To the Editor:

Nowhere in “Can the Schools Be Saved?” [September] does Chester E. Finn, Jr. set forth his own schoolhouse experiences. It is noted that he was once an Assistant Secretary of Education, but there is no mention of when he served, for how long, or under whose administration(s). He is either exceedingly modest or his politically-appointed position in the federal bureaucracy he criticizes is the basis of his expertise.

I have devoted about 40 years of my life to educating children and serving several diverse communities in which they live. I was a licensed high-school science teacher, an elementary-school teacher, an assistant principal in both elementary and junior-high schools, and an elementary-school principal in New York City for fourteen years. . . .

Blaming civil-service reform for the excesses practiced by politicians, teachers’ unions, community activists, commercial interests, etc., as Mr. Finn does, is like blaming penicillin for curing the infection of a man who, once again healthy, becomes a murderer. Civil-service reform took education and educators out of the realm of backroom political patronage and intrigue. It created minimum requirements for teacher preparation, training, classroom performance, and accountability. . . . Whatever abuses of power that developed occurred in spite of and not because of civil-service reform. Federal intervention became necessary because local and state groups relaxed their vigilance, permitted the attenuation of accountability, and began exploiting their own power base.

Mr. Finn’s assertion that “the most damaging changes in public education came after World War II” is so far off the mark it is almost laughable. Among the myriad unprecedented gains made during that most exciting era:

• A grateful nation, through the “GI Bill,” gave thousands of veterans an opportunity to earn a college degree they would never have otherwise been able to obtain. Many of these veterans received a degree in education and became the teachers of the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s.
• Brown v. Board of Education finally gave children access to schools that had been denied them because of the color of their skin.
• Children of poverty came a step closer to a level playing field by gaining access to nutritious meals.
• Corporal punishment was abolished.
• Student loans were made available to pursue higher education.
• Millions of children discovered art, sculpture, symphony, opera, ballet, Shakespeare, space exploration, the panoply of cultures, and the wonders of electronics through generous federal grants.
• New schools, colleges, libraries, and community facilities were built.
• Universities expanded, reached out, and connected with communities, schools, and parents. . . .

Never did we have more hope and experience more glory.

Having led his readers through the Finn House of Public-Education Horrors, Mr. Finn concludes his tour with modestly offered solutions. “What I have,” he says, “is not so much a blueprint as a set of principles. . . .” I suspect he does not offer specifics because he does not have any. And the proposals he does offer are ones that have been repeated in professional and lay literature, in teacher-training classrooms, lecture halls, and the mass media for nearly 100 years. Which brings us full circle on an unproductive journey.

Matthew Schwartz
Laguna Hills, California

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To the Editor:

On one seminal point Chester E. Finn, Jr.’s terms are ambiguous, and I am not sure whether he has gone over the precipice. He writes:

[H]ere I side with the advocates of vouchers. . . . [T]he schools would also be accountable to their clients, who would be free to select among them and never forced against their will to attend a bad one.

Does Mr. Finn here endorse government vouchers for private and parochial schools? Wilfred M. Mc-Clay, also writing in the September issue [“Of ‘Rats’ and Women”], sees the Faustian bargain in this arrangement, even when private schools accept only indirect support:

[T]here will be no stopping Uncle Sam from jerking their chain, whenever he wishes and for whatever reason. . . .

Regarding Uncle Sam’s jerking the chain . . ., let us look at judicial and legislative history. On February 28, 1984, the Supreme Court ruled in Grove City v. Bell that federal aid directed to students who then attended a university made that university a “recipient of federal financial assistance,” and therefore obligated to comply with Title IX regulations. The Court ruled that

Title EX applies to a college that accepts no direct federal assistance but that enrolls students who receive federal grants that must be used for educational purposes.

But this recipiency was “program-specific,” that is, only the specific program receiving federal aid, not the entire college, was required to comply with Title IX. The Court concluded that

the receipt of BEOG’s [federal grants] by some of Grove City’s students does not trigger institution-wide coverage under Title IX. In purpose and effect, BEOG’s represent federal assistance to the college’s own financial-aid program.

On March 22, 1988, however, Congress, under the Civil Rights Restoration Act, broadened the term “recipient” to include the entire school. The Title EX language now reads:

[T]he terms “program or activity” and “program” mean all of the operations of . . . a college, university, or . . . a local educational agency, system of vocational education, or other school system. [Emphasis added]

Note the inclusion of elementary and secondary schools.

Whenever critics attack my position on government vouchers for private and parochial schools, I ask them to cite any Supreme Court or legislative action that supersedes or negates the judicial or legislative citations given above. No one has been able to do so. It defies history and common sense to argue that the recipient of government money can forever restrict the terms of the giver; it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that whoever pays the piper can forever be excluded from calling the tune.

Ronald L. Trowbridge
Hillsdale College
Hillsdale, Michigan

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To the Editor:

Although I do not disagree with all of Chester E. Finn, Jr.’s prescriptions for improving public education, I must conclude that he simply does not understand the underlying problems facing public education in this country. . . .

The greatest problem is the seemingly endless willingness of the federal judiciary to interfere in the daily operations of the schools and to substitute its ideologically-driven view of the world for the experience-driven decisions of public-school teachers and administrators. The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has three clauses, two of which, the equal-protection clause and the due-process clause, have been used by the federal judiciary to interfere in the most basic operations of the schools. . . .

When one observes what the courts have done to the operation of the public schools, the question ceases to be why the schools are as bad as they are, but how they can be as good as they are when they are operating under such an irrational system of regulation.

Let me cite some examples. In the early 1970’s, the Black Student Union (BSU) at the University of Kansas staged a series of protests aimed at disrupting the school. One BSÜ member began to spray paint on the front of the library. A white student attempted to stop the black student. For his efforts, the white student was shot in the neck. Luckily, he survived.

The University of Kansas expelled the black student, who then sued the university, claiming his “constitutional rights” had been violated. The federal court sided with the student and held that the doctrine of procedural due process entitled him to a hearing within a reasonable amount of time, or to be readmitted. The school then granted him a hearing and expelled him.

In this case the university won. But at what cost? The student had committed, at a minimum, three crimes: malicious mischief (vandalism), assault with a deadly weapon, and attempted murder. Yet to exclude him from the university, the school had to go to federal court and then hold its own hearing. . . .

Other cases are equally bizarre. In the 1980’s, a female student sued the schools in northern Virginia seeking to be permitted to play football. After her inevitable victory, she was allowed to try out for the team. In her first scrimmage, the boys piled on and she suffered serious internal injuries. She then turned around and sued the schools, claiming they had not explained to her that football was dangerous. . . .

Here in California we are now having lawsuits over grades. A girl who received straight As up until her last semester goes to federal court when one of her teachers gives her a B.

There is no question in my mind that if we were to remove the constant threat of litigation in the federal courts from the administration of the schools, the system would begin to heal itself overnight. . . .

Susan Jordan
Los Angeles, California

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To the Editor:

In his list of post-World War II changes in public education, Chester E. Finn, Jr. misses what may be the most important one. As Walter A. McDougall, in “What Johnny Still Won’t Know About History” [COMMENTARY, July], has pointed out:

Nothing in our time has done as much damage to the quality of teaching, especially at the grade-school level, as the loss of all those intelligent women who once upon a time stayed home with their children or took low-paying jobs as teachers, but who now pursue careers in government, business, the universities, and law.

In any litany of the ills of the public schools, what Mr. McDougall says in the above paragraph should come first. . . .

Michael J. Lynch
Toledo, Ohio

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Chester E. Finn, Jr. Writes:

That Matthew Schwartz spent many years within the education system as we know it is evident both from his autobiographical summary and from his seeming complacency with that system. I view the present performance of U.S. primary and secondary schools with as much outrage as pride. (Higher education, whence many of Mr. Schwartz’s examples come, is a more complex tale.) He evidently belongs to the “things are basically OK” party.

Of course the postwar period brought gains as well as losses. Mr. Schwartz notes eight of the former. I cited three of the latter—federal mischief, union mischief, and intellectual mischief—and explained in each case how decent motives and grievances deteriorated into new assaults on the schools. If Mr. Schwartz sincerely wants a detailed blueprint for radically changing the present situation, which I somehow doubt, there are any number of books he might read, including not just my own but also E.D. Hirsch’s splendid new The Schools We Need.

Ronald L. Trowbridge is correct about the piper. That is why a handful of colleges (including his own) have resisted all forms of federal funding and why some private schools would eschew government vouchers if and when these become widely available.

Insisting that private education remain wholly independent is an honorable position, but it carries a painful trade-off, virtually guaranteeing that few low-income students—the youngsters least well-served by today’s public schools—will ever enjoy the educational benefits of nongovernment schools. I support voucher and scholarship schemes focused on these children because I believe there is a powerful public interest in getting them a decent education. A number of private schools stand ready to serve them (as do such innovative educational hybrids as “charter” schools). But I respect the right of schools that agree with Mr. Trowbridge to opt for maximum freedom instead.

Susan Jordan has accurately expanded an important point that I merely alluded to. I welcome the addition, noting only that a goodly portion of the judicial activism she cites has been quietly embraced by timid educators and elected officials who would rather be able to say “the judge made me do it” than shoulder responsibility for making politically sticky decisions themselves.

Michael J. Lynch and Walter A. McDougall are right that the widening of career opportunities for women has drawn much talent out of the classroom. But there is little point in weeping about this. In any case, as I watch lines of capable people, men and women alike, form to apply for teaching jobs in the now over-400 charter schools, it appears that there is still plenty of talent available. What we need are more schools worth teaching in and reasonable rules for gaining entry to them.