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.Supporters of the public school system are seen tobe locked in combat with those who would enable private schools, most ofthem parochial, to capture for themselves a large chunk of that public terrain.And at one level that is certainly an apt description.But at another level, onemore focused on their argumentation, what divides the two sides is how toapply two different kinds of baselines on which they each rely equally.One ofthose baselines, an existential one, leads to a public framing of whatever it isdeployed to conceptualize, whether money or purposes.The other, a norma-tive one, leads to a private framing.So it is that aid opponents use an existential baseline for determining gov-ernmental responsibilities in the realm of secular education.Against anexistential baseline a baseline derived from whatever the government hadbeen doing immediately before the aid program the government, in initiat-ing the program, is providing a new incentive to choose parochial school.Theaid money thus remains controlled or directed by the state, hence public andsubject to constitutional strictures.Meanwhile, their antagonists aidproponents use an existential baseline for determining parochial schoolresponsibilities in the realm of secular education.Against an existentialbaseline a baseline derived from whatever parochial schools had been doingimmediately before the aid program, which generally would not have includedthe new services the program funds the aid would be freeing up no parochialschool monies that could then be used for sectarian purposes.The aid s pur-poses would remain public, hence constitutionally unproblematic.If an existential baseline leads to a public framing, whether of aid money (foropponents) or of its purposes (for proponents), a normative baseline leads toa private framing.Thus, it is to a normative baseline that aid proponents appealin determining governmental responsibilities in the realm of secular educa-tion.After all, against an appropriate normative baseline a baseline derivedfrom a theoretical or historical notion of government neutrality between pub-lic and private education the government, in initiating the aid, is providing nooverall nudging incentive to choose parochial school; rather, it is just counter-ing the advantage that, over time, public schools have come to enjoy.The aidmoney thus falls entirely within the realm of private discretion and hence liesbeyond constitutional concern.Aid opponents, for their part, recur to a norma-tive baseline in determining parochial school responsibilities in the realm of 0333-4-05 ch05:Layout 1 10/29/09 3:32 PM Page 8484 EDUCATIONsecular education.After all, against an appropriate normative baseline a base-line derived from a historical or theoretical notion of the kinds of servicesparochial schools should be providing school responsibilities are beingrelieved, and school funds therefore are being freed up for parochial activities.The purposes that the aid supports are thus, properly understood, private-parochial.Hence, constitutional concerns are quite legitimate.In constitutional discourse there is a primordial incompatibility betweenexistential and normative approaches to baselines, one well illustrated in CassR.Sunstein s Partial Constitution.For Sunstein, the conflict between those whotake existing arrangements, existing practices, or the status quo as thebaseline for analyzing the constitutional effect of law and policy and thosewho abandon the status quo as a baseline and instead rel[y] on.principle or historical context is a fundamental fault line in American constitutionaljurisprudence.61 Yet what separates pro- and anti- forces in debates over stateaid to parochial schools is not that one side takes an existential view and theother a normative perspective, as is the case in the interpretations Sunsteinoffers of the constitutional debates he analyzes, such as those over pornogra-phy, abortion, or campaign finance.Rather, in American discourse over stateaid to parochial schools, each side adopts both an existential and a normativeperspective, by turns, the one leading to a public and the other to a privateframing of whatever is being described.The difference is that for aid propo-nents, what is private is the money and what is public are its purposes, whilefor defenders, it is the other way around.And so a question remains for each side to grapple with.To aid opponents:If government s baseline responsibilities are to be determined by looking sim-ply at the existing status quo, why not so determine the school s? And to aidproponents: If the government s baseline responsibilities are to be ascertainedby adopting some normative or historical perspective, why not so define theschool s? Currently neither side has an answer to these questions.Each is thusequally afflicted by a central tension in its position.62 0333-4-06 ch06:Layout 1 10/29/09 3:33 PM Page 856COMMERCIALISM INTHE PUBLIC SCHOOLSLos Angeles based Tooned-In Menu Team, Inc., prints four millionmenus each month for school cafeterias around the country, each one ladenwith ads for products such as Pillsbury cookies or Pokemon.The deal is this:in exchange for getting their menus done up for free, participating schoolsprovide Tooned-In with a ready market for its advertisers.It is just one of aproliferating number of arrangements forged each year between schools (orschool boards) and companies.Consider McDonald s All-American ReadingChallenge, in which McDonald s gives hamburger coupons to elementaryschool students in exchange for their reading a certain number of books.OrPiggly Wiggly s offer to donate money to a school in return for sales receiptsfrom the school community indicating proof of purchase at the store.Or theAmerican Egg Board s Incredible Journey from Hen to Home curricularmaterial, which is provided to schools for free while also promoting egg con-sumption.Or ZapMe!, which furnishes schools with free computer labs inreturn for the opportunity to run kid-oriented banner ads on the installedbrowsers and collect aggregate demographic information on students web-surfing habits.In each case, the school gets something money, equipment, incentives forstudents to learn, curricular material at a time of shrinking public educationbudgets.And the companies also get something: access to a lucrative market,enabling them to build brand loyalty in a new generation of consumers.That85 0333-4-06 ch06:Layout 1 10/29/09 3:33 PM Page 8686 EDUCATIONis why the term commercialism in the schools, with its controversial connota-tions, never gets applied to the sorts of universally praised deals such ascompany-sponsored scholarship, internship, or training programs in whichcompanies treat students not as future consumers but as future employees.And indeed commercialism in the schools is controversial; it attracts fiercecriticism.National organizations such as the Yonkers-based Consumers Unionor Oakland s Center for Commercial-Free Public Education as well as numer-ous ad hoc parental movements at the local level have taken up arms againstcommercial deals, battling companies in school board hearings and court-rooms [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Supporters of the public school system are seen tobe locked in combat with those who would enable private schools, most ofthem parochial, to capture for themselves a large chunk of that public terrain.And at one level that is certainly an apt description.But at another level, onemore focused on their argumentation, what divides the two sides is how toapply two different kinds of baselines on which they each rely equally.One ofthose baselines, an existential one, leads to a public framing of whatever it isdeployed to conceptualize, whether money or purposes.The other, a norma-tive one, leads to a private framing.So it is that aid opponents use an existential baseline for determining gov-ernmental responsibilities in the realm of secular education.Against anexistential baseline a baseline derived from whatever the government hadbeen doing immediately before the aid program the government, in initiat-ing the program, is providing a new incentive to choose parochial school.Theaid money thus remains controlled or directed by the state, hence public andsubject to constitutional strictures.Meanwhile, their antagonists aidproponents use an existential baseline for determining parochial schoolresponsibilities in the realm of secular education.Against an existentialbaseline a baseline derived from whatever parochial schools had been doingimmediately before the aid program, which generally would not have includedthe new services the program funds the aid would be freeing up no parochialschool monies that could then be used for sectarian purposes.The aid s pur-poses would remain public, hence constitutionally unproblematic.If an existential baseline leads to a public framing, whether of aid money (foropponents) or of its purposes (for proponents), a normative baseline leads toa private framing.Thus, it is to a normative baseline that aid proponents appealin determining governmental responsibilities in the realm of secular educa-tion.After all, against an appropriate normative baseline a baseline derivedfrom a theoretical or historical notion of government neutrality between pub-lic and private education the government, in initiating the aid, is providing nooverall nudging incentive to choose parochial school; rather, it is just counter-ing the advantage that, over time, public schools have come to enjoy.The aidmoney thus falls entirely within the realm of private discretion and hence liesbeyond constitutional concern.Aid opponents, for their part, recur to a norma-tive baseline in determining parochial school responsibilities in the realm of 0333-4-05 ch05:Layout 1 10/29/09 3:32 PM Page 8484 EDUCATIONsecular education.After all, against an appropriate normative baseline a base-line derived from a historical or theoretical notion of the kinds of servicesparochial schools should be providing school responsibilities are beingrelieved, and school funds therefore are being freed up for parochial activities.The purposes that the aid supports are thus, properly understood, private-parochial.Hence, constitutional concerns are quite legitimate.In constitutional discourse there is a primordial incompatibility betweenexistential and normative approaches to baselines, one well illustrated in CassR.Sunstein s Partial Constitution.For Sunstein, the conflict between those whotake existing arrangements, existing practices, or the status quo as thebaseline for analyzing the constitutional effect of law and policy and thosewho abandon the status quo as a baseline and instead rel[y] on.principle or historical context is a fundamental fault line in American constitutionaljurisprudence.61 Yet what separates pro- and anti- forces in debates over stateaid to parochial schools is not that one side takes an existential view and theother a normative perspective, as is the case in the interpretations Sunsteinoffers of the constitutional debates he analyzes, such as those over pornogra-phy, abortion, or campaign finance.Rather, in American discourse over stateaid to parochial schools, each side adopts both an existential and a normativeperspective, by turns, the one leading to a public and the other to a privateframing of whatever is being described.The difference is that for aid propo-nents, what is private is the money and what is public are its purposes, whilefor defenders, it is the other way around.And so a question remains for each side to grapple with.To aid opponents:If government s baseline responsibilities are to be determined by looking sim-ply at the existing status quo, why not so determine the school s? And to aidproponents: If the government s baseline responsibilities are to be ascertainedby adopting some normative or historical perspective, why not so define theschool s? Currently neither side has an answer to these questions.Each is thusequally afflicted by a central tension in its position.62 0333-4-06 ch06:Layout 1 10/29/09 3:33 PM Page 856COMMERCIALISM INTHE PUBLIC SCHOOLSLos Angeles based Tooned-In Menu Team, Inc., prints four millionmenus each month for school cafeterias around the country, each one ladenwith ads for products such as Pillsbury cookies or Pokemon.The deal is this:in exchange for getting their menus done up for free, participating schoolsprovide Tooned-In with a ready market for its advertisers.It is just one of aproliferating number of arrangements forged each year between schools (orschool boards) and companies.Consider McDonald s All-American ReadingChallenge, in which McDonald s gives hamburger coupons to elementaryschool students in exchange for their reading a certain number of books.OrPiggly Wiggly s offer to donate money to a school in return for sales receiptsfrom the school community indicating proof of purchase at the store.Or theAmerican Egg Board s Incredible Journey from Hen to Home curricularmaterial, which is provided to schools for free while also promoting egg con-sumption.Or ZapMe!, which furnishes schools with free computer labs inreturn for the opportunity to run kid-oriented banner ads on the installedbrowsers and collect aggregate demographic information on students web-surfing habits.In each case, the school gets something money, equipment, incentives forstudents to learn, curricular material at a time of shrinking public educationbudgets.And the companies also get something: access to a lucrative market,enabling them to build brand loyalty in a new generation of consumers.That85 0333-4-06 ch06:Layout 1 10/29/09 3:33 PM Page 8686 EDUCATIONis why the term commercialism in the schools, with its controversial connota-tions, never gets applied to the sorts of universally praised deals such ascompany-sponsored scholarship, internship, or training programs in whichcompanies treat students not as future consumers but as future employees.And indeed commercialism in the schools is controversial; it attracts fiercecriticism.National organizations such as the Yonkers-based Consumers Unionor Oakland s Center for Commercial-Free Public Education as well as numer-ous ad hoc parental movements at the local level have taken up arms againstcommercial deals, battling companies in school board hearings and court-rooms [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]