America's Government School Woes
by Tibor R. Machan
The removal of banners in a high school, which had the words "God" and "Creator" on them, placed there by a school math teacher, have led to a lawsuit against the Poway Unified School District in San Diego. Most people take this to be a confrontation between religion and secularism but it isn't. What it is, however, is a confrontation between government and private secondary education.
It is easy to understand that when parents send their children to school, they prefer to have those children exposed to some measure of value education. For some parents this involves having their religion observed and respected at the school. For some it involves some ethical instruction. Some want to have a scientific approach to human life taught to their kids. Among those who want religious teaching in schools, different particular religions are preferred. And even among those who prefer a secular approach to values different positions may be chosen as the best way to achieve this end.
All of this is as one would expect it in a pluralistic, diverse free society. Alas, that cannot be, despite its reasonableness. Why? Because when governments administer children's education, funded from taxation, a virtual one-size-fits all approach is required, one that is likely to upset many parents who consider that approach wrongheaded. If a government- administered and tax-funded high school has teachers who will stress Christian or Muslim or Jewish values, those who do not share these will very likely object. (Some, of course, have no worry because they consider themselves quite capable of teaching their preferred values at home and thereby counter whatever indoctrination the school may be perpetrating.
But not all consider this a good option.)
In a relatively free society, especially one that has a national policy of not having government side with any particular form of value-education, religious or otherwise, citizen involvement in religion will be highly diverse. One need only travel around America a bit to notice the many different types of churches that exist throughout the country's various communities. The last I checked there were 4200 plus different religions in the country, most of them with worshippers who embrace distinct beliefs guiding them and ready to teach their children what they believe. There are, also, quite a few different non-religious organizations that have value-teaching as part of what their membership is being offered from their leadership.
Or take another area of American life where government is largely forbidden to enter the fray, namely, magazine and newspaper publishing. Here, too, enormous diversity is evident, even if some publications dominate while others have small circulations. The principle is the same: where separation between government and a vibrant social or cultural area exists, the rule is pluralism and diversity as well as considerable peace and harmony.
Although most Americans take it for granted that education must be provided by the government, this is by no means proof that it must be so. When decoupling education from government is proposed to them they often find it difficult to think of an alternative but that doesn't mean no alternative exists. Just as some other very important aspects of our lives, such as religion and journalism, are separated from government, education could be as well. Those who claim that the poor would go without schooling fail to consider that schooling can be provided from a great variety of sources. Among these could be--and sometimes already are--churches, business firms, research centers, museums, and so forth, a lot of which would emerge only once the government leaves the field.
Of course, radical ideas take time to catch on, even when they make perfectly good sense. Just consider how tough it is to sell much of the world on the idea of a constitutional democracy, free trade, and the equality for women. The governmental habit, as I noted many times before, is terribly deeply ingrained in the minds of millions, even in America where the idea of limited government was first embraced officially (though not fully).
Until the idea of the separation of education and government is finally embraced around the country, there will continue to be such controversies as we now witness in San Diego where some people want a certain religion in the schools while others do not. So long as schools are part of government, they will continue to face such basically irresolvable
problems.
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