My students and I have just finished reading John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, and Mill had some interesting things to say about education: 

A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government… An education established and controlled by the State, should only exist, if it exist at all, as one among many competing experiments, carried on for the purpose of example and stimulus, to keep the others up to a certain standard of excellence. 

It’s pretty interesting to hear this argument for educational diversity made way back in 1859, but much of what Mill says bears reflection.  On the one hand, it hardly seems true that public education in America has contrived to mold people to be exactly like one another.  After all, one of the characteristics of our educational system is the fact that it is totally splintered, with states controlling their own standards and then devolving that control to cities and counties beneath.

Indeed today, many educational reformers believe that the solution to America’s educational dilemma is to create a standardized federal curriculum.  The main problem with No Child Left Behind, they say, is that it only encouraged states to force their students to progress and left no mechanism to force them to do so. . 

Perhaps Mill’s arguments are simply not relevant for our moment in time.  After all, he was writing in the midst of the Victorian England—a time and a place where conformity and social convention acted as a heavy weight, keeping all people in their appointed stations.  Maybe the United States in 2011 is simply too chaotic and loosey goosey to accomidate true diversity in our schools.  In this editorial, the New York Times makes a strong case for a true national curriculum.

And if this weren’t enough, a recent study seems to indicate that charter schools—which can create educational diversity within a school system—may not be working at all.

On the other hand, in this piece, controversial thinker Charles Murray makes an interesting argument:

We’ve known since the landmark Coleman Report of 1966, which was based on a study of more than 570,000 American students, that the measurable differences in schools explain little about differences in test scores. The reason for the perpetual disappointment is simple: Schools control only a small part of what goes into test scores.

As a teacher, this is a hard fact to swallow.  On the other hand, ask anyone who has struggled to educated kids in under-resourced schools and the first thing they will tell you is that their biggest challenge is that they cannot control what goes on on in the home. When I used to teach seventh grade in Washington Heights I would constantly see my students on the stoops hanging out at 11pm on school nights. And the schools that are the most successful—schools like KIPP Academy—keep their kids in school for six day weeks and 10 hour days.  Ultimately the goal here is to have the kid out of the family zone for as long as possible.  So it goes without saying that the summer break is reduced to only a couple of weeks.

Murray’s argument basically boils down to the idea that school choice is important not because it raises test grades, but because it facilitates parent choice and allows for diversity. He writes:

There are millions of parents out there who don’t have enough money for private school but who have thought just as sensibly and care just as much about their children’s education as affluent people do. Let’s use the money we are already spending on education in a way that gives those parents the same kind of choice that wealthy people, liberal and conservative alike, exercise right now. That should be the beginning and the end of the argument for school choice.

Mill certainly favored diversity for its own sake as well.  His biggest worry was the stifling influence force of social convention.  Murray seems to be getting at the same thing in his own way.  And it’s true that everyone hates standardized tests.

On the other hand: here is the 2009 sixth grade New York State reading test.  Don’t you think that most sixth graders should demonstrate proficiency on this test?  I actually think that most second graders should demonstrate proficiency on this test.

Diversity is well and fine, but certain standards have to be maintained—regardless of the opinions of Mill and Murray.