Public Education: Making Over American Society in Its Own Image

On Tuesday, Reason.org reported on the latest U.S. Supreme Court decision:

This morning, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, striking down Montana’s state constitutional Blaine Amendment, which forbids state aid to “any church, school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other literary or scientific institution, controlled in whole or in part by any church, sect, or denomination.” The decision overrules a Montana Supreme Court decision striking down a state school choice program that had provided tax credits on an equal basis to students attending both religious and secular private schools. Today’s ruling is an important victory for religious freedom, specifically the principle that government policy should not discriminate between private organizations and individuals on the basis of religion.

Blaine amendments rose out of an attempt by President Ulysses S. Grant and Rep. James Blaine and other advocates of public schools to amend the U.S. Constitution to keep government funds from going to private religious schools. When the effort failed, the campaign moved on to the states, where many states did put Blaine amendments into their state constitutions.

One interesting thing to note is that the anti-Catholic bigotry from which the Blaine amendments rose is closely related to the promotion and rise of government-funded public education. As I have written elsewhere:

the bifurcation of the public and private systems of education developed as proponents of public education, such as Horace Mann and John Dewey, touted the public benefits that could be derived by a system of universal, free public schools. Cubberly writes, “No one did more than [Mann] to establish in the minds of the American people the conception that education should be universal, non-sectarian, and free, and that its aim should be social efficiency, civic virtue, and character [emphasis added], rather than mere learning or the advancement of sectarian ends.” Similarly, Warde noted that Dewey believed the products of public education would be “creative, well adjusted equalitarians [who] would make over American society in their own image.”

The promoters of the Blaine amendments had no interest in Catholic schools, the main religious schools in the nation at that time, interrupting their efforts to create well adjusted equalitarians who would make over American society in their own image, rather than God’s. 

Taking a look at our culture today, it appears that Blaine, Mann, Dewey, Grant, and other proponents of public schools have accomplished their goals. God is largely out of the picture. Even among evangelical Christians, biblical direction about how to shape the culture is largely ignored because it is not taught.

While the Supreme Court made the right decision here, I do not join with those who see this victory as a path to expanding public funding of private education through vouchers.

I’m not a big fan of vouchers for private schools, religious or not, for the main reason I think what has happened to public K-12 education and public and private higher education (widely inflated prices and significant control of curriculum, etc.) would also happen to private K-12 education.

However, I am a big fan of tax credits without strings. If folks who send their kids to private schools or if businesses that provide scholarships to kids that go to private schools didn’t have to pay taxes (property, income, etc.) equal to the cost of a public school education, I suggest we would see the rapid decline–if not demise–of public education. Which would be a very good thing.

The Bible makes it clear that it is the responsibility of parents to “bring [their children] up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” While parents may to some extent delegate this to people outside their homes through tutors and private schools, there is no Biblical authority for government to usurp that authority by taking money from those parents (and others) and forcing public education on families.

As usual, when people and society turn away from how God ordered society, their are consequences to be paid. Consequences we are experiencing this very moment.

God can work in many ways, but perhaps one way He might restore our nation is through the abolition of public education–both K-12 and higher education. If so, perhaps then we might see God’s image come back to the forefront of education and culture in America. God’s will be done.