Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum attacked American public education while campaigning in Ohio in mid-February, referring to the education system as “anachronistic” and part of the “factory” mentality. Santorum’s observations aren’t novel, but they tend toward an overly simplistic view of the history of American education.
Education during American Industrialization, for example, was motivated, in part, by an intense effort to Americanize immigrants and to create a new generation of patriotic young adults that understood the importance of democratic ideals. All of this sounds like solid conservatism, especially among Republicans identifying with the red-white-and blue Tea Party faction.
Public Education versus Home Schooling for Santorum
Former Senator Santorum stressed that his own children were home-schooled. During his attack on public education, he referred to generations of earlier presidents home-schooling their children in the White House. But Rick Santorum hasn’t always home-schooled. Home-schooling his children began after a financial dispute arising out of a Pennsylvania school district’s attempt to recoup tax-payer money spent to educate his children through a cyber program paid for by the Penn Hills School District.
Santorum, while a U.S. Senator, maintained a residence in the district but his children lived in Virginia. The dispute was settled because legal fees out-weighed the $72,000 allegedly owed the district. What is important, however, is that Senator Santorum trusted the public education system to educate his children at tax-payer expense before the dispute arose.
Educational Reform and Political Expediency
In their book Tinkering Toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform, David Tyack and Larry Cuban correctly assess that, “The issue is not whether people use a sense of the past in shaping their lives but how accurate and appropriate are the historical maps…” Progressive education, for example, stressed social responsibility. The definition of social responsibility in the early twentieth-century by such Republican leaders as Teddy Roosevelt and Robert La Follette, however, are different from contemporary conservatives.
Progressive era reforms, championed by Republicans and Democrats in the decade before World War I, equated social responsibility with federal programs helping the elderly and the poor. The same social responsibility as defined by early twentieth-century Republicans is defined as socialism by contemporary conservatives. Texas Governor Rick Perry, for example, referred to Social Security as socialism while he was campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination.
One constant in education stemming from Progressive roots is the ideal that students in a democratic society must be able to think for themselves. This involves analysis of fact as well as creativity. Senator Santorum adheres to a different compass point, rejecting “phony theology.” In her February 23, 2012 column in Human Events, conservative writer Ann Coulter, without mentioning Santorum’s name, compared Mitt Romney with the other Republican candidates, one of whom she labeled the “crusading Catholic…” Progressive education reformer John Dewey noted that, “Intellectually, religious emotions are not creative but conservative.”
Educational Motives React to Momentary Challenges
American educational reform has, historically, been motivated by the perception that contemporary challenges are not being addressed by the system. In the late 1950’s, for example, the Soviet Union’s launching of sputnik underlined the need for immediate education reform: the arch-enemy of the Cold War was besting the United States and one of the solutions was to upgrade the educational system.
It was a conservative George W. Bush who led the No-Child-Left-Behind battle, condemning millions of children to years of standardized testing. Senator Santorum, while attacking public education, brings home-schooling to the table, a non-viable solution for many working parents subsisting on paycheck to paycheck. Home-schooling requires commitment and it isn’t free. It represents an excellent option for parents able to fulfill the required commitment.
Nineteenth-century reformer Horace Mann noted that, “Education is best provided in schools embracing children of all religious, social, and ethical backgrounds.” Diversity in education reflects continuing social ideals and seeks to eradicate divisiveness. Real educational reform, however, will not come from spontaneous campaign rhetoric misinterpreting historical realities. For most Americans, public education is the best option available. Reform may be needed, but not at the expense of the institution.
Sources:
- “Home school/Santorum, not the state, should pay Penn Hills,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 11, 2006
- Henry A. Giroux, “Why Teaching People to Think for Themselves is Repugnant to Religious Zealots and Rick Santorum,” Truthout, February 22, 2012
- Mitchell Landsberg, “Santorum bashes public schools, says they’re stuck in factory era,” Los Angeles Times, February 18, 2012
- Page Smith, America Enters the War: A people’s History of the Progressive Era and World War I, Volume Seven (McGraw-Hills Book Company, 1985) see chapter 46, “Education”
- David Tyack and Larry Cuban, Tinkering Toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform (Harvard University Press, 1995)
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