23 March 2007
The Purpose of Public Education
Public education was created not to realize the intellectual potential of each individual, but to assure the availability of the diverse skills, commensurate with personal potentials, that a working democratic society needs. Parents are responsible for assuring their offspring achieve their personal potential, not government. Those who can afford it will pay for specialized education, such as college prep or Liberal Arts College. Those who cannot must rely on what society provides in its own best interest, not in the parochial interest of the children.
The ultimate goal of our society, as framed by the founding fathers, is to assure all its citizens their life, liberty, and ability to pursue happiness. If the actual achievement of happiness were the measure of its success, the judgment criteria would be very subjective indeed. We would be tempted to use soporific tactics to win that goal.
Perhaps the goal of a democratic society should be to maximize the fulfillment of each citizen’s potential; or that might even be the goal of its public education system. That would be an expensive objective to achieve -- one that teachers unions would like to see adopted. But it would not necessarily accomplish the most effective social organization in which individuals will thrive.
Civic organization is an art of the possible. Its purpose is not constantly to strive for the ideal. Therefore, a democratic society suffers not when its individuals sacrifice their possibilities, but when its possibilities are limited by sacrificing the potential represented by all its individuals.
Public education was created not to realize the intellectual potential of each individual, but to assure the availability of the diverse skills, commensurate with personal potentials, that a working democratic society needs. Parents are responsible for assuring their offspring achieve their personal potential, not government. Those who can afford it will pay for specialized education, such as college prep or Liberal Arts College. Those who cannot must rely on what society provides in its own best interest, not in the parochial interest of the children.
The ultimate goal of our society, as framed by the founding fathers, is to assure all its citizens their life, liberty, and ability to pursue happiness. If the actual achievement of happiness were the measure of its success, the judgment criteria would be very subjective indeed. We would be tempted to use soporific tactics to win that goal.
Perhaps the goal of a democratic society should be to maximize the fulfillment of each citizen’s potential; or that might even be the goal of its public education system. That would be an expensive objective to achieve -- one that teachers unions would like to see adopted. But it would not necessarily accomplish the most effective social organization in which individuals will thrive.
Civic organization is an art of the possible. Its purpose is not constantly to strive for the ideal. Therefore, a democratic society suffers not when its individuals sacrifice their possibilities, but when its possibilities are limited by sacrificing the potential represented by all its individuals.
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