School Choice and Cultural Decline

For years I have argued for vouchers in the public education believing, as I still do, that individuals should have the right to select schools for their children and believing, as well, that competition will have a salutary influence on all schooling. So convinced was I of this proposition that I regarded it as axiomatic.

While I retain my faith in that idea, I was sobered by a recent documentary film produced by Eugene Shirley on the South Central Los Angeles school system. Mr. Shirley’s remarkable film examines the life of Annar Alfaro, a teenager from a dysfunctional home of illegal Mexican immigrants, who attended—infrequently—Venice Central High School.

From one perspective, the school’s teachers are incompetent, the administrators myopic, and the students feral. From another perspective, the culture in the world Annar inhabits is so depraved and decadent that even heroic actions probably cannot salvage it.

Here is the dilemma: how wise is it to expect those parents who have made inappropriate decisions throughout their lives to now make appropriate educational decisions for their children? More significantly, if culture trumps rational judgment—a conclusion based on encyclopedic empirical evidence—then why should one assume that someone embracing decadent cultural norms will necessarily make sound educational choices?

Of course the market, however imperfect, does work reasonably well, surely better than government-run schools. But it may be a mistake to assume that all parents in the inner-city can apply choice effectively.

In the film, entitled AKA Creek, the protagonist does not attend classes for long periods. He laments the lack of a learning environment, but since he is rarely in school, it’s hard to know whether that view is valid. If it is a rainy day, his mother tells him he doesn’t have to attend school. If he stays out till 4 AM, no one inquires about his whereabouts. His mother works three hours a day and on some occasions is absent from home for long periods without an explanation. Even when she is in the home it is evident that she is hardly there for the children.

As I watched this film I realized that what this family desperately needed are parents like mine. If I chose to stay home from school—an inconceivable idea—my mom would have shaken me out of bed. If I didn’t meet a curfew, I’d be grounded. If any grades faltered, I’d be punished. Moreover, my home background—while rich in love—was much more impoverished financially than the family depicted in this film. My parents couldn’t afford to buy me the Nike sneakers and Timberland shirts worn by the Alfaro children.

Obviously the school can do nothing about these cultural conditions. Even if the school had the standards of Stuyvesant High School in New York, it wouldn’t have the slightest influence on Annar.

At the margin, school choice may elicit in some parents a greater level of involvement in educational matters than they have ever known. That’s all to the good. But for the single-parent families in the inner city for whom school choice is not likely to have a major effect in itself, what can be done?

The issue, as I see it, is directly related to a culture degraded by anti-bourgeois sentiments. When conditions of discipline, respect, sobriety, punctuality, and decency are permitted to wane, it is not surprising that student achievement declines. When celebrities of the moment use vile language and promote a debased system of values, it is not surprising that youngsters emulate them.

The lesson here is that the campaign for better schools should address such things as standards, testing, and leadership, but is should not for a moment discount cultural concerns and their effect on peer group attitudes. If my mom ever heard me use the “f” word, liquid soap would be deposited down my throat. In this film Annar uses the word as freely as “the” and “yes,” but interestingly, so did his mother and his siblings. Cultural rot runs deep, right into the heart of the family.

For the school choice movement to have the kind of impact that I and so many others hope for, it will be necessary not to focus exclusively on vouchers and similar reforms. In the public policy arena it’s wise to hedge your bets in any case.

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