Absolute Polarization Corrupts Absolutely
One of the most important services a government can provide is public education. In fact, analyses of US history show that as suffrage spread down the rungs of American society, one of the first things voters vote for is public education. Widespread public education was key to the United States’ development as a world-leading economy and stable democracy. Now public education is the newest and one of the most consequential victims of the polarization of American politics. Polarization is a cancer on any democracy and the United States is no exception. Check out our piece here on how polarization has degraded the functioning of Congress:
In a story, that captured national media attention, new Florida public school standards concerning history education included a clarification that directed that students be taught “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” Outrage abounded from those who saw the standard as an apology for slavery. An excellent piece from The Bulwark has shown that critiques of the Florida curriculum exaggerated the clarification and took it out of context. Nevertheless, the story was simply one of many worrying stories about curriculums, particularly in Southern states, that have tried to soften the narrative around slavery. Also concerning was the political response. The individuals actually responsible for crafting the standards explained that the clarification was meant to highlight the rare cases when enslaved individuals successfully used their skills to improve their lot in life or even secure their own freedom. The larger point being that slaves remained actors and not merely victims even in the horrendous conditions forced upon them. Yet when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was asked about the school standards, did he point to any of this context or nuance? No, instead he and other uniformed individuals actually doubled down on the idea of slavery as some beneficent type of job training program. This reaction is reflective of the polarized American political environment where absurd culture war positions are handsomely rewarded by voters not for their soundness but for their distance from the “other side.” Florida’s episode is just part of a larger trend in the teaching of history in the US where ideologues, polarized lawmakers, and even some parents demand that history education either serve as a condemnation of the United States for its evil deeds or a whitewashed patriotic indoctrination for students. Both sides seek to assign a simplicity and lack of nuance to history that is wholly incompatible with the reality of human existence. To follow either recommendation would be a major disservice to students and therefore the future of the country.
This is not just a problem for Florida or Republicans. In California, another disturbing development beset public education. California recently released a new education framework of its own, this one for mathematics. Relying on the ill-founded council of Stanford University’s Dr. Jo Boaler, California implemented a new framework that reduced the number of years its students are required to take advanced math courses, eliminating algebra education from its junior high curriculum on the grounds of inclusivity. Given the real difference in mathematics performance between white and non-white students, California’s progressive politicians rallied behind the idea that the best solution was less math education. The policy decision was rightfully lampooned as an example of progressive policies that create “equity” by leaving everyone equally worse off. Places that have trialed this approach, including San Franciso (America’s worst-run city), have had predictably bad results. Armand Domalewski highlighted that the approach actually disproportionately hurt black and brown students who were less likely to be able to afford the private math classes that allowed students to overcome the harm of this policy.
These policies are not the totality of the problem, instead, they are merely visible examples of how polarization is eroding American public education. Transparently bad policy is being made on flimsy pretenses in the name of winning culture war battles. According to Drs. Barber and McCarty, as polarized parties increasingly appeal to roughly the same portion of the electorate “each party has a strategic incentive to engage in strategies of confrontation to highlight partisan differences.” In other words, the parties will do anything to seem like the antithesis of the other and as we can see here, this includes making bad policy. My brother and DS Economics and IR Editor Adam Madison frequently laments that politicians no longer switch between campaigning and governing and instead are always just campaigning. These are observations of the same phenomenon. Education policies such as these will harm students, but they can help politicians and parties show voters they are fighting their side of the culture war. This wave of bad policy will hurt public education at a precarious time. Americans are increasingly deserting public education in favor of private schools and homeschooling. It could be hoped that private schools and homeschooling parents would be solutions to the crisis and seek out pragmatic and high-quality education solutions, but it seems very unlikely. Instead, the drive towards private schools and homeschooling seems to be another manifestation of polarization as Americans increasingly inhabit separate realities. Victims of political fearmongering families are worried that their children might encounter facts or, heaven forbid, opinions from outside the echo chamber of their side of politics. Polarization continues to endanger American democracy, now it is eroding the education of the next generation of Americans. The current political environment is unsustainable, and the more polarization encroaches on policymaking the harder it will become to ever undo the damage.
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