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The
conservative/liberal conflict over President Obama’s
Sept. 8 speech on education, a prelude to the larger fight over health
care, is both superficial and foolish. Neither side comprehends the
real issues and the real problems with public education; more
importantly, neither side can offer a real solution.
Conservatives
have let themselves be convinced that the president is unveiling a
series of programs that will lead, step by step, to
“socialism.” Parents who were afraid to let their children hear
the president speak kept them home from school or pressured
administrators to prevent them from showing the speech.
Liberals
replied that the president’s message on education would not be
controversial or even political. An editorial in The New York
Times stated, “There is, of course, nothing socialist in any of Mr.
Obama’s policies, as anyone with a passing
knowledge of socialism and its evil history knows” (Sept. 5, 2009).
Unfortunately,
the “newspaper of record” answered conservative hysteria with liberal
nonsense. In regard to education, the statement by The Times
is quite false on one level, yet profoundly true on another—more than The
Times itself may realize. That is, socialists value education
and educational reform even more than does the president.
First,
though, the offhand reference to an “evil history” requires comment.
The phrase is hardly a matter of objective facts but an interpretation
of them congenial to the capitalist point of view. Given the
ever-widening crisis of the profit system, liberal apologists are
compelled to disparage the revolutionary alternative of socialism. It
insinuates that the political struggle for socialism only results in
the tyranny of Stalinism, as represented for decades by the Soviet Union, The conclusion, then, is
that sensible political activity must be limited to the creation of
reforms within capitalism.
Anyone
“with a passing knowledge of socialism” would know that the history of
socialism in the 20th century is a record of struggle against
capitalist rule in all its forms, including fascism, and a
struggle against the bureaucratic caste that overturned or denied
workers’ rule in countries like the Soviet Union.
Despite
the assertions of liberals, capitalism is not synonymous with
democracy. In fact, in order to preserve itself, capitalism will
discard its democratic shell whenever a more direct and brutal
totalitarian rule is required for its self-preservation.
Capitalism
means much more than abundant consumer goods in the industrialized
West. The social evil of capitalism has brought oppression,
suffering, racism, and war to the peoples of the earth. Socialism,
on the contrary, means the expansion of individual liberty, public
freedoms, and material prosperity for the world’s majority—and offers
the best possible hope for humanity’s future.
Schooling
and public education have always held a significant place in the
socialist platform. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,
in “The Communist Manifesto” of 1848, outlined a revolutionary program
that included a demand for “free education for all children in public
schools.”
At
the time, it was typical for children—even young ones—to labor in
factories alongside adults. Education was reserved for the children of
the upper classes; a worker only learned enough to labor as a
“hand.” A human being was thus debased and reduced to what Marx
called “an appendage of the machine.”
Following
the October 1917 revolution in Russia, the Bolshevik party was
determined to rebuild and greatly expand the educational system. A
country suffering from the devastation of the First World War, a civil
war, and famine still pledged to educate its citizens more thoroughly
than the United States does today.
The
Bolshevik program of 1919 pledged to create free, compulsory general
and technical education for all up to the age of 17. This
included the creation of state funded public institutions
(kindergarten, child care) that would educate preschoolers and provide
“for the freeing of women.” Beyond 17, professional and college
education was to be made available with “attention to the material
welfare of the pupils, so that it may become practically possible for
proletarians and peasants to attend the universities.”
The
Bolsheviks also pledged to “supply to all pupils, at the cost of the
State, of food, clothing, footgear, and scholastic requisites.”
No,
President Obama did not present a socialist
solution to the problems of education. It is true, though, that
the president’s speech was deeply political: it promoted capitalist
values. Disregarding the crucial social context of schooling, the
president treated educational achievement as primarily a personal
matter, telling students to “fulfill your responsibilities.” For
those who do, there is the promise of success “because here in America , you write your own
destiny. You make your own future.”
He
criticized students who are trapped in crumbling, overcrowded schools
with too few textbooks, too little technology, and too few teachers,
instead of condemning the political and economic system that cannot
educate them with the abundance they deserve.
He
did not mention that the unemployment rate for Hispanics is 13 percent
and that the unemployment rate for Blacks is more than 15 percent. He
certainly did not tell students that the unemployment rate for teens is
more than 25 percent. Nor did Obama mention
what The New York Times reported two days earlier, that a “Surge
in Homeless Pupils Strains Schools” (Sept. 6, 2009). According to
this article, the rise in the number of homeless schoolchildren “is
driven by relentless unemployment and foreclosures” that currently
affect “more than one million students.”
The
solution to the crisis of public education doesn’t rest solely with the
schools. Reforms in the educational system can only succeed as
part of a larger, far-sweeping set of changes in society as a whole.
Students must be guaranteed the right to a job upon
graduation. They must have the certainty that education will lead
to employment.
A
massive public works program is already a necessity in the United States. Research and
construction is needed in green and alternative sources of
energy. Medical and dental facilities must be expanded to all
areas of the country. More jobs can be created by reducing the
work day with no loss of salary. The demand of 30 hours work for
40 hours pay has never been more timely.
Socialists
would agree that the president was correct when he told students, “What
you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of
this country. The future of America depends on you.”
What’s
more, unlike the president, socialists would treat those words with the
seriousness that they deserve. Public education today needs to be
extended beyond high school to include free university education or
technical training, including the cost of books and public
transportation.
With
capitalism, public education is subordinate to private profit.
Elementary and high schools provide basic training; colleges and
graduate schools (including law and medical schools) provide more
specialized education—all at relatively little cost to business. Highly
skilled, highly productive workers can produce more costly commodities
with potentially higher profits; low-skilled and less educated workers
are used to keep wages down and are often used as a barrier to union
organizing. Consider Wal-Mart, for example.
With
socialism, on the other hand, education will provide socially beneficial
labor while reducing the hours spent on work. Socialism will
provide individuals with the means to develop their own abilities and
interests to achieve their full potential as human beings.
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