The High Price of Fanaticism

Perhaps the most ill-advised crusade of the last ten years is the fundamentalist liberals’ crusade against government aid to private schools. The ideologues oppose such aid, not because they fear it would restrict the private schools’ freedom, nor because they are concerned about the equity of taxation (a common argument in other circles being that the parents of private-school children should no more get a tax break than childless taxpayers), but in order to help the public schools. Yet, if successful, it could well result in the final blow to the public schools.

The true fanatics want to preserve the public-school system at all costs, not because it gives every child a good education, but because it gives every child the same education. Their rhetoric is apocalyptic: “For all its many faults, which I believe are remediable, our public-school system offers the best hope for democratizing, equalizing, humanizing, liberating and integrating our society,” says Ed Doerr, of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “But this basically humanistic and democratic revolution is threatened by a movement that would turn our society back toward the Dark Ages, that would remake the country in the image of some sick banana republic with a nice paper constitution covering a festering mess of sores.”

About the Author

Linda Bridges

Ms. Bridges is the former editor-at-large of National Review.

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Perhaps the most ill-advised crusade of the last ten years is the fundamentalist liberals’ crusade against government aid to private schools. The ideologues oppose such aid, not because they fear it would restrict the private schools’ freedom, nor because they are concerned about the equity of taxation (a common argument in other circles being that the parents of private-school children should no more get a tax break than childless taxpayers), but in order to help the public schools. Yet, if successful, it could well result in the final blow to the public schools.

The true fanatics want to preserve the public-school system at all costs, not because it gives every child a good education, but because it gives every child the same education. Their rhetoric is apocalyptic: “For all its many faults, which I believe are remediable, our public-school system offers the best hope for democratizing, equalizing, humanizing, liberating and integrating our society,” says Ed Doerr, of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “But this basically humanistic and democratic revolution is threatened by a movement that would turn our society back toward the Dark Ages, that would remake the country in the image of some sick banana republic with a nice paper constitution covering a festering mess of sores.”