Why Public Education?

The purpose of education, in my opinion, is to prepare students, with a love of learning and the training to take future experience and turn that into knowledge. To paraphrase Robert Maynard Hutchins, education “frees a person from the prison-house of class, race, time, place, background, family, and even nation." I also feel education plays a role in the sharing and shaping of local and national culture. Since most children spend a great deal of time being educated, educators have the power of the bully pulpit to promote these desirable personal qualities: love of freedom and respect for responsibility, cooperation and consideration for the common good, defense of the weak, etc. Education is also relevant to the propensity of a populace to function as a society. As Lord Henry Brougham said, "Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave." The truth of this statement brings into question the motives of our elected representatives and others whose actions are detrimental to education.