books, attempt to introduce fundamentalist ideologies into schools, and challenge scientific research and facts with moral and ethical concepts based on religious belief how do you see this affecting the future of America’s youth? BA: It’s generous to call anything coming from the Right concerning the school battles “moral and ethical concepts.” These moves are ideology, unvarnished and unchained. The noisy proponents of market competition in public education have managed to push their ideology onto the agenda by the force of their wealth, certainly not because of any moral persuasion, or even the results that their schemes have produced. But the project continues, because it is dogma: faith-based and fact-free. We need to challenge the freight train with evidence and argument, and most important, with a vision consistent with our deepest democratic dreams. Education in a democracy must be distinct from education under a dictatorship or a monarchy, but how? Surely school leaders in fascist Germany or Albania or medieval Saudi Arabia or apartheid South Africa all agreed, for example, that students should behave well, stay away from drugs and crime, do their homework, study hard, and master the subject
matters, so those things don’t differentiate education in a democracy from any other. What makes education in a democracy distinct is a commitment to a particularly precious and fragile ideal, a foundational belief in the infinite and incalculable value of every human being. The implication of this for education is enormous: the fullest development of all, I believe, is the necessary condition for the full development of each, and conversely, the fullest development of each is necessary for the full development of all. Education is where we decide whether we love the world enough to invite young people in as full participants and constructors and creators; and whether we love our children enough to give them the tools not only to participate but also to change all that they find before them. Democracy, after all, is geared toward participation and engagement, and it’s based on that common faith: every human being is a unique intellectual, emotional, physical, spiritual, and creative force, and each one is also a piece of the many. Every human being is born free and equal in dignity and rights, each is endowed with reason and conscience, and deserves, then, a sense of solidarity, brotherhood and sisterhood, recognition and respect. We focus our efforts, not on the production of things so much as on the production of fully developed human beings who are capable of controlling and transforming their own lives, citizens and residents who can participate fully in public life. Democratic