Review of Separating School & State
Reviewer: Aaron Steelman

Most people now believe that the public schools are doing a poor job at educating students. From declining SAT scores to high dropout rates, the evidence that public schools are not performing adequately, let alone well, is mounting. And surprisingly, there is agreement on this point from both the left and right.

The left claims that the reason the schools are performing so terribly is that the funding for them is not what it should be; that the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on government schools each year are not sufficient. The right also believes that the current funding is insufficient. Yet, at least some on the right are willing to concede that there may be more serious problems with the public schools than just insufficient funding. Thus they advocate such programs as charter schools and voucher programs, both of which would be administered by either federal or local government.

But ultimately, as on so many other issues, the left and right converge. They both see the answer to the problem of the public schools as being more government. Their disagreements are simply over to what degree should funding for public schools increase; the left would like to see a much larger role for the state in education while the right would like to see a moderately larger role. Never does either group entertain the idea that it is the government's presence itself that is causing the problems with the schools; that the idea of having public schools is a bad one.

In Separating School and State, Sheldon Richman deviates sharply from the rhetoric of both the left and the right. He argues that one should not be surprised by the way the public schools are performing. From their inception, Richman contends, government-funded schools were a bad idea, and that the results of such an idea were predictable nearly 150 years ago, when the first government schools in the United States were established. In short Richman argues that the public schools are doing precisely what they were designed to do.

Richman traces the history of government schools, beginning in 1850 when the Commonwealth of Massachusetts became the first state in the union to institute compulsory schooling, in an attempt to reach a conclusion as to why public schools were created.

While it has been argued that public schools were implemented in response to a supposed market failure, Richman finds substantial evidence to the contrary. Indeed, he states, "Data showed that from 1650 to 1795, male literacy climbed from 60 to 90 percent; female literacy went from 30 to 45 percent. Between 1800 and 1840, literacy in the North rose from 75 percent to between 91 and 97 percent. And in the South during the same span, the rate grew from 50-60 percent to 81 perfect. [S]enator Edward M. Kennedy's office issued a paper not long ago that the literacy rate in Massachusetts has never been as high as it was before compulsory schooling was instituted."

What then, if not in response to failures of the private sector, was the reason behind the creation of public schools? Richman contends that the public schools were created largely to serve as a propagandist tool of the state, writing that, "The aim of the public schools as the macro, or social, level was the creation of a homogeneous, national, Protestant culture: the Americanization and Protestantization of the disparate groups that made up the United States. At the micro, or individual, level the aim was the creation of the Good Citizen, someone who trusted and deferred to government in all areas it claimed as its own." Thus, Richman contends that not only were the ideas behind the creation of public schools suspect, but that the intentions of the architects of government schooling were as well.

Drawing upon empirical evidence, as well as providing a rights based argument, it is Richman's thesis that public schools should not be reformed, but should be abolished.

Indeed, he argues that implementing school voucher programs may well provide worse results than the system currently in place. While there are schools that are solely private now and do not receive any funding whatsoever from the government and thus are not regulated to the degree that public schools are, it is unlikely that under a voucher system there would be any private schools at all; that with the acceptance of the vouchers, the private schools would be effectively taken over by the government, and with this, the one system of education that is working in this country right now would be ended. This is too large a risk to face.

Besides, Richman argues, even if voucher programs could be effectively implemented, it would not solve the more serious problem in the country regarding education - namely the mentality that government should be involving itself in education. "Public education is objectionable in principle and necessarily inferior to a free - education market. If we could get better churches through subsidies, would that be reason to repeal the First Amendment," asks Richman.

How would people pay for education if it wasn't "provided" by the government? This is an important question for advocates of free - market schools to address. For too long, libertarians have cut themselves off from policy discussions, thinking that it should be self - evident as to why a free society would benefit all. And not surprisingly, libertarians have won few policy battles.

Richman recognizes this problem and confronts the question of how private schools could be afforded by ordinary people, destroying the myth that under a completely private system only the rich would be able to afford an education for their children.

He states, "It is clear what needs to be done. For a start, all school taxes should be abolished. Multipurpose taxes - property, sales and income taxes - should be reduced at least by the amount that currently goes to education. If other taxes cannot be done away with right away, they should be slashed drastically and soon. The personal income tax should be the first slated for repeal. Most people could afford a good education for their children if government at all levels were not taking 40 percent of their income."

Richman has written a truly engaging and original book on a topic that libertarians must address. For all those who believe that schooling is too important to be left up to the free market, it would be a healthy does of good sense and reason. And for those who are already on his side, it would be a valuable guidebook on how to improve American education.