public schools and schools. 90 percent Number of American students attending there. “Traditional support for public education has become a new partisan divide in an already divided country,” wrote Fitzpatrick, a Pulitzer Prize-winning education reporter and editor. .
Nevertheless, with apologies to Mark Twain, proclaiming the abolition of public schools at this point is greatly exaggerated. Late 2022 — As the culture wars intensify — 80 percent American parents surveyed in a Gallup poll said they were either somewhat or completely satisfied with their children’s education. This was a small increase compared to pre-pandemic levels. It’s American adults in general, only a small percentage of whom have school-age children, whose self-confidence has fallen to its lowest level in 20 years (only 42% say they’re satisfied). ).
Nevertheless, Fitzpatrick argues that the conservative movement to break up the government’s educational “monopoly,” as libertarian economist Milton Friedman called it, has gained remarkable strength after 70 years of operating largely in the political hinterland. He claims to have collected it. The Death of Public Schools is a history of how that happened. The story moves slowly, taking long detours through political and legal battles state by state and city by city. And, strangely enough, this was over before the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic and the chaos of school closures, book bans, and school culture wars. All of these are factors that are accelerating the idea of “freedom of choice” in education.
Still, this book is a timely history of a movement that could reshape American education and spark years of explosive policy debate. As an example, what happens to equity, accountability, and protection of constitutional rights in private and religious schools where the government pays tuition but is not responsible?
As Fitzpatrick demonstrates, such questions surfaced from the beginning and frequently throughout the history of the movement. in 1955 manifesto, Friedman called for the government to step away from school management and instead give parents vouchers to attend public and private schools that meet “minimum standards.”in the middle of the south big resistance In an effort to integrate after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, some governors and local governments closed public schools and forced white students to attend racially restrictive private schools, often referred to as “segregated academies.” Created tuition subsidies for children. Many Black students were left stranded during the shutdown and suffered the greatest learning loss, a striking parallel to the coronavirus era. As one federal judge wrote, tuition subsidies were ultimately ruled unconstitutional “directly influenced by the words of the Supreme Court.”
“Freedom of choice” has served as an excuse for racists, but given the stark inequalities between poor urban schools and schools in wealthy suburbs, it has inspired some civil rights activists. It made a lot of sense.Why aren’t poor and minority parents given the same privileges as wealthy white parents and able to send their children to better schools, public or private? “Most school systems in big cities would probably go out of business if they didn’t monopolize educational opportunities for the poor,” liberal sociologist christopher jenks Written in the 1960s, borrowing Friedman’s words.
This is the position of Polly Williams, a Black Democratic state representative from Milwaukee who partnered with Republican Governor Tommy Thompson across party and ideological lines to pass the nation’s first modern voucher system in 1990.・Created a program. At that time, it was severely restricted. A five-year experiment that paid private school tuition for just 1,000 low-income children in the Milwaukee area. Voucher campaigns in other states have adopted Williams and Thompson’s template, pitching freedom of choice as a social justice program for children in struggling urban schools.
The learning crisis in these schools fueled the rise of charter schools around the same time. Fitzpatrick charts their tremendous growth and support among many Democrats as a publicly funded option that is privately run outside the government bureaucracy. She also cited the evolving definition of public education, from traditional district schooling to, among many Republicans, all education paid for by taxpayers, including religious schools, private schools, charter schools and home education. are being tracked.
In the process, voucher advocates have moved away from their original focus on educating America’s poorest children. Their current target is traditional public education in general. In his speech last year, conservative strategist Christopher Rufo said, “To achieve universal school choice, we must operate on a premise of universal distrust of public schools.” this year, 6 states controlled by Republicans Passed universal or near-universal voucher laws to support even wealthy parents who already paid for private school.
In Milwaukee, Williams helped author voucher legislation that provided benefits to 1 percent of the city’s schoolchildren. 1/4 of students Receive them now. Williams, who died in 2014, is hailed in her school choice circles as the “mother of our movement.” It’s unclear if she wants that nickname.
In later years, Williams was troubled by the expansion of the state’s voucher program beyond its original focus on equity. “It wasn’t supposed to be this big,” she said in 2011.
Dale Lasakoff is a journalist and author of The Award: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools?
The Death of Public Schools: How Conservatives Won the War on American Education | Kara Fitzpatrick 375 pages | Basic book | $32
