Public Education vs. Educating the Public

Sometimes etymology is the fountain of truth. What is something? It flows from its source.

public (adj.)

late 14c., publike, "open to general observation," from Old French public (c. 1300) and directly from Latin publicus "of the people; of the state; done for the state," also "common, general, of or belonging to the people at large; ordinary, vulgar," and as a noun, "a commonwealth; public property." This Latin word was altered (probably by influence of Latin pubes "adult population, adult;" see publis from Old Latin poplicus "pertaining to the people," from populus "people".

Public fountains are free for all. Private fountains may be available for a fee or have completely restricted access. The state collects taxes to provide public fountains. Should the state fund or even subsidize private fountains? Should the public pay for fountains that it, the public, cannot access?

TIF districts (tax incremental districts) are an indirect way in which state/municipal governments ‘fund’ and/or subsidize private entities.

Public funding could be used to build a road to a church over relatively openly public ground. Should it build a road that only the church and its members can use? One that the general public would be forbidden to use and/or observe?

Public schools are open to all. They educate all for the service of the general public. Everyone benefits from a more educated populace.

When private charter schools and purely private schools get public funding are they getting a ‘public road’ or a ‘private road’?

Just as any publicly funding road should be available to the public, any publicly funded private school should be ‘open’ to public. Therefore, it should and must follow the rules of ‘public use’ — or non-discrimination. It should not restrict anyone from its use nor should it control that use by any means other than those restraints that are placed by the public government on all roads.

Here is what really matters. Public eduction is not the same as educating the public. I can educate people in the public about a cola like Coca-Cola, but I cannot call it public education if I propagate the idea that Coca-Cola is the best. That is a private for-profit campaign and not a public endeavor.

To offer a closed and private campaign that is in a private and especially a parochial interest is not ‘public education’. It may be ‘educating the public’, but it is not ‘public education’.

Does it matter? Public education is open to all. It is the cornerstone of a democratic (open) and free market (open) society that is open to all. Private, and especially parochial schools, are not public or public in their mission. They are closed. They are in their very essence not public. They do not seek to create an open world for they themselves are not open for their own particular reasons/purposes. In their worst forms, they can be and are extremely ‘closed’ — closed-minded and in pursuit of a closed and discriminatory world. They could, if they wished, espouse an anti-democratic and non-free-market world that is a very non-open (closed) ‘public’ (if was to so perversely to-be-called). That is an absurdity of the first order.

This is like paying for your own enslavement. No, this is not borrowing money and then being enslaved by debt. It is paying real money to end your own freedom. Oddly, in an open society this is theoretically possible, but a true public entity/society cannot and could not do or be this.

It is true that totalitarian and autocratic states can create ‘closed worlds’ in the name of the ‘public.’ A lie is a lie no matter who tells it.

We do not collect taxes to ‘educate the public’, we collect and distribute taxes to provide public education. Everyone is open and free to pay for their own private education. That is a mildly ironic and essential part of an open society. People can pursue ‘private’ purpose(s) if they wish.

But the public, that does need to eat, does not have to pay for your private restaurant to sell food. However, if the food is provided by the government for free to all, it cannot ‘discriminate’ in that distribution. [However, only offering that food to the poor and needy pivots on providing for the ‘public good’, but the meaning of ‘good’ in that phrase and context will not be finitely parsed here.]

The core of this reasoning and the principle purpose of public education is to open all people/citizens/civilians to the value of being open to all. A wider public is a stronger and freer public and a better public. ‘More open’ is better.

The converse of this situation is the converse of ‘public’, the converse of the ‘general public good,’ and the converse of public education’s core purpose. In being so open, it is open to allowing private and ‘closed’ pursuits to exist in its ‘realm’, but it need not and should not fund them nor aid these private endeavors in their pursuit of private ‘closed’ motives. Even here you are or might be unsure of my thinking? Maybe you are thinking that some or just a little bit of publicly-funded private could be OK …or until it is dangerously too much?

For the insurance of an open society, closed institutions should be left to their own self-preservation and pursuits and should not be funded in their quest for ‘closed’ gain in a ‘closed’ and private world of their own domination. Excessive assistance of these institutions will be a direct threat to the public, the public good, and to ‘public’ itself.

Public education educates the public that more ‘open’ is ultimate goal of the society. It may seem subtle and nuanced and not different enough to constitute much of a contrast but it is very consequential indeed.

In a public world, ‘choice’ itself is sacred, but not a specific choice.

Choose open. Choose choice. Choose public.

Please choose (democracy) to ‘educate the public’ that public education should be open to all to fully open all to all — a true free market of choice.