Bloggers of a certain age have listened to The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill several times in their lives, enough to read this article on (this was my first mistake) Slate and think of the lyric, "Can't take a threat to me newborn son."
Because when I read the deluded ramblings of Allison Benedikt, that's how I take them: a threat to my children. Benedikt argues--contra evolution and common sense--that I should place the welfare of my immediate progeny behind that of hypothetical strangers several generations in the future. She acknowledges that parents keep their children from public schools because the parents think the public schools are bad for their children. She doesn't argue that the parents are wrong. I don't want to jump to the conclusion that Benedikt has no children of her own, but I cannot think of a single parent who would knowingly place his child in what he considers harm's way because theory says it might pay off later.
Benedikt's concluding paragraph could only have been written by the product of a public school:
Whatever you think your children need—deserve—from their school experience, assume that the parents at the nearby public housing complex want the same. No, don’t just assume it. Do something about it. Send your kids to school with their kids. Use the energy you have otherwise directed at fighting to get your daughter a slot at the competitive private school to fight for more computers at the public school. Use your connections to power and money and innovation to make your local school—the one you are now sending your child to—better. Don’t just acknowledge your liberal guilt—listen to it.
Oh jeez.
Okay, deep breath, only focus on the major problems, and take them one problem at a time.
On what basis should I assume poor parents want the same thing for their children that I want for mine? Many of the outcomes that mark failed schools originate from lack of parental involvement. Parents who protest school weather closings because of childcare concerns rather than lost education don't want the same thing I want.
What parents want is also quite distinct from what children want. A disengaged parent might not want a high-functioning school, but I'm willing to concede they often don't want the violent school they get. That's on the children who bring the violence to school. Increasing the number of docile children doesn't lessen the violence, it just gives the predators more variety in their victims.
Computers are not the education magic wand Benedikt imagines them to be. They don't abate stupidity, they just make stupidity less boring. Parents are better off fighting for education in the classroom than for computers, and the parents who understand that are the ones seeking out schools that have education in the classroom. They're saying, "Use my property taxes to buy your kids fancy computers, and I'll use my disposable income to buy my kid education." Benedikt is saying, "Stop making that choice and come partake of these computers with us." No thanks.
Lastly, we see the shortcomings of "liberal guilt." American schools are phenomenally well-funded. The fact that parents have allowed the education establishment to ruin the education of their local schools does not require any additional action on my part. There is room for guilt over opportunity and input, but there is no room for guilt over outcome.
Benedikt ends by addressing those who feel liberal guilt, but her castigation isn't limited to them; she doesn't say "if you feel guilty about the public schools you don't use, you are a bad person." Instead she says those not using public schools are bad persons. So her liberal guilt has turned into an imperative for me. Which is the problem with liberal guilt: it seeks to address itself by controlling others instead of the self. It spreads the guilt around ("I'm not the only one who's doing something wrong here"), it reduces the demand that I change myself ("I'll begin a decades-long campaign to change society rather than a painful course of self-control"), and it rewards my conscience with authority over others ("I'll tell you what to do since I know what should be happening"). Benedikt has no right to demand my children have worse outcomes, no matter who she thinks might eventually benefit. The lives of today's poor have been improved by technological advances pioneered by yesterday's educated. Perhaps the best outcomes come from giving phenomenal educations to a handful of students and giving the rest iPads. Which is exactly what's already happening.
via oneofthebest
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