Education is Important, but to What Extent and for Whose Benefit?

At the dawn of 2019, a Gallup survey showed Americans believed education should be the very top priority of Congress and the White House. In fact, 87 percent of respondents ranked education ahead of healthcare, the economy, social security, the deficit, immigration and a long list of other issues. What’s more, some 42 percent said education was extremely important compared with the last time the question was asked in 2014 when 26 percent said so.

These numbers, along with the fact that our taxes support public schools attended by upward of 56 million students, clearly suggest most of us believe education has value, but for what purpose and for whom continues to be a subject of debate among education leaders, teachers, policymakers, parents and students.

Columbia University sociologist Aaron Pallas points to the work of Stanford University sociologist David Larabee, who has written much about this issue. Larabee characterizes the three goals of our education system in terms of democratic citizenship, social efficiency and social mobility. According to Pallas, a look at the history of American school reform at various points in time has shown differing emphases on these goals that have impacted educational policy and practice. He sees the recent buzz about college and career preparation as part of that.

“I would say that, rhetorically, we hear a lot of talk these days about social efficiency — the mandate that our schools prepare everyone for college and career. But we also hear a lot of continuing talk about education for social mobility — the idea that education is the way for individuals to get ahead. But we’ve heard much less about education for democratic citizenship,” Pallas says.

Michael Rebell, a colleague of Pallas at Teachers College, Columbia University, is a professor of law and educational practice and executive director of the Campaign for Educational Equity. He has said citizenship has always been the purpose of education. Rebell recently filed a class action lawsuit in Rhode Island that endeavors to assure all students have a constitutional right to an education that prepares them for effective participation in democracy. His filing reopens this question, which was settled in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez.

That case determined that while most Americans view quality education as a right, there’s no provision for it in the Constitution. Still, our founders believed education — and civics education, in particular — was essential to the growth of our democracy. Rebell argues that over time, a mix of social, political and economic changes have eroded our commitment to teaching citizenship, and that without a constitutional mandate for equity in education, reform falters in the hands of the states with disparate political, social and economic circumstances and priorities.

A Lack of Political Will and Agreement on Goals

When it comes to reform, economist Eric Hanushek, a leader in the economic analysis of education issues, insists people want to see improvement in our schools but that a lack of political will weighs heavy on our progress.

“We haven’t had much will for a long time that I would like to see, frankly,” Hanushek says. “The nation is heading into a crisis. It’s hard to see it because we have 3.7 percent unemployment rates. And we’re doing better than Europe.”

“The nation is heading into a crisis. It’s hard to see it because we have 3.7 percent unemployment rates. And we’re doing better than Europe.”

Eric Hanushek

Hanushek insists we can’t afford to let complacency win as the future of the U.S. depends upon improving the quality of its schools.

Education researcher and policy expert Grover “Russ” Whitehurst, like Hanushek, believes that politics are getting in the way of education reform, particularly efforts that are grounded in data and facts. “The hunger for evidence-based policy has certainly diminished,” he says. “And the opportunity to do things that make sense, that require leaving politics with a big ‘P’ out, is much harder than it used to be. I am hoping we’re in one of those swings of the pendulum in which things are looking pretty bad but are likely to be self-righting if we look down the road a bit.”

Whitehurst also suggests that our very failure to build strong public schools has diminished our belief in public education and our ability to make it better. So too, he says, has a culture that has devalued vital skills that aren’t acquired through a college education.

For his part, Pallas agrees politics are undermining substantive, evidence-based reform but points to a more complex problem. “Evidence can’t tell us what goals we should have. Goals are fundamentally an issue of values. A big part of the history of American school reform is the fact that we have multiple goals that we don’t all agree on,” he says.