Government Schools

[Hogeye]

Barbara and I have discussed the merits (or lack thereof) of government schooling. Her contention is that voluntary education didn't work; mine is that it worked fine until certain progressive authoritarians got control to indoctrinate Papists and other undesirables. Here's some historical info on the subject.

"Not only was private education in demand, but it was quite successful. Literacy in the North rose from 75 percent to between 91 and 97 percent between 1800 and 1840, the years prior to compulsory schooling and governmental provision and operation of education. In the South during the same time period, the rate grew among the white population from between 50 and 60 percent to 81 percent. (Sheldon Richman, Separating School & State, p. 38.) ..."

...

After the 1840s, Mr. Brouillette reports, "Government control of schooling was intended to bring education to a larger segment of the population, but the result was that it simply pushed aside existing private schools without substantially increasing overall enrollment rates. As tax expenditures on the government system increased during the mid-1800s, more parents were drawn away from tuition-charging schools while the percentage of the child population being educated remained essentially constant. Government usurpation of schooling did little to increase educational access for children. Rather, it simply shifted the responsibility of education from the family to the state. (Andrew J. Coulson, Market Education: The Unknown History, New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1999, p. 83.)

"Modern educators argue that state intervention was, and remains, necessary in order to unify American society," Mr. Brouillette continues. "It is regularly contended that government schooling has been key to bringing together various racial, religious, and political groups; and that society would otherwise become polarized and antagonistic to one another. However, based on the experiences of the 1800s, this belief is not only wrong but is exactly backwards. Author Andrew J. Coulson writes:

"Prior to the government’s involvement in education, there were nondenominational schools, Quaker schools and Lutheran schools, fundamentalist schools and more liberal Protestant schools, classical schools and technical schools, in accordance with the preferences of local communities. Some had homogeneous enrollments, others drew students from across ethnic and religious lines. In areas where schools of different sects coexisted, they and their patrons seldom came into conflict, since they did not try to foist their views on one another. They lived and let live in what were comparatively stable, though increasingly diverse communities. It was only after the state began creating uniform institutions for all children that these families were thrown into conflict.

"Within public schools, many parents were faced with an unpleasant choice: accept that objectionable ideas would be forced on their children, or force their own ideas on everyone else’s children by taking control of the system. It was this artificial choice between two evils that led to the Philadelphia Bible Riots, the beatings of Catholic children, the official denigration of immigrant values and lifestyles in public schools and textbooks, and laws which would today be viewed as utterly unconstitutional, forcing the Protestant Bible on all families. The unparalleled treatment of black families by the government schools, which persisted for over a century, does nothing to lighten this grim picture. (Ibid., p. 85.)" - Vin Suprynowicz 'Literacy Rose ... To Between 91 And 97 Percent'