WHO SAYS? controlling public education

In the mid 1920's America's public schools were chiefly a local responsibility. Some 162,800 local school districts were governed by locally elected lay people who raised the bulk of the revenue, enjoyed considerable autonomy and were very sensitive to local pressures. Today, as a consequence of state imposed consolidation, there are only 13,598 school districts whose local autonomy, control and sensitivity to local pressures have all shrunk dramatically. 

At the same time school funding shifted pretty strongly from the local to the state level — although, even now, the proportion varies from state to state. For instance, Vermont provides the most: 87% of the funding. While the smallest state share is provided by Utah: 58%. Most of the rest of the funding costs fall on local school districts. Although the federal government now provides 8%. 

Remember the old adage: "He who pays the piper calls the tune?" Well with state funding predominating, key decisions are now made at the state level. Local authorities are seldom even consulted. They simply are told what to do. They also are required to pick up some, sometimes all, of the tab. (It's a great temptation for state law-makers to enact one or another benefit then impose the costs of accomplishing it on local school boards.)

The dominance of state over local authority, plus increased federal involvement — especially since George W. Bush, the self-styled "Education President" — has rendered local parents and voters more and more powerless as they find themselves further and further removed from those who actually have power.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Another source of parental disempowerment is the increased number of students per school. In 1920 there were about 190,000 public schools k-12, with an average 100 students per school. In 2020 there were only 131,000 public schools. But they were serving an average 528 students. About five times more students per school than in 1920.  

As the size of the school student populations grew, individual differences became less and less important. The chances of a principal even knowing the name of every student in his or her school shrank to nearly zero. School authorities knowledge of individual parental concerns also shrank to nearly nothing. 

CATHOLIC v. MUSLIM IMMIGRANTS: an historical comparison

Many Americans believe that Muslim immigrants are undesirable. They think these foreigners frequently embrace deadly intolerance. Plus they are angry that these aliens are flooding into their country in scary numbers. Let's look at this historically.

In the mid to late 19th century Americans were frightened and angry because over five million Roman Catholics, mostly Irish, were flooding into their overwhelmingly Protestant nation. By 1860 the Catholic presence in America, once tiny, now exceeded the entire U.S. population just 70 years before. Their numbers were simply prodigious.

Another worry was that these particular immigrants were obedient to a foreign monarch —the Pope. He ruled over an authoritarian and anti-Protestant institution that an overwhelmingly Protestant-America found frightening. How could a people accustomed to such tyranny, learn to live in a democracy? 

Separatism was a third concern. The fear was that Catholics would band together and form a separate type of American altogether different from the mainstream. That they would become a divisive force that would further separate an already loosely coupled America into warring camps each regarding the other as intolerable.

In a short time the vast majority of Irish Catholic immigrants proved quite capable of embracing democracy and finding a place in America. But what about present-day Muslim immigrants? Will they, although very small in numbers, prove forever alien? Let’s compare. 

Unlike the Irish, Muslims do not pledge allegiance to a single autocratic institution. Nor do they pledge common obedience to the equivalent of a Pope. There isn’t even consensus among them about what is required to be a Muslim. In fact their faith is so fragmented that they sometimes fall to annihilating one another. Muslim 1 clearly is not Muslim 2. However, many Americans don't know that.

Moreover Muslim immigrants presently constitute a tiny fraction of the 19th and early 20th Century flood of Roman Catholics that immigrated to America. Presently the entire Muslim population of the United States constitutes less than 1% of the total. Moreover, fewer than 5% of all new immigrants entering are Muslims.

What about criminality? Not long ago some Somali-Americans systematically defrauded Minnesota out of billions of dollars. That massive fraud caused some Americans to link the criminality of these people to all Muslims. But immigrant Muslims have no corner on that. Some immigrant Irish became gangsters of the first magnitude. The Irish Mob (also known as the Irish Mafia), became one of the nation’s most notorious organized crime groups. And, of course, the actual Mafia is inextricably linked to Italian-Americans. So the Somali’s have no patent on immigrant criminality. Although their relatively small numbers in the total population made this massive crime especially conspicuous.

Unlike Irish immigrants, a comparative handful of Muslims have also proven to be fanatical terrorists. For instance, those who crashed passenger planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And, of course, ISIS is guilty of horrendous crimes. Of course these perpetrators were foreign nationals. But right now terrorism is linked in many American’s minds with being Muslim. And when a situation is defined as true, it is true in its consequences.

We should also consider that many Americans see this nation as inextricably linked to Christianity. And that means that these same Americans see non-Christians as, ipso facto, un-American. Of course this view of America as a Christian nation is fostered by many fundamentalists and right wing politicians — often for selfish purposes. They baldly assert that America was founded as a Christian nation; and that this religion constitutes the very heart of America.

That is factually inaccurate. Many of America’s most influential founders, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Ethan Allen and Thomas Paine for instance, were deists or rationalists not Christians. These founders clearly preferred facts over beliefs and were determined to separate church from state. But many Americans don't know that. And what many Americans believe to be true, is true in its consequences. 

That means a sizable segment of American society opposes Muslim immigration on religious grounds. Including home-home grown converts, for that matter. Looking back, though, many Americans once thought of America as Protestant, not simply Christian. That is now behind us. But that doesn’t mean Muslims will attain, or even desire, the same degree of inclusion as Irish-American Catholics. We shall see.