I suggest that society as a whole has a legitimate interest in the education of children that intrudes into the right of parents to educate their children as they see fit. Society sees all children as future citizens, and so it has an interest in seeing that they become productive, law-abiding, and informed as to matters that affect their voting.

Thus, society invests in the education of children -- for its own benefit. That's why non-parents also pay for education, after all. And that interest also embraces the content of education. It is not in society's interest to have citizens who have no understanding of science, because those citizens will be voting about issues that sometimes require an understanding of science. Accordingly, it is appropriate that society impose the teaching of good science upon its future citizens -- and that includes evolution theory.

Chris,

Thanks for writing. I would be interested to know what you thought of my arguments that the view you present is:

1) based on the false presumption that the state can be relied upon to promulgate a wise and empirical creed

2) incompatible with freedom of thought, conscience, and speech

and

3) would escalate, not abate, the existing cultural warfare between citizens with differing epistemologies

I'm not suggesting an unfettered education market because I think it's a neat idea. I've spent a fair number of years studying modern and historical school systems, and those precedents suggest that the sort of enlightened society you (and I) value is more likely to emerge from a free education market than a thought-police state.

If we empowered the federal government to create and regulate a private school choice program tomorrow (which I am most certainly not advocating), do you think the Bush administration would see entirely eye-to-eye with you on the teaching of science?

Just wishing that there were some Platonic philosopher king handing down perfectly rational and empirically-based curriculum guidelines does not make it so.

What we have here is a democratic republic. Do you really want to hand off the power to decide what your son or daughter will be taught to total strangers, and simply gamble that they'll agree with your own love of science and empiricism?

--Andrew

Your points are all solid. I am too much of a Jeffersonian, however, to accept the notion that the democratic process does a poor job of translating commonly held personal values into laws. I believe that the American polity functions adequately to address this problem. We can certainly bemoan the many failures of American democracy, but we can also see quite a few cases in which the republic has managed a fairly good job of reflecting the overall values of the public. I like to point to the abortion controversy as a huge mess that has managed to achieve a dynamic equilibrium roughly reflecting the overall values of the public. We all wish we could settle this matter once and for all, but we have two absolutely contradictory fundamental values here, and yet we've managed to work out something that works for most people.

I agree that there are some issues of personal freedom here, but the central issue here is, does the parent absolutely own the child? We have already rejected this basic principle, establishing that there are certain minimum rights that every child has. Should not one of those rights be the right to what is generally perceived to be a good education?

As to your third point, I too am troubled by the existing cultural warfare, but I think that isolating the two cultures from each other educationally can only exacerbate the problem. We have already seen that Republicans and Democrats have completely different perceptions of factual matters regarding WMDs in Iraq, Saddam's connections with Al-Qaeda, and so forth; establishing two separate school systems will only make matters worse in this regard.

I recognize that the result might not suit my tastes to a "T", but I am willing to take my chances with a federally mandated set of national tests rather like those used in Great Britain.

Chris

Not to be cute, but shouldn't people advocating the imposition of a scientific/empiricist curriculum use something other than appeals to authority as the basis of their argument?

I dig Jefferson as much as the next American, but there are certainly things he did and said with which I disagree -- issues on which he had insufficient evidence or to which he applied faulty reasoning (e.g., his thoughts on schooling).

After the recent exchanges on this subject, I guess my last word for now will be this: before deciding to cede yet more power to the state in the field of education, actually consult the historical and international precedents to see what the likely outcomes of such a decision will be.

At the risk of appearing to shill, I can't help but recommend my own book on the subject: Market Education: The Unknown History.

"Not to be cute, but shouldn't people advocating the imposition of a scientific/empiricist curriculum use something other than appeals to authority as the basis of their argument?"

To what appeals to authority do you refer? I see none in my post, but I'd be happy to consider any implicit appeals that you wish to point out.

I do support the idea of market-based schooling; my preference is for a set of national tests like those used in Great Britain, which works quite well. Those test results could then be statistically aggregated for each school and even each teacher to produce a set of ratings that parents could consult in choosing a school for their kids. Parents would not be denied the opportunity to send their kids to creationist schools; the only price they pay is that the kids would not pass the national tests. Such kids could continue on through places like Bob Roberts University and get a degree from there, but most parents wanting to send their kids to good colleges would opt for schools with good records on the national exams.

The big question, and a fascinating one, you have not addressed: how far can society go in establishing fundamental rights for children in opposition to their parents' desires? There have been some tough court cases on this. Does this concept apply to education? I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

Chris

Okay, one more comment on this thread, then I promise I'll take out the recycling and play with the cats.

Chris asked: What appeal to authority?

Chris previously wrote: "I am too much of a Jeffersonian, however, to.... I believe that..."

I took that paragraph to be, chiefly, an appeal to the authority of Thomas Jefferson. Otherwise why cite him? We wouldn't write "I'm a Ralphonian, so..." [where Ralph was a kid we knew down the street when we were 10]. Tom J. gets trotted out 'cause he had some sage things to say. Hence, appeal to authority. Homey don't play that.

I have lots of other thoughts about this paragraph, but I'll cut to the chase: Chris' assertion that we've reached an equilibrium on the abortion issue "roughly reflecting the overall values of the public," isn't correct and, given current public opinion on the subject, is not even possible in principle.

Women currently have the right to abort their pregnancies. Close to half the population would prefer them not to have that right. The other half supports abortion rights. There is no middle ground. You can't have half an abortion.

At present, abortion rights supporters are the winners, and pro-lifers are the losers. If the pro-lifers get their way, the situation will be reversed.

Chris' suggestion that a purpose of the political process is to translate commonly held personal values into laws is potentially very dangerous. To avoid civil conflict, pluralistic societies must specifically avoid legislating personal values as much as possible, restricting lawmaking to those areas necessary to sustain peace, safety, justice, and liberty, and to the enforcement of contracts between citizens. That, at any rate, has been my conclusion from the historical record.

Chris asks: shouldn't children have the right to "what is generally perceived to be a good education?" The public is essentially unanimous in believing that children should have access to a good education, so the only question is, whose idea of "good" are we talking about?

Should we have a curricular tyranny of the majority in which we all jointly decide what (and how?) your kids can and cannot be taught?

This approach has an unsavory history both domestically and internationally (see "Market Education," cited in an earlier comment). A worse history, moreover, than when educational decisions have been left to parents.

Chris writes: "I think that isolating the two cultures from each other educationally can only exacerbate the problem." Again, this is an empircally addressable question. We can study the historical and international precedents to verify it. Having done so, I find it to be mistaken. First, segregation by values or any other basis is not that different between public and private schools at present, and private schools are not currently regulated on this issue.

Second, the Dutch specifically averted a culture-based civil war over the monopoly public school system by adopting nationwide parental choice of public and private schools in 1917. Within just a few generations, the "pillarization" of Dutch society (into Catholics, various Protestant sects, and more secular types) was little more than a memory. It abated rather than inflamed the culture wars that nation faced.

Finally, Chris advocates a mandatory national testing program like that of Britain. Mandatory testing tends to drive the curriculum, so this would result in the government at least gaining considerable sway over the curriculum, if not to an eventual take over of the curriculum.

This is both unnecessary and harmful. Unnecessary because markets automatically establish a common core curriculum which is literally based on the actual areas of common demand among the public -- where we already agree, no government coercion is necessary. Education markets also ensure the ready availability of testing -- this is visible, among other places, in the computer software certification programs operated by software manufacturers.

A national testing program/curriculum is harmful because it stifles specialization and the division of labor, the central producer-side aspects of free markets, and emasculates the consumer side, choice -- if all your "choices" are the same, choice becomes meaningless. When the government testing/curriculum guidelines are wrong, everyone suffers and there is little freedom for competitors to correct the mistake.
Britain's national curriculum, for instance, starts foreign language instruction quite late (when students are 11?). Anyone who either grew up in a multi-lingual millieu, or is familiar with the relevant research, knows that second or third languages learned at a younger age are usually learned better and more easily.

Hope that was helpful. While I don't cite chapter and verse on every statement above, all are based on my empirical research into comparative school governance structures. You can follow the link to my bio page, on the right-hand column of TheGantelope's home page, for a slightly out-of-date list of some relevant publications.

Best wishes, and thanks for the stimulating discussion,
Andrew

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