The nationalization of grade-level public education that has occurred inexorably since passage of the elementary and secondary education act has been one of the major forces, along with unionization of teachers, destroying local life. And the educational advancement brought by nationalization has been so minimal that it has to be measured in single digit statistics and supported by vast educational lobbies of political spin.
Community schools are one of the central pillars of local society, binding together families, local values, community government, citizen participation in government, and local taxation. National funding, standards, and, indirectly, governance destroy community, leaving families as no more than households scattered across the landscape. Nationalization breaks the link between families, their children, and their children's education. Families' commitment to education and involvement with their children's schooling are the most important factors in educational achievement and excellence. What do we lose when local community dies? We lose social and sociological creativity. We lose cultural diversity. We lose self-sufficiency. Nationalization drives local upper-middle and upper classes out of the public schools into private education, exacerbating class separation and alienation in our communities.
Much of the original purpose of moving control and funding of education to state and national levels was to end the inequality of education between racially defined school districts and enrollments, a legacy of the segregation era. That noble purpose has been hijacked by curricular reform, unionization, and progressives who, like President Obama (following, alas, President Bush) reflexively believe that progress is synonymous with nationalization of life. We need new thinking about how to address the supposed educational inadequacies of American public education. We need policies that reinforce local communities, including localization of education. There is nothing incompatible between educational excellence and local schools.
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