Thoughts on education and civics, part 2

Here's the next installment of the series I began in my post on March 2. It should be read as a continuation of the same overall essay.


Any analysis of public education automatically starts with a fundamental tension. For although the ideal goals of the liberal tradition rest on education as the betterment of the individual human being, a government brings its own ulterior motives as a condition for providing such education. The ultimate goal of public education must be the cultivation of educated individuals qua citizens, and not qua individuals. But what practical siginificance does this have? Is this distinction not a matter of hair-splitting, after all? Why can't a government provide an education which, in fact, meets the requirements of both a liberal education and, as it were, 'collectivist' civic training? On an individual or case-by-case particular basis, it does seem obvious that liberal and civic education are far from incompatible.

The full answer to the above objection, however, forces us to think beyond the individual case. Civil government is responsible for the education of 'the youth', that is, the sum total (or as near as is practical) of all its citizens' offspring, regardless of social, intellectual, cultural, or any other feature or ability. We are comfortable admitting this; nay more, we celebrate it (and rightly so) as morally right. Less frequently, and less comfortably, do we ask the natural subsequent question: how should civil government appropriately match students' abilities and educational pursuits? As we have already granted, it is in the government's interest to maximize the capacity of its citizenship for informed participation in the vital functions of democracy; and it is surely unrealistic to suppose, given the significant and multifaceted diversity of our society, that a one-size-fits-all educational program would be anywhere near adequate to provide even an approximation of a generally informed electorate. (At least, this last consequence follows readily given our contemporary commitment to the pragmatic significance of diversity. Should this commitment be reconsidered, the conclusions dependent upon it would of course bear similar rethinking.)