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Something still doesn't sit right with me about the final paragraph from Clint Bolick's recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that I mentioned in a previous post. Bolick writes:

Though educational uniformity has emerged recently as a primary device to stifle education reform, it is nothing new. Nearly a century ago, the Ku Klux Klan and other nativists sought, nearly successfully, to ban private schools established by Catholic immigrants in the name of educational uniformity. The U.S. Supreme Court repudiated those efforts and proclaimed the right of parents to control their children's education. Judges faced with similar arguments today need also to reject arguments that would destroy parental choice for the sake of those whose motives are far from noble.

Why does it feel like Bolick is rewriting the history of public education to serve his own purposes? Who could sort this out? Hmm. Paging Sherman Dorn!

Posted by Michele on November 9, 2006 07:30 AM | Permalink

Comments

Heh! Okay, I'll take a break from drafting a grievance to respond:

Since I'm not a WSJ subscriber, I haven't seen the column. It is true that the "Society of Sisters" and "Meyer v. Nebraska" cases did address parental rights. And Clint Bolick is free to represent those as broadly as he wishes (though I suspect he might not be happy with the uses of the same privacy principles later in "Roe v. Wade" and "Lawrence v Texas". I'm not exactly sure, though, why the protection of parents' rights to educate their children as they see fit "outside" the public system somehow would constitute a mandate for a certain configuration of public activity (i.e., vouchers). Again, I'm saying this without knowing precisely what Bolick wrote. And that's a legal question, not primarily an historical one.

More broadly speaking, Bolick is inaccurate to imply that somehow the Klan and other nativist/racist groups are responsible for the bureaucratization of education in the early 20th century. I suspect they wouldn't have cared a whit what the organization of schooling was, as long as Catholics didn't have private schools. Their argument was racist, not bureaucratic.

But I'm not surprised: the history of education is commonly misrepresented.

Posted by: Sherman Dorn | November 9, 2006 08:29 AM

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The NCLB Blog was established by the AFT as a forum where public education advocates, policymakers and others can exchange information and express their opinions on NCLB and related issues. The views expressed here are not the official views of the AFT or any of its affiliates. All claims otherwise would violate the spirit and purpose of the blog. © American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO. All rights reserved. Photographs and illustrations cannot be used without permission of the AFT.