Articles — Schoolhouse & Statecraft

‍ ‍“Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men—the balance-wheel of the social machinery."

-Horace Mann

‍ ‍We live in an age of profound skepticism toward institutions. In many respects, that skepticism is understandable. Trust has been damaged. Some institutions have lost sight of their mission and others have failed the very people they were created to serve. Citizens have every right to demand accountability, transparency, and reform.

Yet skepticism can become something more dangerous when it evolves into calls to abandon a worthy mission. This perspective is often fueled by what might be called a failure bias: the tendency to judge institutions solely by their shortcomings while overlooking their successes.

Imagine a major terrorist attack occurred tomorrow. Many people would rightly ask hard questions of the Department of Homeland Security. They would point to a failure and demand accountability. But some would go further, arguing that the failure itself proves the institution is unnecessary, irredeemable and not a good use of tax dollars.

What remains unseen are the countless threats that never materialized because they were prevented, the intelligence operations that disrupted attacks before they could occur, and the ordinary security measures that function quietly in the background. Success often goes unnoticed because it prevents the very crisis that would have drawn our attention.

This is the challenge faced by nearly every institution in modern society. Failures are visible. Successes are often invisible, or at least unnoticed. That does not mean institutions should be immune from criticism. We should never be loyal to dysfunction, but neither should we abandon important public missions simply because the institutions charged with carrying them are imperfect.

We do not need to remain loyal to a flawed system, but we do need to remain loyal to a worthy mission.

Few missions are more vital than educating the next generation and the core responsibility for that mission falls upon America's public schools. Those schools are shaped by federal, state, and local policy. They are also shaped by the priorities reflected in budgets and the resources policymakers choose to provide.

Public institutions, including public schools, occupy a unique place in society because they carry a universal obligation. Their mission is not to serve only those who are easiest to serve or those who can afford access. Their mission is to serve everyone, much like a fire department, police department, or the military. They provide a fundamental public good upon which a free market can operate.

Abandoning, defunding, or abolishing institutions that serve an important public purpose is rarely the prescription for improvement. More often, the answers are found in the details of policy, the quality of implementation, the resources provided, and the expectations we place upon those institutions. Belief that we can improve is fundamentally a belief in the idea of self-government.

The question is not whether institutions sometimes fail. Obviously they do. The question is whether the mission they serve remains vital.

Many have argued that public schools are falling short. In some respects, they are. There are reasons to be concerned about reading proficiency, teacher turnover rates, bureaucratic requirements that can pull educators away from the work that matters most. Parents are right to demand better outcomes for their children.

Those realities deserve honest discussion and we intend to have those here at Schoolhouse & Statecraft.

But regardless of challenges and problems we encounter, a fundamental question follows: What should we do about it?

Many have concluded that public education struggles because it is administered through public institutions. Those perspectives are fueled by the belief that “government” is inherently inefficient and that the private market is always better at allocating resources and producing results. Now, that is sometimes true. The free market is better at determining the price of something, the amount of product that should be supplied, and judging demand within a particular marketplace.

But this way of thinking can also create a cycle of affirmation. Some politicians spend years arguing that public institutions are ineffective and incapable of solving problems. Then they are elected and govern according to that assumption. Resources are reduced, public confidence declines, and institutions struggle to fulfill their mission. Those struggles are then used as evidence that government never worked in the first place.

In other words, some people spend years telling us that government isn't good at doing anything, and then they govern in a way that proves that point.

Many people get convinced by that “anti-government” perspective because they understand freedom primarily as the absence of government interference. But freedom is more complicated than simply being left alone.

History reminds us that freedom is not simply the absence of government action.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was not uncommon for children as young as eight, nine, or ten years old to work long hours in factories, textile mills, and coal mines. Government intervention through child labor laws and compulsory education requirements restricted certain choices, but few Americans today would view those reforms as an assault on freedom.

Instead, they expanded opportunity. Rather than spending their childhood in a mineshaft or factory, eventually millions of children were given the chance to learn to read in a classroom, engage in play at recess, and cultivate a sense of self that could look to a future of possibilities.

America at its best embodies the belief that no matter who you are, where you come from, or how much money your parents have, you deserve a fair shot. Public education can be the great equalizer, striving for equal opportunity while recognizing that equal opportunity will never produce equal outcomes.

We should be committed to preserving public education not because it has existed for a long time, but because its mission remains worthy. That mission deserves a people who believe enough in themselves and in one another to continually improve it. To chip away at its flaws. To sculpt a system of new ideas grounded in enduring values.

Values like opportunity, justice, equality, and a belief that we are, in some sense, our brother's keeper.

If the child down the street cannot read, we should care—even if he is not our child. Not only because it is the right thing to do, but because our lives are more connected than we sometimes realize. That child may one day be your plumber, your grandchild's teacher, your nurse, your business partner, or your doctor.

Public institutions exist because there are some goods that are too important to be left only to circumstance, charity, or private interest. They exist because it is in the public interest to deliver a public good.

It is worth mentioning that the word public comes from the Latin publicus, meaning “of the people." That idea is at the heart of self-government. The challenges we face are not someone else's problems. They are our problems. And if we are to preserve a free society, we must believe that free people working together can solve them.

Because freedom is not simply the right to be left alone. It is also the opportunity to learn, to grow, to contribute, and to flourish. That is why public institutions matter. And few institutions matter more than the public schools entrusted with preparing the next generation.

A Worthy Mission: Why Public Education Matters | Schoolhouse & Statecraft