By Brian Carnell

Tuesday, June 6, 2000

Leave it to Noam Chomsky to divine the real intent behind school reformers who argue for various versions of privatizing the educational system. According to Chomsky, such efforts are nothing more than part of a large "general assault in the last 25 years on solidarity, democracy, social welfare, [and] anything that interferes with private power..."

The people who live in my neighborhood -- mostly poor people on welfare -- tend to think that the job of the public school system is to educate their children (which, for a variety of reasons, they are convinced it does an extremely poor job of). According to Chomsky, they are wrong about this. Rather, "a public education system is based on the principle that you care whether the kid down the street gets an education."

Those of us who favor any number of privatization plans for education, such as voucher systems or charter schools, could care less about the education that children receive but rather, according to Chomsky, are interested in something much different:

And one of the effects, in a way, I think the most important, is the undermining of the conception of solidarity and cooperation. I think that lies at the heart of the attack on the public school system . . .

What world is Chomsky living in? The attack on public education has little to do with solidarity and everything to do with a factor that Chomsky does not bother mention -- in many urban areas the public education system is well beyond failure. Despite often spending obscenely large amounts of money -- often wasted due to corruption -- public education systems in urban areas are a national embarrassment.

Take the Detroit public school system, which is easily one of the worst in the country. The acts of corruption and cronyism in the district are legendary. Many of the school buildings in Detroit are deteriorating, for example, but the school system spent much of a multi-million dollar bond enriching influential developers by paying 2 or 3 times the market value for property which was then never actually developed into schools.

Despite spending about twice as much per student as Detroit's high performing private schools, student performance in the public school system consistently ranks among the worst in the nation.

And what about solidarity? Most Detroit parents, of course, have no option but to send their children to public schools, not being able to afford private schools. You would think at some point the parents would rise up in "solidarity" to throw the bums out, but the dirty truth about democracy is that small marginal voting blocs usually hold sway and in Detroit those who benefited from the corrupt system always managed to turn out more votes than parents wanting reform. The state finally stepped in and took control of the school system in a move that was probably illegal, but might actually benefit students in that area.

This is the real contrast -- private choice and private spheres of action, where families choose what sort of education their children will get, or "solidarity" where the state makes those choices on behalf of families.

Leave it to Chomsky to defend the public education status quo, which even at the better public schools tend to treat children as interchangeable cogs in an educational machine. Children may not learn to read or perform basic math skills, but thank goodness they will have been properly inculcated in the ways of "solidarity."

Source:

Assaulting Solidarity -- Privatizing Education. Noam Chomsky, Z Magazine, May 12, 2000.

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