The principled conservative has much to offer here and it can be stated in one word: choice. Must every child go through the same public school system? Of course not. It doesn‟t even happen now. Our focus should be on quality, not conformity. If many other countries have year-round school and parents want it in their school district, why not? We never said America should not borrow ideas from other countries—just not the stupid ones (see previous chapter on health care). Let us shout it from the rooftops: this system is far more broken than the health care system. It is already largely socialized, and it is hard to think of an area more in need of competition.
We have clearly gone far afield from the vision of the Founding Fathers. Take Thomas Jefferson for instance:
“The notion that schools could be better run by “any other general authority of the government, than by parents within each ward [is] a belief against all experience…Entrust the states with responsibility for education, and one might as well turn over to them “the management of all our farms, our mills, and our merchants‟ stores”—a policy that, of course, later generations of collectivists would endorse.”37
Unfortunately our children‟s education has become politicized, with a clear dividing line: “… for conservatives, the purposes of schooling are primarily intellectual and moral but for liberals, they are social and political.”38
Indeed, the principled conservative does not seek to create wards of the state, but self-reliant people. Further, while history should not be sugar-coated, there are genuine heroes throughout time whose achievements should be celebrated and whose character and decorum should be models to emulate.
Yet there is a powerful foe of any meaningful public education reform: teachers unions. We cannot mince words on such a critical matter as our children‟s education—the principled conservative will find herself at odds with the teachers unions on just about every issue. These unions insist on no accountability, guaranteed employment, and little innovation. In elementary and secondary education, it leads to many absurdities. As one example, often it is lamented (usually by liberals) that we need more disadvantaged children (usually a code word for Black or Hispanic) to go into the professions, especially medicine. But what factor often encourages any child to pick such a career? Invariably, it is a parent, a teacher, and/or a role model in the community.
Middle and upper middle class children have a built-in networking advantage because in their communities, including their own families, there are likely to be a number of male and female professionals. While recognizing there is an element of unfairness in this situation, the principled conservative would remind all that this unfairness stems from natural advantages and human prowess, not because of a government decreed unfairness. But we are not cold-hearted. What policies might actually help to counterbalance this phenomenon in order to provide the child of a low-income family access to such adult guidance and role models? How about a doctor who takes an early retirement and wants to give back to the community by teaching science in an elementary or secondary school? Do the teachers unions and school systems readily embrace re-training that individual on teaching skills when such an individual obviously has a breadth of real world experience and knowledge and presumably can easily grasp the content of the science curriculum? Of course not! They prefer the graduate of the education program who has done nothing but teach school his or her whole life. Not that all lifelong teachers are problematic, but why does every teacher in a school have to fit that same mold? Wouldn‟t it be nice for a public school student to be able to ask her teacher: “So you used to be a doctor, what was that like?” We suspect this would do a great deal more good to inspire the child to stay in school, get good grades, and take science courses—the requisite things for future medical school admission—than a host of federal programs designed to turn kids onto science or becoming doctors. When public policy ignores what influences a child‟s decisions about work and life, specifically those who can actually be mentors such as parent, teachers, and neighbors, we should not expect success. We cannot expect a public service announcement or brochure to foster real equal opportunity.
Another problem is the fact there is so much leftist indoctrination in the current public school system, from a distorted history of the U.S. to the current “go green” mantra. Do they ever mention that Rachel Carson‟s non-scientific anti-DDT obsession caused millions in the third world to die of malaria in the absence of DDT to kill deadly insects on crops? Public schools also bends over backwards to find a Native American, a Black, or Hispanic author to read and celebrate, regardless of whether the work may in fact be far inferior than that produced by a white male of European descent. “Just because a work is written by a member of an historically oppressed group does not mean it is a great work.”39
The problems are myriad, so where is the principled conservative to start? Let us acknowledge that most parents and guardians feel frustrated about the lack of choice and accountability. To quote Elvis Presley: “we‟re caught in a trap, I can‟t get out.” We have a system that subsidizes and promotes lack of choice and accountability.
Even President Obama held this view during his election campaign and stated as much before Wall Street investment types (although he seems to have conveniently forgotten this as the National Education Association (NEA) reminds any Democratic administration that the union must dictate education policy, certainly NOT the
parents/consumers). This NEA mantra actually makes the guidance for the principled conservative rather easy: review any recommendations from the NEA, and usually recommend the opposite.
Elementary and Secondary Education
Some conservatives might suggest we simply start over with private schools and eliminate the Department of Education. The worth of this federal agency aside (a subject for many other books), the principle has to be one of choice, not merely replacing one flawed system with another. There are many fine public schools.
Admittedly, these are usually in more affluent communities where children have better-educated parents.
Conservatives do in fact care about children of low-income families and feel it is a tragedy that so many should be consigned to some terrible public schools. The principled conservative should rarely ever suggest blowing up anything (we‟ll leave that to the Taliban), but recommends proceeding wisely and cautiously. We often lament what children have to suffer through because of the educational policy experiments of misguided adults. There is a case for public education and the promotion of common citizenship. We must not indoctrinate political opinions; rather, we must teach American heritage and American cultural values (as described in Chapter 8).
For a society not to pass down these important values would be committing cultural suicide. We must focus on the basics, while empowering and rewarding quality teachers. To facilitate quality teaching, we must embrace the following principles. While they might not be immediately achievable, they at least point us in the right direction.
discipline students.
the teachers‟ unions are not just part of the problem, they ARE the problem. We believe teachers can and should be evaluated for the quality of their professional skills. Otherwise, teaching cannot really be claimed as a profession:
“Just as in law, medicine, business, and virtually every other profession, compensation must be keyed to performance and responsibility, not seniority. The concept that everyone should be paid the same regardless of results and, basically, on an hourly basis is the single greatest indication of the backwardness of the field.”
“…union leaders have made uniformity a top collective-bargaining priority, judging that differentiation is too risky for their members—and their own leadership positions.” 40
o allow this there must be opportunity for mid-career
changes and a wide range of career tracks. And the superstar teachers should be paid like superstars, regardless of their length of service. If others teaching don‟t like the pay differential, here‟s a simple solution—improve your own teaching skills, or find another job! No one has an inherent right to remain a teacher just because they started out in the system.
interesting that the same folks who are proponents of a government run-health care “public option” to keep private insurers “honest” are the same ones who vehemently oppose any educational competition. But there must be options for parents and teachers because only competition will promote the excellence to which we strive.
o otherwise is to promote self-
esteem over real learning. It is sad that in so many schools today “[k]ids are not taught how to defend a point or make an argument, skills that are absolutely essential in the development of critical thinking and logical reasoning.”41
Higher Education
While many American universities are highly regarded, the principled conservative bemoans the political correctness and leftward tilt of faculty. These leftist trends go back well into the 20th century. Sadly, while William F. Buckley Jr. is no longer with us, so many in academia (especially in the social sciences) still view it as their mission to teach college students to become socialist atheists. And from the parental viewpoint, the fact that college prices rise consistently higher than inflation and seem oblivious to consumer needs is a source of chronic irritation. This should come as no surprise because colleges and universities have heavy government subsidies and the price consumers actually pay is not transparent because of student financial aid. Further, with the tenure system, there becomes much less incentive for faculty to actually spend much time teaching, especially teaching undergraduates. Let‟s see, a system with no incentives to economize and high fixed costs…what‟s the principled conservative not to love?
Where to start? First of all, there are some innovators who should be acknowledged and given a fair chance to compete. We speak of the on-line, innovative programs like the University of Phoenix. Accreditation agencies must not squash such innovation.
As mentioned above, the concept and reality of lifelong tenured faculty is so bad that the long-term goal should be to abolish it. Not overnight, but gradually and firmly. It has not fostered either academic freedom or academic excellence. But it has generated huge fixed costs. Perhaps nothing else would help make colleges more cost-conscious and cost-effective than ending this archaic system. Let colleges structure their departments, institutes, and courses based on consumer demand and societal needs. Let innovation reign, including distance learning. For example, if there is one great lecturer on astronomy in a state, why shouldn‟t all students at any college in that state be able to view her lecture? Set the market price accordingly. Presumably ALL students would be smarter as a result of this exposure. Why would that be such a bad thing, other than for the mediocre astronomy lecturer whose services are no longer needed?
The student financial aid system is a glorious mess. But, in principle, some student aid financed by the government makes sense for those families most in need as it can be considered part of the social safety net and the goal of a fair society. The principled conservative should favor grants for low income families, and tax breaks for middle income families. We are open to innovative ideas, such as the section 529 plans, as well as letting education savings accounts build up in banks without being taxed at any time during accumulation or payout.42
Perhaps the most significant principled conservative vision is merit-based admission, ending affirmative action or, as it is practiced, reverse discrimination. The principle should be that young Americans should never be admitted or denied admission to a college or university based on their ethnicity or family circumstances or geography.
We must also acknowledge that athletics have distorted colleges and universities, especially in the revenue-raising sports of football and basketball. When arguing in the previous paragraph for merit-based admissions, one has to ask what to do about all the athletes who would never get into the particular college or university but for excellence in sports? Is this a fair system? The principled conservative would say of course not, unless the institution is a sports academy. And what about Title IX, which presumes that women are just as interested in sports as men, despite centuries and centuries of historical evidence to the contrary? Sports should ideally be fairly irrelevant to college admissions, and sports offerings should be demand-driven rather than government-driven. Yes, it should be quite obvious that the principled conservative is not looking for a friendly hand-out from a college president consisting of Final Four or Bowl game tickets. Such changes can obviously not happen overnight, but this is the direction we should be moving.