(Simultaneously posted on Panda’s Thumb.)
Mr. Darrell makes some interesting points with regard to teaching of Christianity in schools in early America, although I don’t find it as easy to distinguish theology from religious morality education as he does.
However, he’s not quite right to say that “most kids have no legal right to a public education.” It’s true as a philosophical matter that nobody has a right to an education, because educations are provided by others, and nobody has the right to compel another person to provide him with an education, any more than a person has the right to compel another person to provide him with a car or a television set or any other transfer of wealth. All coercive transfers of wealth are violations of rights. But as far as a “legal right” goes, many states, perhaps most states, have determined that such a right does exist. California’s Supreme Court, for instance, has determined that a public education is a “fundamental right.” See, e.g., Butt v. State of California, 4 Cal.4th 668, 686 (1992). The federal Supreme Court, fortunately, has determined otherwise as far as the Federal Constitution is concerned. San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973).
Does this mean that “[a] right to education would be a right to correct information, not folderol”? Well, there have been lawsuits against the state arguing that the right to an education means the right to a quality education, and arguing that the state has violated this right by providing the poor quality public schools that California has. I don’t know if these have been successful, but I don’t believe so. Courts tend to defer to the Legislature’s judgment, or the judgment of local school districts, as to how to fund and operate public schools. Nor do the courts intervene when it comes to poor quality teaching. Attempts to sue public school teachers for malpractice, for example, have not succeeded because Courts refuse to intervene to determine what constitutes a quality education. See, e.g., Brown v. Compton Unified Sch. Dist., 80 Cal. Rptr. 2d 171 (1998); see further Todd A. DeMitchell and Terri A. DeMitchell, Statutes And Standards: Has The Door to Educational Malpractice Been Opened?, 2003 B.Y.U. Educ. & L.J. 485. Once again, I disagree with this holding—I agree that if the state undertakes to educate, it ought to educate competently, but them’s the breaks. I highly doubt a court would entertain a suit against a creationist teacher on the grounds that he is violating the right to a quality education—but hey, why not try?
Mr. Darrell’s statement that “Education is not a right, nor is it a duty the kid to be educated owes anyone. The provision of education to preserve our republican democracy is a necessity, and therefore it is an obligation tax-paying citizens owe to the rest of our citizens”—makes no sense to me. I see no distinction between an unchosen “obligation” imposed on “tax-paying citizens” by “the rest of our citizens” and a “duty.” And I think it’s terrible to say that a person owes an obligation to the state to attend public schools in order to preserve the state. This is nothing less than a justification of government mind control, of which we ought to be extremely skeptical, if for no other reason, than because the public choice effect is unavoidable—such schools will be taken over by whatever political interest group is most adept at taking them over. As John Stuart Mill said,
A general state education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another and the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation, in proportion as it is efficient and successful and establishes a despotism over the mind, leading, by natural tendency, to one over the body.
Quoted in Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty 376 (1960). Even if it were not for the public choice effect, government education is inherently contrary to the spirit of skepticism and individual thought necessary to making good republican citizens. See Karl Popper, 1 The Open Society And Its Enemies 135 (5th ed. 1966).
Nor do I agree that “There is no free speech or free exercise right to be ignorant, even ignorant of ideas one wishes didn’t exist for whatever reason.” Actually, I think the right to be ignorant is an absolutely essential part of these rights. I have the right, and I exercise it every Sunday, to be ignorant of the alleged blessings of Episcopalianism, which are taught a block away. Now, one’s right to be ignorant does not mean that he has the right to silence another person, but he certainly has the right to turn off his TV or choose not to read his junk mail. And parents do have the right to teach their children untrue things—troubling as this is to me. But that’s what “free exercise” means.
Finally, I have never heard that “Jefferson wanted to amend the Constitution to provide education rights, but that proposal never made it to paper.” I would be quite shocked if this were true. Could you provide me with more information on this, Mr. Darrell?
This conversation, too, has drifted, so I will post any further discussion at Freespace.
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