Take the frequent efforts to "free" teachers from their unions. Oppressive unions rob teachers of the freedom to work extra long hours, the freedom to be paid whatever their bosses feel like paying them, the freedom to be fired for any reason at any time. Folks like Jeanne Allen at the Center for Education Reform talk about "the freedom from constraining work rules and contracts" and the idea that teachers should be "entrepreneurs," another word that has been hijacked because "struggling worker in the gig economy who has no safety net, health insurance, or prospects for future security" is too wordy.
Betsy DeVos is also trying to get some mileage out of "freedom" as she tries to sell her school voucher program as "freedom scholarships."
So education "freedom" means that any company that wants to take a shot at scoring some of those sweet, sweet public tax dollars should be able to. And any religious organization (well, not "any," exactly) should be able do the same-- and without having to worry about any rules about discriminating about one group or another. The government should be subservient to business and the church (well, not just any church).
Part of the "freedom" of DeVos's voucher program is the freedom to contribute to the private school of your choice instead of paying your share of taxes to the government. But that's the part that's being sold more quietly.
The loud sell is as freedom for parents, freedom to craft exactly the education that best fits their child ("fits" is one of my fave DeVosian euphemisms, far less unseemly than flat out suggesting that children should get the kind of education appropriate to their proper station in life, because people are always happier when they know their place and stay in it).
Parental freedom is a useful frame, because it lets reformsters turn to people like me and say, "So I guess you don't trust parents to choose well for their children."
But parental "freedom" isn't about trust-- it's about abandoning parents and violating the promise this country made about ensuring each child would get a good, free education. Have we sometimes failed at fulfilling that promise? Sure, and much too often, but the solution to a promises unfulfilled is not to just abandon the promise entirely. The kind of education "freedom" that DeVos is touting is about handing every parent a stack of money and saying, "Okay, you're free. There are some guys over there who might sell you some education, but that's your problem, not ours. Once we hand you some money, we wash our hands of you."
Could some parents navigate a education "environment" (another badly co-opted term) successfully? Certainly. But it won't be simple. Name one segment of the consumer economy that is dominated by honest, fact-based marketing. Name one segment of the consumer economy that is devoted to serving every single person in the country. Education will not be a magical exception. And with education, we're talking about a "product" that may not be seriously evaluated until years later, making it hard to collect consumer data. Some parents will be sorely tested by the work of navigating the marketplace, some will be unwilling to make the effort, and some will be snookered by slick marketing that ranges from misleading to simply lying. And some will find that for whatever reason, no vendors will want their child as a "customer." I have far more belief in the parents than I do in the market into which they'd be dumped, unaided and overmatched. And all of these struggling parents will face a government that says, "I gave you a voucher. I made you free. I did my part. What do you want from me? If you spent your Education Freedom Bucks poorly, that's on you."
There is an ugly underside to DeVos's pitch-- some families will end up as losers in this brave new free marketplace, and that is as it should be. Some people need to learn to run a corporation, and some need to learn how to serve it. Freedom in the marketplace belongs to those with wealth and power (that's how rich folks beat the housing market to get nice homes near the nice school), and vouchers, "freedom" or otherwise, will exacerbate the gap, not erase it.
The "freedom" being discussed is not freedom for the folks on the bottom. It's freedom for the folks on top. Freedom to profit and freedom to hold on to every dollar they touch. But most of all, the freedom not to worry about others. Like the heads of Lyft and Uber, they don't have to worry about their workers' health or future; they just keep figuring out how to get the most money out of those meat widgets. The freedom not to worry about the customers. The freedom not to worry about anything but the bottom line. The freedom to operate in an unregulated marketplace.
Freedom from public education is no more desirable than freedom from fire fighters. But we live in an age where some folks want to give the poor freedom from a social safety net and give retirees freedom from a secure income ("Just play the stock market yourself. What could go wrong?"). We are surrounded by people who see us a nice, plump sheep, and they would like to give us freedom from the fence and the shepherd.
It's not "freedom" to cancel the country's promise and obligation to its children. Yes, the "protection" of the government can be misguided, misplaced and even oppressive. As I said at the outset, I am a big fan of freedom. But to yank a ladder away from people while announcing, "Now you have the freedom to climb the wall on your own," is no gift to people, not even if someone offers to sell them a shiny stepstool or magic beans (while demanding that neighbors help finance the purchase).
Balancing true freedom against a reasonable amount of security is never an easy task, and we've been fiddling with it for centuries, but the DeVosian idea of "freedom" makes a lousy north star, useful only for steering us to a land where liberty is a commodity and you can have all the freedom you can afford-- and no more. We're way too close to that land already; I'd prefer a different direction.
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