Neal Mcluskey responds to yesterday’s post about abolishing the U.S. Department of Education. First, he’s right to say that my use of the phrase “Crazy Town” constitutes a cheap shot. Just because Sharron Angle lives in Crazy Town doesn’t mean everyone else with overlapping beliefs lives there too. I shouldn’t have implied otherwise.
The rest of Neal’s post is less persuasive. For example:
First, there’s the usual attack that Cato-types are nutty fringers who want to destroy “public education.” As I have (obviously ineffectually) tried to explain to Carey before, I am not against public education, in which government ensures that everyone can access education. I am against public schooling, in which government runs the schools. This gets directly to the bedrock question of how best to operate education in a free society, as well as make schooling work primarily for parents and kids. And contrary to the connotation of phrases like “destroying public education as we know it,” government run schooling with a huge federal presence has hardly been the standard for most of American history.
Note that Neal begins by truncating the phrase “destroying public education as we know it” to just “destroy public education.” There’s a difference. It’s true that a totally voucherized education system, which Cato explicitly supports, would arguably still be “public” since it would be publicly-funded. But I don’t think anyone would argue–or at least, I didn’t think anyone would argue–that a wholesale transition from a system in which “the government runs the schools” to a system in which the government doesn’t run the schools constitutes anything other than destroying public education as we know it. Would it sound nicer if I said “transition from” or something? What’s the difference?
Neal then shifts the standard to “government run schooling with a huge federal presence.” Government run schooling has existed since at least the mid-19th century. Whether the federal presence today is “huge” when the feds still only contribute pennies to the K-12 dollar is highly debatable. But whatever–how about “complete elimination of public schooling as we know it today.” Can we agree on that?
In general,there’s a “Who? Me?” vibe running throughout Neal’s post, which he actually illustrates quite well with a picture of Zinedine Zidane head-butting Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup. I take it I’m supposed to be Zidane and Neal is the Italian guy. Okay, recall what happened: Materazzi made an unwholesome comment about a female member of Zidane’s family and then, following the butt, dived to the turf pretending to writhe in pain, leading to Zidane’s expulsion from the game at a crucial moment. A shrewd tactical move, perhaps, but not something that will cover Materazzi in glory.
I enjoy the intellectual jousting with Cato and think libertarianism is a perspective that’s worth consideration. But I also think Cato’s main purpose in life is to push extremely radical and harmful ideas–like the complete elimination of public schooling as we know it today–inside the borders of respectable public discourse by pursuing a kind of cerebral, we’re-all-just-debating-here approach to discussion. Perhaps that makes me part of the problem.
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5/11/2012 | U.S. News & World Report highlights ideas from "Moving On Up: How Tuition Tax Breaks Increasingly Favor the Upper-Middle Class." 
5/11/2012 | In Diverse, Steve Burd comments on the Obama administration's plans to address student debt. 
5/11/2012 | Kevin Carey talks to Salon about the government's role in rising student debt.
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RG,
It isn’t “obvious” to me. Public education didn’t fail, the child did.
From my perspective, we ought to be eliminating public education as we know it today but not public schools. I do not believe that the bulk of schools ought to be privatized, but we need to end the near-monopoly local districts have over taxpayer-funded schools. No child should be forced to attend a mediocre school just because of where his/her family lives. All parents should have the freedom to enroll their children in whatever school they feel is best regardless of which neighborhood they reside in. The current system discriminates against low-to-moderate income families who cannot afford to pay the exorbitant cost of housing in neighborhoods zoned for good schools. The existing public charter & magnet schools are a good start, but in many areas the availability of those public schools of choice is limited or non-existent.
Being against the current public school system as we know it does NOT automatically mean that one is against public schools.
“I am not against public education, in which [local] government ensures that everyone can access education. I am against public schooling, in which [local] government runs the schools.”
Here McCluskey is supporting pork-barrel politics, pure and simple. To paraphrase Geithner, McCluskey wants private gains to be subsidized by public losses.
If private charity can educate the masses with no cash contributed from taxpayer revenues, then more power to him. Show us the plan. If he wants to use a military contractor model for public education, however, then this is morally bankrupt. Even worse, it will not result in the style of governance that he presumes. He who pays the piper calls the tune. If government is paying the bills, then eventually it will have so many auditors at your office on a regular basis that you will not be able to teach any children. The taxpayers will want to know that the money is spent wisely and not just for huge executive bonuses. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-10/executives-collect-2-billion-running-for-profit-colleges-on-taxpayer-dime.html .
Now you’re being a wee bit condescending and dismissive of McCluskey’s argument. You’re also missing his point and are instead spending time fussing over his vocabulary instead of focusing on the content of his post.
And how exactly are Cato’s ideas “radical” and “harmful”? Is it because they’re so different from what you’re used to that they frighten you? Yes, Mr. Carey, that does make you part of the problem.
When we have high school graduates, who are theoretically prepared for college, who can’t make change without the help of a calculator, can’t write a coherent sentence, and must take remedial courses to make up for these shortcomings before truly beginning their college careers, public education has obviously failed.
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