Should
revolutionaries defend the U.S. system of public education? After all
its history reveals that the primary purpose of the U.S. public
education system is to create educated workers who identify their
interests with those of the ruling class.
When the United
State became independent, it was still an agrarian economy, even
though some western European countries were starting to
industrialize. Production in Europe was becoming more technological
and was requiring greater work forces, which in turn required more
organization.
The colonies had
been underdeveloped by Britain. Thus the most influential sector of
the ruling class in the newly independent states was still the
southern, plantation-owning class, the slave-masters. This class
viewed the rise of industry as a threat to its privilege.
In the North,
industry took the form of skilled craftsmen, who hired few
assistants. Such an economy did not necessitate complex organization.
A literate work force was not in the interest of the ruling class.
Education was limited to the wealthy, who would hire private tutors
to teach their children.
By the 1840s, some
northeastern companies were starting to become complex enough to need
clerks who could read. There was a shortage of literate people
willing to work for the low wages offered. The
federal goverment sent the secretary of the Massachusetts
State Board of Education, Horace Mann, to the
industrialized countries of Europe to study their education systems.
Why
so many schools named after Horace Mann
Mann
became enamored of the German education system, which dated back to
1763 when King Fredrick II ordered the development of a system to
train the national work force to function in
an industrial economy. Fredrick knew mass literacy was necessary if
Germany was to become economically competitive, but he also
understood that an educated population might start to question his
authority.
Along
with becoming literate, the public had to be indoctrinated into
believing the infallibility of the king.
Students were to be taught only in German, and non-German-speaking
minorities were to be taught that their language and culture was
inferior to that of the German. The students who learned the
intellectual and ethical demands set for them went on to a higher
“grade,” while those who didn’t were marked as inferior and “held
back.” After eight years of successful promotion, the student was
given a “certificate” of completion. The system was paid for
through taxes.
While
in Germany, Mann also saw the works of Marx and Engels being
disseminated among the workers. He felt that
the American working class needed to be taught the “rightness”
of capitalism before communist ideas reached America’s shores.
Mann
published his report recommending the adoption of the German system
in 1848, the year that the United States
stole massive territories from Mexico. Westward expansion was
inevitable, but it was unclear whether the United States would expand
as an agrarian or industrial society. This question led to tensions
between the ruling classes of the North and South that resulted in
the Civil War.
After
the defeat of the Confederacy, the needs of the industrial
capitalists were prioritized. The United States industrialized
quickly and machines did the majority of physical work, increasing
productivity at a dizzying rate.
In
the midst of these changes a few industrialists—including
John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie—became
incomprehensibly wealthy. The “robber barons” employed
masses of workers to perform dangerous work for starvation wages.
Despite
the profits accrued by the capitalists, the economy was suffering.
The capitalist class of the United States was
becoming more and more dependent on the
workers than ever before, and the workers
were angry. There were strikes, riots and mass lootings.
The capitalists needed a way to convince the workers of the rightness
of the system.
Robber
barons or philanthropists?
The
robber barons founded schools for their workers based on the German
model, thus becoming known as “philanthropists.” The students
would be taught that they could not question the system of capitalism
or its elite. If the students served their benefactors loyally, they
too could ascend to wealth.
These
greedy capitalists used their control over the political
establishment to get compulsory education laws passed. By 1918, every
state required public education to be paid for through community
taxes. The financial burden of educating the workers was lifted from
the capitalists. But the curriculum remained the same. The robber
barons are still described as “philanthropists” in most high
school history books.
The
U.S. public school system taught the superiority of the white “race”
through the practice of segregation. While segregation was formally
ended in 1954,
de facto segregation continues through the carving of school
districts along ethnic and economic lines.
The
system also sorts children in an alleged meritocracy based on
“achievement” and “aptitude.” Those identified as
“high achievers,” based on test results known to reflect
the socio-economic status of students’ families, are shuttled to
classes preparing them for higher-paying jobs monitoring the rest of
the working class. Thus they are made to identify their own interests
with those of the capitalists. Those less fortunate are “held back”
and pointed towards classes preparing them for low-paying labor or
are pushed out of school altogether. Schools thus serve to atomize
the working class.
Should
revolutionaries then even support the existance of the public
education system?
The
Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser compared schools in contemporary
capitalism to the Church in the Middle Ages, instilling in students a
sense of subjection to the ruling class. He wondered if revolution in
western Europe was possible, or if the indoctrination ran too deeply.
He defended the plausibility of revolution in western Europe by
raising the fact that Lenin was educated in a system that tried to
instill loyalty to the ruling class, while
Marx and Engels were themselves products of the vaunted German
education system.
While
the capitalist class needs literate workers it also fears literate
workers. Once workers are literate, no amount of indoctrination can
shackle their minds to the ideology taught in school. Every literate
worker is capable of reading revolutionary
pamphlets, and if inspired, writing them as
well. The capitalist state may try to keep the population just
educated enough to serve it, but by bestowing literacy,
the public education system empowers its students to refute the lies
the system tells them. This is why revolutionaries must defend the
public education system.
