“Free education for all children in government schools.”
- Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
Many parents might think it a bit farfetched to compare our public schools to schools in socialist or communist countries. However, if we look closer, we will see striking similarities between the two systems.
In the former socialist-communist Soviet Union, for example, the government owned all property and all the schools. In America, public schools are also government property, controlled by local government officials. In Soviet Russia, the government forced all parents to send their children to government-controlled schools. In America, compulsory-attendance laws in all fifty states can force parents to send their children to public schools if the parents can’t afford a private school.
The Soviet rulers taxed all their subjects to pay for their schools. Here, all taxpayers pay compulsory school taxes to support public schools, whether or not the homeowner has children or thinks the schools are incompetent. In the Soviet Union, all teachers were government employees, and these officials controlled and managed the schools. In America, teachers, principals, administrators, and school janitors are also government employees, paid, trained, and pensioned through government taxes.
In the Soviet Union, most government employees presumed they had a ‘right’ to a job provided by the state. Public-school employees in America also believe they have an alleged right to their jobs, enforced through tenure laws. In America, it’s very difficult and costly to fire tenured teachers. In communist Russia, competence and working hard didn’t matter very much — the government paid most workers regardless of their performance on the job. In America, public-school teachers’ salaries depend on length of service and civil-service rules, not competence. In communist Russia, the elite ruling class had estates in the countryside while peasants starved. Here, public-school authorities get fat salaries, pensions, and benefits while millions of children get a dismal education.
In communist Russia, government control of food supplies created eighty years of chronic famine. In America, one hundred and fifty years of public schools has created an educational famine. Many public-school children can barely read while the system wastes years of our children’s lives.
Albert Shanker, former President of the American Federation of Teachers, Agreed
Still think the comparison to communist schools is too farfetched? Albert Shanker, late President of the American Federation of Teachers, the second largest teacher’s union, once said: “It’s time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everyone’s role is spelled out in advance and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It’s no surprise that our school system doesn’t improve. It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy.”
Public School Authorities Act Like Socialist Commissars
Finally, schools in some communist countries like China seem to give a better, more disciplined education in the basics of reading, writing, and math than our public schools. International math and reading test-score comparisons often find American kids lagging far behind children from China.
But what values do Chinese communist schools teach their children? Here is another apt comparison between communist schools and our public schools. In both cases, either a central or local government controls the curriculum and the values it chooses to teach its students. The Chinese government can and does indoctrinate all school children with its communist ideology and loyalty to the communist leaders.
Similarly, in our public schools, school authorities control the curriculum and the values they teach our children. In many public schools, values-clarification programs and distorted American history courses in many public schools now indoctrinate our children with anti-traditional American values. In both communist schools and our government-controlled public schools, it is extremely difficult for parents to stop school authorities from teaching what parents consider harmful or immoral values to their children. Question — Do socialist, compulsory, government-controlled public schools belong in America, once the land of the free?
Tags: america, anti-parent, bureaucrat, children, compulsory, education
Education in our country is performing poorly, but not because of any imagined similarities to Socialist schools in the USSR.
Yes, both the US and USSR instituted mandatory school attendance policies. Would you prefer the alternative–that kids be allowed to grow up uneducated? Even if they initially intend to enter manual labor jobs that require minimal knowledge of literature, art, etc., what happens if those kinds of jobs run out some day? (Say, if we export most of our factory labor jobs to other countries.) More education partially ensures that it’s possible to move from one job to another with little downtime. Yes, both countries tax to pay for education. This is a similarity, but it’s kind of absurd to even bother mentioning it–again, if we agree that schools are a necessity, we have to assume that they should be paid for.
Janitors are not “trained” by our tax dollars; nor are principals. What exactly would you major in to be a school administrator? Administrative studies? Did the government start paying for college for anyone who majors in that without my knowing it, or retroactively refunding school admins the cost of undergrad? Teachers are often able to find cheap loans from the gov’t to finish out their degrees, (as per the site’s training supposition) but usually with strings attached (like a required number of years teaching in inner cities or other areas where it’s hard to find qualified teachers.) As far as public school “authorities” growing fat on salaries and pension, it is worth noting that the site changes language here from teachers to administrators. Few would be stupid enough to accuse public school teachers of suckling on the teat of society’s largesse–at least in southwest VA where my mom teaches, typical salaries range between 40k and 60k annually depending on how many years one has been teaching.
Finally, yes, public school education does operate something like a planned economy, except for the economy part. The inclusion of that word is unnecessary except to make school sound vaguely red. This site is right on the money here. But, again, why bother even pointing it out? Would you *not* plan an education–teaching huckleberry finn, and then sesame tree? Fundamental language, fine motor, and math skills progress in a particular order and if the system did not plan around a gradually improving skill set it would be wasting its time.
Hello! Nice to see this site- was cruising and found it- it’s bookmarked now! I agree about the title and premise regarding socialism in public schools….as a former, certified teacher in a liberal state, I have to tell you that this liberalism has also penetrated into our private schools. I long-term substituted in public schools and taught in two diocesean schools. I gave up teaching 3 years ago, due to pressure put upon me to confirm to idealisms I could not agree with; I was being harassed by those I worked with because I was considered too conservative, and expecting too much from my students! I believe that when you expect a lot from students, you usually get more from them…I also expected them to write neatly enough that I could grade their work, and I also expected good, appropriate behavior- I was told that when students had access to computers, they should not be expected to have good handwriting skills, I was told I couldn’t expect “perfect” behavior in middle school kids, and on and on and on- it just got to a point where I couldn’t enjoy it anymore…I miss the kids, but can’t stand the political correctness demanded by the principal and staff. Parents must wake up and begin critically watching what their children are being exposed to in the schools, and stop just blowing it off as non-iimportant. One day their children will be all grown up, and they won’t know who those children are- how come they think the way they do?
What’s worse, is then , those children go on to college and become even more brainwashed- I am watching a dear niece right now, who is an obamabot, totally immersed in the liberal mindset! It’s like I don’t even know who she is anymore! Oh, well- enough said- fight the good fight!