Democracy relies on public schools

OK, I’ll just say it, “I don’t object to the existence of religious and other private schools. I just don’t want them funded with taxpayers’ dollars.”

As Ed Wasserman pointed out in a letter earlier this year, neither did Republicans — in 1876. Republicans who search for “original intent” ought to be required to chew on their party’s platform plank from that year:

“The public school system … is the bulwark of the American republic …[W]e recommend an amendment to the constitution … forbidding the application of any public funds … for the benefit of any school … under sectarian control.”

We shouldn’t be surprised with this Republican sleight of hand. This is the same political party that demanded Trump-appointed U.S. attorney David Weiss investigate Hunter Biden. And then responded with outrage when Attorney General Merrick Garland made Weiss the special counsel to do so.

As former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld might have said, “You don’t govern with the opposing party you wish you had, you govern with the opposing party you’ve got.”

In that spirit, let’s imagine how Republicans might expand private funding for those rejecting public programs.

A family or business preferring private protection services could forgo access to the police in exchange for some money toward their security service.

A golfer might say, “I’ll agree to stay off the public golf courses in exchange for some taxpayer dollars to help with my country club dues.”

A citizen who has never entered the public library might prefer televised media and request a contribution toward a larger TV screen to watch Fox News.

The possibilities are as endless as they are a mind-numbing misunderstanding of democracies.

One of the central benefits of democracies born of communities is their provision of the rules and tools for creating majority agreement on programs of such benefit to everyone they should be funded by everyone.

Those who came before us realized that for the vast landmass called the United States to become a “community” required many connecting networks. So they built them — a postal system, roads, railroads, telegraph, telephone, and ultimately international radio, television and internet.

They also were sufficiently convinced of the public benefit from public libraries, parks, and wilderness reserves for everyone to pay for them, too.

Even if you drive the back country “blue highways” on vacation, you still benefit from what our 49,000-mile Interstate Highway System brings you. Few complained of its cost, let alone sought reimbursement because of how little they’d use it.

Boston’s first school was established April 23, 1635 — 141 years before there was a “United States.” How sad that of all the democratically created public programs today’s Republicans could dismantle they picked the oldest: public education.

The 1876 Republicans knew public education’s standards were essential to have store clerks who know math, doctors who know medicine — and citizens who know civics. It’s no less true today.

Nicholas Johnson is a former Iowa City School Board member. mailbox@nicholasjohnson.org