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This weekend I started reading David McCullough’s most recent book, The Greater Journey, which chronicles the experiences of some of the United States’ most accomplished writers and thinkers on their visits to Paris in the early part of the nineteenth century.  I’m still at the very beginning of what promises to be a fascinating book; however, I’m enjoying the description of the initial culture shock these prominent Americans had when they arrived in Paris and learned that most of the French knew very little about the United States and didn’t even speak English!  

McCullough points out that the French people’s initial introduction to the United States and its citizens came in 1835 when Baron Alexis de Tocqueville published his first edition of Democracy in America on his return from an extended stay in the US.  In his publication, de Tocqueville described the nature of American politics; the evils of slavery; and American’s love of money.  But the passage that has stuck with me is de Tocqueville’s assertion that from the beginning “the originality of American civilization was most clearly apparent in the provisions made for public education.”

This profound observation by de Tocqueville almost two hundred years ago frames the current debate on resource allocation and the future of both public schooling and our democratic way of life in a fresh context.  While the United States once again garnered the most winning medals in the recent Olympic Games, the accomplishments of our national athletes were based on exhibiting a competitive edge in an arena where there are winners and losers…nothing “original” about that, though it always feels better to be one of the “winners”.  The “provision made for public education” that so impressed de Tocqueville is the assumption that a democracy can only survive when decisions are made by an educated electorate, not in a culture that has “winners” and “losers” in the arena. 

In the current education debate on strategies for improving education we seem to be moving away from “provisions for public education” and more towards competing for shrinking public funds.  Energy put into charter schools, parent trigger laws, alternative teacher and administrator certification versus existing public institutions doesn’t exhibit “originality”, it just saps time and attention with the result that looks more like the Olympics with winners and losers than the vibrant democracy that de Tocqueville described (though perhaps we’re just moving more towards exhibiting our “love of money” that he also asserted).

Without a doubt the American way of life, with a diverse population fueled by new blood and ideas from around the world, is a unique and original work in progress.  But we threaten our way of life when we don’t work collaboratively and collegially to insure that a quality public education is provided for every single one of our students.  It’s too important and key to the future for us all.

Image by Eugène Trutat [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons