Laboratories of Educational Democracy
I’ll admit that when I read Atlas Shrugged years ago, I found its central premise intriguing: that the way to reform society is by removing the talented people from the corrupt institutions they sustain, letting those institutions collapse, then starting all over again.
I first encountered this argument near the end of my time in public education, as I struggled over whether to stay, fighting the good fight; or to get out, saving myself but leaving behind a host of students. I ended up leaving because, despite the good I might have done there, the stress of supporting a system I couldn’t justify was driving me into the ground.
By aligning myself with Sudbury schools, I chose the power of example—that is, showing what’s possible and desirable in education—over the prospect of staying behind and pushing or resisting my way toward reform within the system. Plenty of my counterparts, however, took that other fork in the road, and continue doing what they can for the millions of children still in conventional schools.
Meanwhile the overall pace of education reform remains snail-like, with the majority of students stuck in schools an even larger majority considers unsatisfactory. How did we get stuck with such an outrageous reality? More importantly, why in the name of all that’s good do we allow it to persist?
The question of how best to reform education—whether from within, by external example, or some combination of the two—is complex, to put it mildly. However, we can start addressing this issue by recognizing that the status quo inhibits both reform and example. Public support gives conventional schools a decided advantage over more innovative models, but that support comes at the cost of mandates that undermine substantive reform.
Indeed, how can reform lead anywhere when schools are overwhelmed and pulled in multiple directions? True, their educative function aims at helping students grow; but the custodial function of schools is all about keeping children out of adults’ way, while the sorting function assesses and channels them toward future careers. Indoctrinating students with the attitudes of proper citizens, as well as providing a range of social services, rounds out the conventional schooling agenda. How can any school successfully juggle, much less satisfy, all these directives? (See John Holt’s Freedom and Beyond for more on schools’ conflicting purposes.)
I experienced this firsthand when I was teaching in a public high school. From the individual teacher’s perspective, anything beyond modest attention to the educative function requires neglecting, or even resisting, the other functions one is assigned. Too often, teachers find themselves forced to choose between what’s best for individual students and the orderly functioning of the institution. In the process, student learning yields to the requirements of standardized curricula, testing, and crowd control. Restrained and/or conflicted, most education reform consists of sketchy compromises between flexibility and standardization. I say “sketchy” because, it appears to me, this tug-of-war invariably leans toward the latter.
This is the legacy of Industrial Age education: mass-produced, state-controlled schools that don’t allow enough room for meaningful, individual variation—for creativity and growth, for young people realizing their potential. One educational model enjoys what amounts to a government-sanctioned monopoly, while economics compels participation in this system by all those lacking the resources to choose otherwise. One wonders whether substantive education reform even has a fighting chance, given this lack of feasible options. Clearly, the centralization of money and control sharply limits the range of what’s possible.
Let me be clear, though: I am not arguing that those who keep conventional schools going are making a poor choice. For one thing, this is a matter of conscience; for another, all students—especially those with limited access to alternatives—deserve our attention and care. The question is rather how to effect the transformative change we so desperately need given the political, social, and economic status quo. The way I see it, the fundamental barrier is the false assumption that the dominant educational paradigm is the best, or the only legitimate, approach. Nothing costs us more than the belief that adequate, timely change is possible within its philosophical and institutional parameters.
A century ago, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis argued that states should serve as laboratories of democracy, the rationale being that decentralized variations offer the greatest chance for the best new practices to emerge. I say it’s past time we applied the same approach to education. Guaranteed access to education does not have to mean government-operated and -controlled schools. To prevent excessively homogeneous, monolithic schooling, we must allow the widest possible range of experimentation—not just allow it, but make it viable and accessible, too.
Let’s move forward by recovering our roots as a country: freedom of choice and equal opportunity. Let’s find ways to grant every family with children access to the educational option of their choosing—and then watch as learning finally blossoms. Let’s have a multitude of models (including, though certainly not limited to, Sudbury schools), and then let the people most directly affected by schooling—i.e., students and parents—decide what works best for them.
Doing all this will require not only massive effort and creativity, but a radical shift in how we view learning. We must give up efforts at comprehensively controlling and standardizing education. We will have to move beyond the Industrial Age illusion that top-down, rigidly structured schools fit the way people learn, not to mention the rapidly evolving demands of life in the 21st century.
Admittedly, this is a tall order. But if we want true education reform, do we really have much of a choice?
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