I am not sold on the going assumption seemingly embraced by the new US presidential administration which characterizes education as an industry, at least, not in the sense that the United States government has traditionally approached other industries. While I can appreciate that there may be a great deal which market competition can improve in the field, I feel it is dangerous to categorize education as merely an economic service rather than an essential civil service and government duty. Because if it is an industry, then it ceases to be a government duty.
The idea that education is a human right is not new, nor is it particularly contentious as human rights go. Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads in part as follows:
Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free […] Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible […] Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
The United States lobbied strongly for the adoption and promotion of this declaration, and for many years touted it as one of the great distinctions which separated the “free world” from the Soviet Union and its allies. Americans were proud that their country could uphold the promise of free education. The United States remains bound to these promises under international law, but more importantly, is bound by the promise to its own citizens.
Of course, there are other, more nationalist grounds for opposing the erosion of the government’s responsibility to its citizens in this regard. Within the United States, it has long been established that, upon arrest, in order for due process to be observed, that a certain exchange must take place between the accused and the authorities. This exchange, known as the Miranda Warning, is well-documented in American crime shows.
The ubiquity of the Miranda Warning is not merely a coincidental procedure, but is in fact an enforced safeguard designed to protect the constitutional rights of the accused. Established in 1966 in the US Supreme Court Case Miranda vs. Arizona, the actual wording is less important than the notion that the accused must be made aware, and must indicate their understanding of, their constitutional rights regarding due process. Failure to do so, even for the most trivial of offenses, is a failure of the government to uphold those rights, and can constitute grounds for a mistrial.
The decision, then, establishes an important premise: Citizens who are not educated about their rights cannot reliably exercise them, and this failure of education represents sufficient legal grounds as to permit reasonable doubt on the execution of justice. It also establishes that this education is the duty of the government, and that a failure here represents an existential failure of that government. It follows, then, that the government and the government alone holds a duty to ensure that each citizen is at least so educated as to reasonably ensure that they can reliably exercise their constitutional rights.
What then, should we make about talk of turning education into a free-for-all “industry”? Can the government still claim that it is fulfilling its constitutional obligations if it is outsourcing them to third parties? Can that government still claim to be of and by the people if it’s essential functions are being overseen and administered by publicly unaccountable individuals? And what happens when one of these organizations fails to educate its students to a reasonable standard? Can the government be held accountable for the subsequent miscarriage of justice if the necessary measures to prevent it were undertaken in such a convolutedly outsourced manner as to make direct culpability meaningless?
As usual, I don’t know the answer, although I fear at our present rate, we may need to look at a newer, more comprehensive Miranda Warning.
