What Then, Is the Purpose of Public Education?

With the recent court decisions, we need a bit of analysis on NH education funding and recent (and historic) NH Supreme Court decisions regarding the NH Constitution.

First, why is it said that we must fund public education in New Hampshire at the state level? The answer is that a supreme court ruling interpreted the NH Constitution Article 83, and in particular, the phrase “cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries and public schools, to encourage private and public institutions, rewards, and immunities for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and natural history of the country…”

This court decision seems to have entirely ignored the word “seminaries,” as the suggestions that “cherish” implies “fund” should then equally apply to seminary as it does “public schools.” I am not aware of any publicly funded seminary. I believe this decision was likely in error – I do not see a mandate for state-level funding of education in this phrase or anywhere within the rest of the New Hampshire Constitution.

However, where I may break with some conservatives and libertarians is that I do, in fact, see the great utility and, likely, necessity of a public education being available to our youth in order to replicate and preserve our heritage and culture. I believe I keep good company with Thomas Jefferson in this regard. Though while I am quite amenable to a basic funding of public education by law, despite seeing no Constitutional mandate to the same, I believe this education must, absolutely and without deviation, follow the guidance of the New Hampshire constitution: this must be a requirement for the expenditure of public funds towards the end of education.

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Here, it is useful to examine the whole text of Article 83: “Knowledge and learning, generally diffused through a community, being essential to the preservation of a free government; and spreading the opportunities and advantages of education through the various parts of the country, being highly conducive to promote this end; it shall be the duty of the legislators and magistrates, in all future periods of this government, to cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries and public schools, to encourage private and public institutions, rewards, and immunities for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and economy, honesty and punctuality, sincerity, sobriety, and all social affections, and generous sentiments, among the people: Provided, nevertheless, that no money raised by taxation shall ever be granted or applied for the use of the schools of institutions of any religious sect or denomination. Free and fair competition in the trades and industries is an inherent and essential right of the people and should be protected against all monopolies and conspiracies which tend to hinder or destroy it. The size and functions of all corporations should be so limited and regulated as to prohibit fictitious capitalization and provision should be made for the supervision and government thereof. Therefore, all just power possessed by the state is hereby granted to the general court to enact laws to prevent the operations within the state of all persons and associations, and all trusts and corporations, foreign or domestic, and the officers thereof, who endeavor to raise the price of any article of commerce or to destroy free and fair competition in the trades and industries through combination, conspiracy, monopoly, or any other unfair means; to control and regulate the acts of all such persons, associations, corporations, trusts, and officials doing business within the state; to prevent fictitious capitalization; and to authorize civil and criminal proceedings in respect to all the wrongs herein declared against.”

This article, as part of the supreme law of New Hampshire, must then guide our understanding of what it means to receive a public education, how language such as “adequate” might be defined, and the lens through which we must evaluate our current public education system.

First, to the concept of an “adequate education,” we must first acknowledge that an “adequate education” is not a dollar amount – it can only reasonably be defined as the inculcation of certain values, knowledge, and capacities as are outlined within Article 83, or elsewhere in law as to not be in contradiction to the Constitution. As a part of this definition, we must also acknowledge that not all persons are of the same abilities and that, even with a hypothetical perfectly optimized situation with unlimited funding, not all persons will achieve the same levels of competency and capacity, so any such definitions of “adequate education” must, in fact, be defined in terms of opportunity provided towards this end, with some application of an averaging in assessment to determine efficacy, and further with the understanding that neither perfect optimization nor unlimited funding are attainable, and so a “reasonableness” standard must come into this definition as well.

Now, what, then, per Article 83, is the end of public education? It is the capacity to function as a citizen in civic engagement towards maintaining a “free government,” familiarity with and capacity towards “literature and the sciences,” familiarity with and the ability to interact freely with “public and private institutions,” a general inculcation of interest and familiarity with “agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and natural history of the country…” and the indoctrination of those founding values of “principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and economy, honesty and punctuality, sincerity, sobriety, and all social affections, and generous sentiments…”

To summarize, the end of public education is the creation of citizens capable of the maintenance of our Constitutional Republic towards the preservation of the liberties enumerated within our Bill of Rights, a general, broad education within the sciences (and maths and logic therein implied), literature (reading and writing and the classics), and seeding within this young people the values, traditions, and culture of a traditional American ideal.

Now, let us assess whether our current formulation of public education is, per Article 83, Constitutional. A general and broad survey of New Hampshire students of public schools finds rampant innumeracy and illiteracy across the board. A sampling of curricula provisioned by various public schools demonstrates that primacy within the classroom is given to modern and divisive social theories that are wholly divergent from traditional American values. Further, students are taught a false history of America coupled with the lens of conflict theory, e.g. the oppressor-oppressed dialectic of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) which inculcates a gnostic disposition of victimhood as opposed to one of benevolence and generous sentiments. Instead of the preparation for maintenance of our Republic with thoughtful and light application of government towards the maintenance of Natural and Constitutional rights, students are taught to manipulate “our Democracy” via training towards social activism and Maoist mass lines demanding heavy-handed government coercion against the liberties of their neighbors. Further, the manner in which a monopolistic, cartel-like, and coercive regime has developed around public education, in no small part due to the influence of public-sector unions, is unconscionable.

I can see no way in which our current formulation of public education could possibly be more violative of Article 83, and, therefore, I find it to be a wholly unconstitutional system. This current system is not designed to replicate that society of the American founding but has instead been hijacked, as a virus hijacks a cell, to replicate a corrupted, corrosive, and damnable system of a Marxist bent instead.

If we are to publicly fund a system of public education, which I find reasonable and prudent, it should most certainly not be this current system as it exists. The system must be reformed, or a new one established and the old abolished. This is necessary for all of us. Our current system of public education is an existential threat to the republic, to you, and to everyone you care about.