Public

education in the United States has been subjected to vigorous criticism. Some

criticize it in the hopes of improving it, and some criticize it in order to

undermine it. If one accepts the principle that every citizen of our society has

the right to access education, then we can debate how best to implement this

principle as policy. But without agreement on the principle, we risk having a

very different discussion: a

discussion not of how to ensure that this right is implemented, but whether it

should be implemented.

Consider that in the United States, one of the richest countries in the

world, the activity you are now engaging in — reading — is inaccessible to a

substantial portion of the population. In 1993, the National Adult Literacy

Study, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, found that more than 40

million adults in the U.S. are functionally illiterate.

There may be places where knowing how to read is not essential to exercising

the rights and responsibilities of a citizen. But the United States is not one

of them. Here not being able to read means that one’s opportunities for

employment, and therefore income, are very limited. Not being able to read means

not being able to read a newspaper, and therefore being denied access to the

kinds of news that rarely appear on television. Not being able to read means not

being able to read the warnings on a medicine bottle. Not being able to read

severely constrains one’s ability to vote one’s interests in any kind of

election.

When one considers the current crop of buffoons running things, the right to

informed participation in elections doesn’t always seem so wonderful. But

imagine what these people would be doing if they never had to stand for an

election. The right to participate is somewhat vitiated by the current campaign

finance system and other things that could be changed. And not all elections are

for public office.

Suppose you decide to form a union at your workplace. If some of your

co-workers can’t read, that’s going to limit your ability to communicate with

them, particularly if they are numerous or spread out geographically. There may

be an election to decide whether to be represented by a union, workers may have

to choose which union to affiliate with, and then they will have to choose

officers. These choices require information. To be limited to what can be spoken

is a severe constraint.

If access to education is a fundamental human right, then access to it should

not be in any way contingent. In particular, access should not be contingent on

wealth or income.

Few would argue that owning a Lear jet is a human right. My rights are not

denied by virtue of the fact that I don’t have one. But now suppose we consider

something that we all agree is a basic human right, like the right not to be

murdered. Suppose that we take away the right not to be murdered, and replace it

with a market mechanism. From now on, you won’t be murdered if you pay $20 an

hour to a bodyguard that will prevent you from being murdered. How many people

would go for this?

But this is exactly what some people want to do to public education: replace

it with a private system, so that access will be constrained by a market

mechanism. You get what you pay for. That’s a fine principle for the personal

jet market. It’s not a fine principle for determining access to a right.

The principle of the right to access education is in many ways poorly

implemented at present. Rich school districts have more money than poor ones,

and there are other problems of access. But these are issues of how to implement

the right, issues that should be addressed. They don’t raise questions of

whether there should be public education — on the contrary, they suggest that

public education isn’t public enough.

There’s nothing wrong with using choice to try to improve our school system,

so long as we don’t confuse choice with a market mechanism. A public school

system can allow a choice of which public school to attend. A voucher system or

a tax credit system only increases the choices of people with more resources to

start with. This would move us further away from implementing the right to

education, and use public dollars to do so.

Robert Naiman <naimanr@preamble.org>

Preamble Center

1737 21st NW Washington, DC 20009

phone: 202-265-3263 x277

fax: 202-265-3647

http://www.preamble.org/