Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia
[permission to
reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]
Public schools in the United States have been blamed for many things from “losing the space race” when the Soviet Union launched the first satellite on October 4, 1957 to the economic plunge in 2008. In the first case, public schools allegedly failed to prepare students with the foundation in science and mathematics that American needed to compete in the space race. In the latter, American students did not have the financial literacy that would have prevented the financial melt down from the sub-prime mortgage scandal.
And now, here I go blaming American schools for Donald Trump. I’m not saying that they bear the entire responsibility for Trump, but they bear some.
One major factor contributing to the acceptance of Trump by a near majority of the electorate is segregation. The separation of Black students from their non-Black peers contributed to the social divisions we see today.
Segregation in the US based on religion is less well-known than its ugly cousin: segregation by skin color. But religious segregation in education actually preceded segregation by the color of one’s skin because if you were Black, you were usually denied the opportunity to attend school at all.
The argument for local school board “democracy” practiced from the earliest days of publicly supported education was not about democracy at all. It was about religious segregation. Local school boards were established at a time when Catholics and Protestants were deeply fearful that, if one or the other gained control of the local school, it would be to the detriment of the group that was not in control because at that time school curricula were imbued with religion. The solution was the creation of small, local school boards largely separated by religion.
Segregation by religion and skin color help to fuel social divisions today, though they are often cloaked in the garb of public and private school choice, programs of choice, specialized schools, and other variations fabricated to prevent contact with people who are, or appear to be, different from us
American schools are divided culturally and ideologically. Editions of the same textbooks convey different interpretations of events depending upon where one lives and the schools one attends. Contrary to the spirit and intention of cultivating a scientific point of view and intellectual tools to distinguish fact from fantasy, science teaching in some places in the US treats people’s belief in biblical ‘creation’ as if it were a factual account of the origins of the universe. I take no issue with your belief in the spirit of Santa Claus, but if you want to claim that Santa descends your chimney on Christmas Eve, I’m going to suggest we camp out in your living room in front of the fireplace to see what happens (and eat the cookies that await him).
The cultural divide in the US is also a class divide fueled by the growing wealth gap that is reflected in the wide discrepancies in educational funding and opportunities. The vision of a common curriculum, the unifying and equalizing missions of American public schooling promulgated by Horace Mann, was never achieved. Today, America’s common core standards are voluntarily adopted by states that jealously guard their autonomy. Funding public schools through taxation at the local level has created and maintains unequal school jurisdictions – even in neighboring communities. The inequalities are there by design and baked into the system.
America has always placed the individual above the group, paying lip service to civic virtue and solidarity while worshiping liberty above all else. Baked into American culture, individualism is reflected in, and perpetuated by, the school system. It is difficult to socialize the next generation to the shared values of the society when there are few shared values taught in schools.
The election of Donald Trump is simply the logical consequence of the failure of American public education.
I would like to think Canadian society is immune to the forces that enabled the election of a Donald Trump. But it is not.
Canadian society may not be as fragmented as the society south of our border. But the conditions for coming unglued are evident: regional alienation, Quebec nationalism, and ethnocentrism pull Canadians apart from one another, while economic globalization and fragmented media weaken our bonds with one another.
Our public schools exhibit many of the same characteristics as those in the US, with some exceptions. In many places, schools are segregated by religion and Canadian schools are becoming more socially segregated. Boutique programs and private schools, personalized curricula, and ideologically-oriented curricula are increasingly common. Many secondary schools are streamed. Students from impoverished backgrounds, student of colour and Indigenous students are typically over-represented in the less challenging stream. Notwithstanding rhetoric to the contrary, there is not much critical thinking or civic education. Canadian schools do not suffer the same economic inequalities as those in the US, but many provinces subsidize private schools furthering their advantage.
The value of choice and personalization has eroded the concept of the common school. Rather than create more diverse school communities by drawing from larger and more diverse population, schools are becoming places where like-mined people congregate. The benefits of choice accrue to those who can afford to take their kids across town or pay the fees that accompany specially-focussed programs.
Are Canadian schools doing all that they can to reduce the likelihood of electing a demagogue who can capitalize on the divisions within society? When I am feeling pessimistic, I say, “I don’t think so.” When I am feeling optimistic I say, “we need to try harder.”
Some might say the divisions in American education simply reflect a fractured society. If so, what do the increasingly fractured Canadian schools reveal about our society?