‘Equity’ in Education is Inequitable and Anti-Education Excellence

If you think the war on achievement applies only to inequality in economics, think again.  

 

In By the Numbers: If Public Schools Shared, The Poor Could Pod, Neal McCluskey urges “letting education tax dollars follow children rather than staying in public schools.” That’s a great goal. Unfortunately, McCluskey advocates the idea as a fix for a nihilistic goal:

 

You’ve probably heard about “pods” – small, self‐​contained groups of kids that parents assemble for COVID‐​safe, in‐​person education. They have spurred some public schooling groups to speak out, warning that they may exacerbate inequality. What such groups have not tackled is what could make pods broadly affordable: letting education tax dollars follow children rather than staying in public schools.

 

In Fairfax County, Virginia, the school district posted a message telling families that “pandemic pods” are legal – quite a concession! – but:

 

While FCPS doesn’t and can’t control these private tutoring groups, we do have concerns that they may widen the gap in educational access and equity for all students. Many parents cannot afford private instruction. Many working families can’t provide transportation to and from a tutoring pod, even if they could afford to pay for the service.

 

In Oakland, California – where a battle between the teachers union and district threatens to start the new school year without instruction – a group of elementary school principals recently warned that while “podding is a creative solution to an impossible situation…the formation of these groups holds the risk of exacerbating educational inequities throughout our country.” [Emphasis added.]

 

Egalitarianism in regard to productive outcomes is antithetical to a free society. It is antithetical to morality. It is antithetical to human nature. And it is antithetical to common sense. All human beings are created equal only in regard to our basic individual attributes of reason and free will. Beyond that, inequality reigns. Like snowflakes, no two humans are alike. From natural physical and mental endowments to moral character and interests, no two humans are alike. It stands to reason, then, that individual outcomes will vary as people pursue their own flourishing according to their own values and choices. 

 

In a free society, equality begins and ends with equal protection of the law for each person’s inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. By man’s very nature, there is nor can ever be any guarantee of outcome of the results of human effort. The war on inequality, Egalitarianism, stands in direct opposition to morality, individual rights, and, as the Declaration of Independence explicitly states, to “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle” every individual.

 

Egalitarianism—or, to be precise, Utopian Egalitarianism—stands in direct opposition to the laws of nature and a just and equitable society. Utopian Egalitarianism seeks to impose equality where nature does not allow. And as the highlighted portions in the above excerpts make clear, the only way to reach “equity” in education is to deny to parents who can afford it and have the initiative the pursuit of better educational outcomes to their children through pod learning. Note that the Fairfax County, Virginia, school district and the group of elementary school principals place equal outcomes above better learning for these kids.

 

The main issue I have with this article is that it advocates "letting education tax dollars follow children" as a “solution” to inequality. While the idea of education tax dollars carries moral and rights-violating baggage—I prefer the complete separation of education and state—I still believe letting education tax dollars follow the student is an advance for freedom in education and a huge improvement to the traditional monopolistic public school system. 

 

The real issue is the moral rights of parents to direct the course of their own child's education for their own children’s sake. However, nowhere in the article does McCluskey make the crucial moral argument. Nowhere does McCluskey attack the campaign against inequality at its root --as immoral, nihilistic, and a war on excellence on any level in any field of human endeavor. Any success at self-improvement, from the entrepreneur who builds a multi-billion dollar company to the kid who opens a lemonade stand, to the parent who improves her child’s education to the child who excels in school, will necessarily lift the achiever above those who, for whatever reason, did not self-improve, creating inequality. To deny anyone the right to self-improvement until all can have equality of outcome is cruel and inhumane. McCluskey simply concludes:

 

Were public schooling dollars to follow kids, it appears that pods would be within financial reach of almost everyone, often with funds left over. So instead of decrying inequality, public schooling groups should be saying, “Here, have the money.”

 

By the Numbers: If Public Schools Shared, The Poor Could Pod was published by The CATO Institute, “a public policy research organization — a think tank — dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace.” But without the moral high ground, those principles won’t get far, and never have, especially when the supposed pro-liberty side gives the Utopian Egalitarians a legitimacy they do not deserve. 

 

And even if we get “letting education tax dollars follow children”, the Utopian Egalitarian won’t stop there. The logic of their premise will lead them to claim “inequitable” based on some parents being more savvy or more competent than others in assessing educational opportunities, leading to inequality anyway. The logic of equality as the standard demands uniform, central control of some kind, getting us right back to where we started. Utopian Egalitarianism in education must be torn out by the root, and genuine individual liberty, limited government, and free markets established based on the morality, not just practicality, of liberty.

 

Related Reading:

 

Toward a Free Market in Education: School Vouchers or Tax Credits?, my article for The Objective Standard

 

Add Freedom of Education, not Prayer, to the First Amendment

 

Why We Need the Separation of Education and State

 

The Insidious ‘Left Behind’ Argument Against Charters

 

School Choice Doesn’t ‘Discriminate’; It Expands Opportunity Through Liberation

The Educational Bonanza in Privatizing Government Schools—Andrew Bernstein for The Objective Standard