Restoring Parental Responsibility for Education; M. Fritz

Marva Collins, founder of Westside Pre paratory School in Chicago, has gained international fame as an educator for what she has done with public-school castoffs. I've seen her in action, and she gives them what she has plenty of, courage. She "en courages" them to do their best, and they do. In English the en prefix can mean to provide, transfer, or somehow evoke or instill. Marva likes to say, "Ifit ain't caught, it wasn't taught." In other words, if the children aren't "getting it," the person in front of the class is a talker, not a teacher. Mr. Fritz is the founder of the Separation of School and State Alliance, Fresno, California, and the former principal of Pioneer Christian Academy. Some talkers admit the distinction by saying they "covered the subject" as opposed to "taught a lesson." Professor Howard Hen dricks of Dallas Theological Seminary says that distinction is easy to grasp in Hebrew because that language has no distinct word "to teach." Instead, a form of the word "learn" is used to mean "to produce learn ing." We could translate it more correctly if we had the word "enlearning." Indeed, we could avoid some mistakes in education if we replaced the word teaching with enlearn ing. Because we "teach what we are," a person who tries to enlearn values he does not hold is simply enlearning hypocrisy.

Flattery Through Imitation People have long pondered why parent funded private schools seem to work fairly well for their constituencies and tax-funded public schools seem to be going downhill at an increasing speed. In fact, public-school educators are scrambling to imitate the non essential features of private schools. Some call for uniforms, some want "values" pro grams, all clamor for fewer layers of admin istration in their hopes to reverse their downward plunge. The stampede has gone so far that even union leaders are calling for "public schools . . . to emulate some of the desirable features of private schools: small size of schools . . . ; more choice and mar ket dynamics; ... the right to set and 476 enforce high standards of conduct. " (Adam Urbanski, vice president of the American Federation of Teachers, Education Week, January 31, 1996, p. 31) While Urbanski tiptoes with, "It will take a lot to make public schools more effective for all stu dents," Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, deserves outright praise for his bold statement in the New York Times, "The schools will have to change. Otherwise public education will continue its present course to destruction. "

(October 15, 1995) Meaningless Names, Public and Private One linguistic barrier to understanding our education woes comes from the very names we give to our schools in America, "public" and "private." The truth is, most private schools are far more open to the public than are district-bound public schools. "Public" schools always ask about your residence and, in some cities, your race. If you live on the other side of some imaginary line, you are outside their "catch ment area" and are typically refused en trance. Further, school districts that are trying to achieve racial balance may deny your children access to a "public" school for racial reasons. Lowell School in San Francisco, for instance, is a magnet high school that the district leaders have decided has "too many Chinese." Thus some Chi nese are turned away to make room for non-Chinese. "Private" schools, on the other hand, typically accept children from any where in or out of town. If they do have a racial preference/discrimination policy, they keep it hidden because they know it is wrong.

David Kirkpatrick, former state president of the Pennsylvania affiliate of the National Education Association, makes an interest ing observation: the most expensive "pub lic" schools in America hire reverse truant officers. That is, they ferret out children from inferior districts who pretend to live in better districts so they can attend those schools. The reverse truant officers follow children home and even stake out train 477 stations to apprehend the desperate infiltra tors. Compare that to the most expensive "private" schools in America. They have active scholarship programs and recruit mo tivated children from the inner city. The Missing Link: Responsibility What if, from the beginning of the gov ernment-school era in the 1830s and 1840s, we had referred to the two types of schools as "tax-funded schools" and "parent-or charity-funded schools" (hereinafter short ened to "parent-funded")? One thing for sure: as "tax-funded schools" became the mess they are today, we would dismiss anyone who said he had a wonderful way to extend tax-funding to parent-funded schools. We'd see right through clever names such as "charter" and "voucher"

and wonder why authors of such plans would risk the ruination of parent-funded schools by sneaking tax-funding into them. We'd instinctively defend the integrity of parent-funded schools because the very name would help us to think straight. In their call for "market dynamics," union leaders miss the real secret of success of parent-funded schools: parental respon sibility. Conservatives who tout "choice" make the same mistake, says former school board member Jack Simons of Sheffield, Vermont. Simons uses food stamps to illus trate the hollowness of mere" choice" with out responsibility: "Some Subway Sand wich shops now accept USDA food vouchers for cold sandwiches not to be eaten inside. If choice is so all-fired impor tant," asks Simons, "why not man the ramparts demanding that the poor be given the 'choice' to use their food stamps to buy hot food and even eat it inside?" The late Max Victor Belz, a grain dealer in Grundy County, Iowa, helps us reorient from choice to responsibility in his pithy comment, "I don't want my children fed or clothed by the state; but if I had to choose, I would prefer that to their being educated by the state." "Responsibility" is the key difference between tax-funded and parent478 THE FREEMAN • JULY 1996 funded schools. Parent-funded schools have a high percentage of parents who are fully exercising their parental rights in education, and tax-funded schools have few such par ents. I know this is a harsh indictment, and it is aimed at myself as well as millions of others.

Parents who sacrifice to put their children into a parent-funded school remain fully potent. They are capable of exercising their parental rights-they can move their child from one school to another with little or no financial pain. On the other hand, parents at tax-funded schools are almost impotent be cause they are unaccustomed to being fi nancially responsible for their children's education. They will incur a huge financial burden to remove their children from a tax-funded school, either in the form of tuition or the expense and inconvenience of moving to a different district. Parent-Funded Schools and Sacrifice Like investors and entrepreneurs, those who "sacrifice" defer gratification. The original meaning, to make holy by offeringto a deity, grew into a parallel secular meaning, "to give up something you value now for something that you value more later." For instance, in baseball, intentionally flyingout in order to score or advance a base runner is called a "sacrifice fly" because, before 1894,it counted against the batter's average.

The batter sacrificed something he valued, his batting average, for something that he valued more-an improved chance for his team to win the game. In that sense, parents who directly pro vide for their children's education sacrifice. That act both reflects and influences their attitude about their children's education. In contrast, paying taxes, just like forking over your wallet to a mugger, is neither invest ment nor sacrifice. One is not deferring gratification, but merely avoiding pain. Co ercion is central to the financing of tax funded schools, whereas deferred gratifica tion, usually based on hope and love, is the financing source of parent-funded schools. The call by some conservatives for "pa rental rights" without a companion call for "parental financial responsibility" is the same "gimme attitude" that drives the lib erals' call for "welfare rights." Let's recall columnist Joseph Sobran's insight: "'Need' now means wanting someone else's money.

'Greed' means wanting to keep your own. 'Compassion' is when a politician arranges the transfer." Now a fatal flaw in American tax-funded schools becomes evident. Most of us were sold a lie. We were snookered. We bought into a bogus right. Starting in the 1830s, Americans were talked into believing that children have the right to an education at their neighbors' expense through the force of taxation. Why is this a lie? Let's go back to the en prefix. Marva Collins has courage, so she can encourage children. On the other hand, a depressed person has little life, so he can't enliven a party. A person without title to his neighbor's property cannot "entitle" him self to it. Remember Frederic Bastiat' s in sight that if it is wrong for a citizen to steal directly from another, it is equally wrong to steal indirectly by using government as a middleman. The Only Cure for Irresponsibility It is apparent why we have such an epidemic of parental irresponsibility: gov ernment has become the great enabler of irresponsibility and dependence. How to begin to cure it? The only way to teach responsibility is to (a) demonstrate it your self, plus (b) require others to pay the price of irresponsibility. One of my coworkers, Sharon Karraker, described our society's alternatives precisely: the fear of what might happen as we return to parental responsi bility is nothing compared to the knowledge of the mess we'll be in if we stay on our current course.

Simply put, parent-funded schools have love as part of their culture; it starts with their financing. Tax-funded schools have RESTORING PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR EDUCATION 479 coercion as part of their culture; it also starts with their financing. In education, like so much of life, love works. Coercion doesn't. Without love, all the rest is pretty much folderol. We Americans can be proud that our forbears had the wisdom and courage to end government-compelled church funding, attendance, and practice. Similarly, govern ment must be prevented from compelling school funding, attendance, and curriculum. Only with the separation of school and state can we reestablish parental responsibility, protect parents' rights, and enable schools, teachers, and students to flourish in an environment of educational freedom. D THEFREEMAN IDEASON LIBERTY How to Separate School and State: A Primer by Douglas Dewey A forceful case for eliminating the role of government in education has been stated in the previous article. This essay will provide an introductory answer to the "how" question.