Misconception #184: Public school teachers don't want interference from politicians

Over the years, I have been writing about misconceptions regarding the schooling process. The purpose of these posts is to explain why I disagree with various comments that I have heard people make about schooling. These are meant as personal thoughts rather than conclusive proof, and I will admit that I'm not always the best at explaining my thoughts. Regardless, I have decided that I should be willing to share these posts when I encounter someone online who makes an argument that I have already discussed.

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Periodically, I encounter an argument so absurd that I never expected it. That has happened recently. Supporters of so-called public education are complaining about politicians involving themselves with the schools.

So-called public education is effectively owned and operated by the government. Involvement from politicians is definitional to this model. It's impossible to truly oppose political interference while supporting this model.

There appear to be inconsistencies in these complaints with similar patterns to other inconsistencies that I have discussed. It appears that these arguments are partisan. I only hear them going after conservative involvement. If a Democrat tries to push an agenda in the schools, we never hear anything. Actually, that's not quite true. Sometimes, these opponents praise the involvement of liberal politicians.

There have been reports that Republicans want to dismantle the Department of Education. What would that do? It would limit the ability of politicians to influence schools at the federal level. These same opponents of political influence are openly critical of this potential change.

While I'm writing, I want to bring up something I have already discussed, accountability. Private schools are accountable directly to the families they serve. If a school does a lousy job, parents can remove their children from the school and take the tuition funds with them. That form of accountability is completely non-existent in the public sector. In fact, the usual response to poor performance in the public sector is to reward them with more funding.

Public school advocates love to point to the lack of accountability in the private sector as an argument against choice, even though accountability is stronger in the private sector. This raises an important question. What do they mean by accountability? In short, they are talking about accountability to bureaucrats and politicians. Accountability has essentially become a codeword for government control. The opponents of political influence on so-called public education are openly complaining about the lack of political influence on the private sector.

This leads me to something else that I have already said but should repeat. Privatization is not an inherently evil term. It simply means to shift something from the public sector to the private sector. Considering political influence is built into the foundation of schools in the public sector, privatization is the only option available if we want to end political influence. Unfortunately, the same people claiming to oppose political influence will fight against ending political influence.