Why Schools Don't Matter

"The children are onto this game. They know that if we really valued schooling, we'd pay teachers what we pay stockbrokers; if we valued books, we'd spend a little something on the libraries so that adults could read, too; if we valued citizenship, we'd give national service and civic education more than pilot status; if we valued children, we wouldn't let them be abused, manipulated, impoverished, and killed in their beds by gang-war crossfire and stray bullets. Schools can and should lead, but when they confront a society that in every instance tells a story exactly the opposite to the one they are supposed to be teaching, their job becomes impossible. When the society undoes each workday what the school tries to do each school day, schooling can't make much difference."

Benjamin R. Barber
From "America Skips School"
Harper's Magazine, 11/93