Supplement for Sixth Class: Chapter Five: Distributing Primary Schooling,

 

Chapter Six: The Purposes of Higher Education, and

 

Chapter Nine: Chapter Educating Adults

 

Copyright © 2026 Bruce W. Hauptli

 

I. Questions From Last Time. 

 

II.  Chapter Five: Distributing Primary Schooling:

 

127-128 According to Gutmann the principle of nondiscrimination serves as a guide to answering the question “how should primary education be distributed:” it suggests the ideal of equal educational opportunity for all.  But elaboration is needed regarding what resources should be committed to this educational project (rather than to other projects), how should these resources be distributed amongst children, and how should children be distributed between schools? 

 

Interpreting Equal Educational Opportunity:

 

128 She discusses three deficient responses to these “distribution problems” then offer her “democratic response:

 

129-131 The maximization response: devote sufficient so as to maximize the life chance of all future citizens

 

129 The hidden weakness of maximization is what may be called the problem of moral ransom.  The rule offers us something morally valuable on the implicit condition that we give up everything else we value. 

 

131 …democratic citizens should be free not only to set priorities among all the goods that expand educational opportunity, but also to choose between educational opportunity and all the other goods that it excludes. 

 

131-134 The equalization response: distribute the resources so that the life chances of the least advantaged children are raised as far as possible toward those of the most advantaged. 

 

132 To equalize educational opportunities, the state would have to intrude so far into family life as to violate the equally important liberal ideal family autonomy. 

 

133 …many differences in educational achievement can be eliminated only by eradicating the different intellectual, cultural, and emotional dispositions and attachments of children 

 

134 The democratic truth in equalization is that all children should learn enough to be able not just to live a minimally decent life but also to participate in the democratic processes by which individual choices are socially constituted.  A democratic state, therefore, must take steps to avoid these inequalities that deprive children of educational attainment adequate to participate in the political processes. 

 

134-136 The meritocracy response: distribute the resources in proportion to children’s demonstrated natural ability and willingness to learn

 

135 Rewarding dessert is a reasonable way to distribute educational resources above the threshold level, but surely not the only reasonable way. 

 

136-139 Finelly she offers her The Democratic Standard: she pulls together the best elements from the three responses to the “distribution problem:”

 

136 The standard of democratic distribution developed so far can be formulated more precisely as two principles.  Call the first the democratic authorization principle.  It recognizes the mistake in maximization by granting authority to democratic institutions to determine the priority of education relative to other social goods.  Call the second the democratic threshold principle.  It avoids the mistake in both equalization and meritocracy by specifying that inequalities in the distribution of educational goods can be justified if, but only if, they do not deprive any child of the ability to participate effectively in the democratic process (which determines, among other things, the priority of education relative to other social goods). 

 

What constitutes a just distribution of democratic education not only may vary among different democratic societies but also may change quite significantly over time in the same society. 

 

To illustrate how her distribution principle works, Gutmann turns to two specific distribution problems: financing public schools and educating the disadvantaged. 

 

139-148 Financing Public Schools:

 

139-147 Gutmann points out that for a variety of reasons most of the funding for primary education in the United States comes from State and Federal sources.  This presents significant problems for local democratic control of primary education.  Of course, the States, and the Federal government need to allocate funding that provides an adequate level for all school districts while allowing local districts the ability to provide additional resources.  This leaves the question “What level of ability or set of accomplishments should count as adequate?  According to her the commonly applied standard is functional literacy:

 

147 …having the intellectual capacity to get a job and to make a decent living for oneself and one’s family.” 

  This understanding…is simultaneously too weak and too strong to serve as a democratic standard of adequacy.  It is too weak insofar as many Americans have the capacity to make a decent living but not the capacity to understand the political issues that structure their future choices and the future choices of their society.  Many high school students…lack the prerequisites for effective political participation.  Such skills may be necessary, but they are surely not sufficient for being able to participate effectively in American politics.  By democrat norms, they are functionally illiterate. 

 

A more democratic definition of functional literacy requires high school students to have the intellectual skills and information that enable them to think about democratic politics and to develop their deliberative skills and their knowledge through practical experience. 

 

147-148 So here, at the end of the section on Financing Public [Secondary] Schools within the Chapter on Distributing Primary Schooling, Gutmann identifies 148 “the main problem with primary schooling today” is that it does not prepare students for democratic citizenship. 

 

It is important to note that she does not develop what is involved in (147) “…requiring high-school students to have the intellectual skills and information that enable them to think about democratic politics and to develop their deliberative skills and their knowledge through practical experience.”  We will return to this discussion on pp. 273-281 as we address adult illiteracy, and in the “Conclusion: The Primacy of Political Education” (pp. 282-291). 

 

148-159 Educating The Disadvantaged:

 

The second “distribution problem” she discusses is whether 148 “for those students who are socially or biologically handicapped, it might be impossible for states to provide enough schooling to enable them to each he threshold, or so expensive as to call into question the moral requirement to bring all handicapped children up to the threshold.” 

 

148-152 She discusses two cases, Rebecca Paul, an economically disadvantaged first grade student with disciplinary problems who receives no special services, and Amy Rowley a deaf first grade student who receives extraordinary special services. 

 

150 Amy’s parents took their contention that even more resources should be provided to their daughter to the Supreme Court which ruled against the core additional demand. 

 

151 “What is striking about Rebecca’s case…is not how much her school must spend to educate her, but how little her school can do to overcome her problems…[and] reminds us that democratic states cannot rely upon schools alone to help children reach the threshold of learning.” 

 

Clearly the distribution principles require that both students receive special services. 

 

152-159 Gutmann discusses several studies of the difference spending alone makes, and points out that the severity of the handicap (whether physical or behavioral) certainly needs to be considered.  She goes on to discuss legislation and regulations relating to handicapped education. 

 

160-169 Integrating Schools:

 

160 She begins this discussion by noting that children are each other’s educational resources, and that school integration has been an important topic which is relevant to the “distribution of students.” 

 

Her lengthy discussion of efforts in the last half century leads to a discussion of the role of courts in the situation, and their role in a democratic society and democratic education (a topic she says deserves a book in and of itself). 

 

168-169 The democratic value of community suggests that judges not impose unnecessary orders on local districts, but the evidence of effective desegregation suggests that only the most thoroughgoing plans are likely to succeed in achieving the democratic value of integration.  In this tension between the values of local community and racial integration lies perhaps the greatest dilemma of democratic education in our time.  Critics and supporters of desegregation alike agree that “moving children around like checkers will not in itself improve matters.”

 

169-170 But if not integrating schools guarantees bad results, then judges imposing thoroughgoing plans can help reconstitute more democratic communities. 

 

170-171 The Demands of Democratic Opportunity:

 

170 Democratic standards require neither that the “inputs” nor the “outputs” of education be equalized.  We need not spend the same amount on every child’s education nor produce equal educational results among children or groups of children.  The democratic interpretation of equal educational opportunity requires instead that all educable children learn enough to in the democratic process. 

 

171 The demands of the threshold principle are considerable: states should take greater responsibility for financing primary education or for making more effective use of existing resources; the content of education should be reoriented toward teaching students the skills of democratic deliberation; and the federal government should give local schools more money r educating handicapped children.   

 

III. Chapter Six: The Purposes of Higher Education:

 

173 Schooling does not stop serving democracy, however, when it ceases to be compulsory—or when all educable students reach the democratic threshold, its purposes change.  Higher education should not be necessary for inculcating basic democratic virtues, such as toleration, truth-telling, and predisposition to nonviolence.  I doubt whether it can be.  If adolescents have not developed these character traits by the time they reach college, it is probably too late for professors to inculcate them….

 

174-175 Control of the creation of ideas—whether by a majority or a minority—subverts the ideal of conscious social reproduction at the heart of democratic education and democratic politics.  As institutional sanctuaries for free scholarly inquiry, universities can help prevent such subversion.  They can provide a realm where new and unorthodox ideas are judged on their intellectual merits; where the men and women who defend such ideas, provided they defend them well, are not strangers but valuable members of a community.  Universities thereby serve democracy as sanctuaries of nonrepression.  In addition to creating and funding universities, democratic governments can further this primary purpose of higher education in two ways: by respecting what is commonly called the “academic freedom” of scholars, and by respecting what might be called the “freedom of the academy.” 

 

Academic Freedom and Freedom of the Academy:

 

175 [Academic freedom is] ...best understood as a special right tied to the particular office of scholar, similar in form (but different in content) to the particular rights of priests, doctors, lawyers, and journalists.  The core of academic freedom is the freedom of scholars to assess existing theories, established institutions, and widely held beliefs according to the canons of truth adopted by their academic disciplines without fear of sanction by anyone if they arrive at unpopular conclusions.  Academic freedom allows scholars to follow their autonomous judgment wherever it leads them provided that they remain within the bounds of scholarly standards of inquiry. 

  The proviso of remaining within the bounds of scholarly standards is sometimes overlooked, but it is necessary to justify the social office that scholars occupy…. 

 

176 Control of the educational environment within which scholarship and teaching take place is the form of academic freedom most neglected by its democratic defenders.  The historical reason for this neglect is not difficult to discern.  Whereas German universities were generally self-governing bodies of scholars who made administrative decisions either collegially or through democratically elected administrators, American universities (with few exceptions) are administered by lay governing boards and administrators chosen by these boards.  Therefore, while the scholar’s right of academic freedom in the German context could readily be extended to a right collectively to control the academic environment of the university, the academic freedom of faculty in the American context had to be used as a defense against the university’s legally constituted (lay) administrative authority.[i] 

 

177 Scholars and universities that claim academic freedom against interference with their intellectual and institutional pursuits must also acknowledge duties that accompany the right. 

 

177-181 Gutmann elaborates on the democratic purposes that academics and academic institutions ground these freedoms.  

 

Educating Officeholders:

 

181-184 Colleges and universities also serve as “gatekeepers” to many of the most valuable social offices, particularly in the professions.  Their role here, however, is not strictly peaking utilitarian (justified by its social and economic utility).  Professional associations, think tanks, and research centers can similarly foster and support professional development.  However (184) “universities serve democracy best when they try to establish an environment conducive to creating knowledge that is not immediately useful, appreciating ideas that are not presently poplar, and rewarding people who are—and are likely to continue to be—intellectually but not necessarily economically productive.” 

 

Fostering Associations of Freedom:

 

189-190 Gutmann cites Derek Bok (President of Harvard University, 1971-1991), who contends that the ideal mutiversity would “avoid undertaking tasks that other organizations can discharge equally well” and commit itself to supplying only those demands for knowledge that are consistent with “the preservation of academic freedom, the maintenance of high intellectual standards, the protection of academic pursuits from outside interference, the rights of individuals affected by the university not to be harmed in their legitimate interests, [and] the needs of those who stand to benefit from the intellectual services that a vigorous university can perform.”[1] 

 

190-193 While, ideally, a college or university would be a self-administered democratic community committed to democratic education and the free scholarly inquiry, she recognizes that most American institutions fall far short of such a model, but (193) “to the extent that there is an ideal [collegiate] community, it is one whose members are dedicated to free scholarly inquiry and who share authority in a complex pattern that draws on the particular interests and competencies of administrators, faculty, students, and trustees,.  This ideal serves a critique of autocratically governed universities that do Is not secure the academic freedom of their faculty, but it also leaves room for a variety of university communities to flourish, all of which are dedicated to academic freedom but each of which support a different set of intellectual and social commitments.” 

 

193 A diversity of such institutions provides a solid future for a deliberative democracy! 

 

IV. Chapter Nine: Educating Adults:

 

On p. 148  Gutmann contends that a substantial minority of American citizens are not educated to exercise the rights and fulfill the responsibilities citizenship.”  In short, then, educating adults for democratic citizenship is essential! 

 

Adults and Democratic Culture, Democratic Perfectionism, Influence Over Culture, Access to Culture, and Cultural Freedom:

 

256-263 Gutmann begins this discussion by advocating for public funding for cultural education for adults as long as it is democratically approved (260).  Here she focuses on what might be called high culture (especially the arts).  She considers views of Rousseau, Rawls (and many others who believe such support is unwarranted and that taxation for such purposes is unwarranted) contending that

 

262 a democratic justification for subsidizing culture does not undercut the urgency of providing for the basic needs of citizens, but neither does the urgency of providing for basic needs undercut a democratic justification for subsidizing culture…. 

 

263 like all humanly designed tests, the market only partially measures what matters to us. 

  Democratic debate and deliberation are a different test, also a partial and imperfect one, of whether cultural institutions should be supported.  Because democratic processes ideally complement rather than compete with the market, the standards of value employed within democratic deliberations need not and preferably should not be market standards. 

 

She goes on to contend (263-267) that public support of culture must be constrained by the nondiscrimination and nonrepression constraints.  While she makes a good case, I believe her conception of “culture” may constrain her discussion here.  Her argument can easily be turned to public support of the “sports,” “recreational,” and “parks” cultures.  Unless she can make a particular case that education in the arts is uniquely supportive of democratic citizenship and virtues, the discussion here must the diversity of cultural conceptions in a pluralistic society. 

 

Adults and Primary and Higher Education Illiteracy:

 

270-281 Gutmann next considers the importance of supporting adults who wish to pursue higher education. 

 

217-273 She believes they present no particular problem regarding either public support or control over the earlier discussion of higher education except for the costs associated with extending higher education.  She also draws attention to private, corporate, union, and civilly supported adult educational programs. 

 

273-2 Illiteracy in adults presents a more important problem for democracy however.  Available programs (jointly financed by federal, state, and local sources) have limited success, and suffer from significant attendance and drop-out problems.  Moreover, it seems, at least at first glance, to be inappropriate to suggest compulsory democratic education for such adults.  So she begins her discussion of adult democratic literacy by trying to characterize its core elements:

 

276-277 (1) understanding the help-wanted ads in a local newspaper;

(2) knowing how to fill out a check and address an envelope;

(3) completing sixth grade;

(4) understanding a brief passage describing the function of the Supreme Court;

(5) giving a reasonable interpretation of any section of one’s state constitution. 

 

277 She notes, however, that “…90 percent of seventeen-year-olds can read and describe a help-wanted ad in the newspaper, but less than 60 percent are able to understand a brief passage describing the role of the Supreme Court.  Unless we radically narrow our ideal of democratic citizenship—to include only he ability to get a job and not the ability to participate effectively in democratic politics—we cannot count the first three accomplishments, or any longer list of similarly economically oriented accomplishments, a sufficient measure of functional [democratic] literacy.” 

 

Remember that Gutmann said that our compulsory primary education fails to provide functional democratic literacy, though it clearly provides functional economic literacy (147-148).  She contended that it is necessary for democracy that primary education provide future democratic citizens with the former not just the latter.  However, here (278-279) she notes that many capable citizens do not seem to be able to meet conditions (4) and (5).  She also contends that adults who cannot read or write can stay informed and be politically active.  She concludes this speaks against the wisdom of trying to come up with a simple characterization of the necessary and sufficient characteristics of a democratic education:

 

279 democracy is educationally demanding, but its first and foremost demand is that adults be treated as sovereign citizens not a students of philosophers or the subjects of kings.  This is why we encounter no paradox, only a serious problem, when we acknowledge that democratic states have the authority to make schooling compulsory for children but not for adults who fall below the democratic threshold of education.  Since the threshold defines not a fully but an adequately educated citizen, this constraint on democratic authority may leave many adults less that adequately educated.  A stricter constraint—mandating the maxim education—is ruled out by our recognition of the primacy of treating adults as sovereign citizens. 

 

279-281 While illiteracy amongst adults can lead them into dependency and humiliation, compulsory education for adults is not justified.  Of course, voluntary publicly (and privately) supported adult educational opportunities are both appropriate and advisable. 

 

In our final two classes we will finish what we haven’t covered in this class , turn to her Conclusion: The Primacy of Political Education, and address some problems with her theory. 

 

V. Material Not covered in Our Class—Chapters Seven: Distributing Higher Education, and Eight: Extramural Education:

 

A. Chapter Seven: Distributing Higher Education:

 

Nondiscrimination:

 

195 [footnote] ...Justice Frankfurter’s often-quoted summary of the “four essential freedoms” of universities in Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 US 234 at 263: “It is the business of a university to provide that atmosphere which is most conducive to speculation, experiment and creation.  It is an atmosphere in which there prevail ‘the four essential freedoms’ of a university—to determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study.” 

 

Of course, the nondiscrimination principle applies to university admissions, but relevant qualifications and equal consideration are important factors in admissions. 

 

197-202 Academic ability is important, but ability to contribute to the academic life of the community is almost equal importance.  Here creativity, perseverance, emotional maturity, aesthetic sensibility motivation to learn, interest in improving the community (both the institution and the larger one), leadership ability, and capacity to work well with others are all important factors to consider in admitting students (and others) into the university community.  In addition artistic, economic, racial, sexual, and cultural factors are relevant in constituting such a community. 

 

202-203 Test scores and grade records can not reflect well these factors.  Thus, she maintains, while academic qualifications are the primary factor, many of these other factors are ones which universities may properly consider. 

 

203-204 As these factors are being weighted and evaluated it is important that “(203) “…similar cases be treated similarly.” 

 

Racial Discrimination:

 

204-218 Gutmann addresses discrimination for and against blacks, and use of quotas:

 

204-207 First she considers fundamentalist colleges which might discriminate against black students because of Biblical commands.  Mentioning Catholic institutions which might discriminate against non-Catholic students, and women’s colleges which discriminate against male students, she concludes that a “purely” racial discrimination against black students violates the non-discrimination principle. 

 

207-211 She considers two hypothetical cases where admissions places are “set aside for racial minorities:”

 

210 Why, then, is there so much public resistance to preferential admissions…for blacks?  The simplest, and I think strongest, explanation is historical: we have learned from our history to be suspicious of racial classifications because they have been used almost exclusively to subvert rather than to support democratic justice. 

 

210-211 This danger I mitigate by (a) making preferential treatment the result of a series of autonomous decisions by universities rather than of centrally imposed governmental policy, and (b) requiring the procedures of all universities to satisfy the standards of nondiscrimination.  This would mean that every year, the admissions committees of every university would have to defend their preferences not only for blacks but also for alumni children, athletes, and farm boy from Kansas above otherwise more qualified applicants.  It also means that as our society becomes more egalitarian and the experience of being black becomes less relevant to the educational and social purposes of universities, the case that members of admissions committees make for preferring black applicants over more academically qualified white applicants will become weaker. 

 

211-218 Finally she discusses admissions quotas.  I will skip over this discussion. 

 

Compensatory College Education:

 

218-222 Gutmann notes that “many students today suffer, through no fault of their own, from a sorely inadequate primary education.”  221 Gutmann contends that if a university admitted such students into a remedial program which raised their education that qualified them for regular admissions such a policy would not be inappropriate. 

 

Funding Higher Education:

 

222-222 Given the expense of providing a higher education, universities may discriminate amongst qualified applicants according to their ability to pay for the education, though they may also subsidize expenses for qualified admitted students.  But it is rare a university could provide scholarships or all admitted students. 

 

222-231 Gutmann notes that in the case of public universities, governments could do more to improve access for students at public universities—and that it is even more permissible for them to provide subsidies for economically disadvantaged students’ costs.  However, her discussion draws attention to distinguishing the “economic costs and benefits” of higher education from the “democratic benefits” of such education.  This leads her to:

 

230 consider the question of the extent to which democratic governments should subsidize private along with –or instead of—public universities.  To answer this question, we must consider whether a purely public, a purely private, or a mixed system of universities would best serve the democratic purposes of higher education.  If—as it appears to be the case, at least in this country—private universities are better able to resist political sources of repression…while public universities are better able to resist private sources of discrimination, such as resistance by trustees and alumni to admitting qualified Jews, blacks, and women, then democratic governments have good reason to support a mixed system of higher education, where both private and public universities flourish….A principled pluralism in higher education depends on respecting the autonomy of private and public universities if but only if they serve their democratic purposes.  Although higher education is not a necessary good for every citizen in our society, it is still necessary that it be distributed in a nondiscriminatory manner. 

  A democratic policy of funding universities cannot rest solely—or even primarily—on a calculation of the economic costs and benefits of higher education…. 

 

Of course, significant education for democracy can occur outside both the schools and the families, and, as in the schools, questions of funding and governance arise.  In the next Chapter Gutmann discusses possible sources of democratic education and of “democratic culture” which lie outside families and schools.  I believe these discussions are too limited and recognize they are unsatisfactory, but praise her attempt to discuss three areas which many philosophies of education largely neglect.  In what follows below I highlight the core elements of her treatment, but we don’t have time to cover all this this material in this short term. 

 

B. Chapter Eight Extramural Education:

 

Here she discusses the educational roles played by Libraries, Television and New Technologies. 

 

232-238 Libraries:

 

Gutmann discusses public libraries contending that the importance of public libraries seems settled, but funding and governance need to be democratically determined:

 

238 without access to public libraries, parents must raise their children in a culture that treats books as any other commodity, and children must depend on the purchases of their parents.  A community that funds public libraries constrains its citizens in a different way.  Although no one is forced to use a library, citizens are forced to pay for them and to live in a society where children have easier access than they otherwise would to books that some parents may find objectionable.  The choice between communities must by its very nature be made collectively. 

 

Her discussion here is too limited, and given the role libraries provide for citizens of all ages, it needs to be more fulsome.  Given what she has said about the funding and governance of schools, however, we can infer that her principles of equality of opportunity to use libraries, tolerance, and “academic freedom,” should inform democratic decisions regarding governance and funding of public libraries.  She talks exclusively of books, but as we well know libraries provide story times, activities, study areas, internet access, and so much more. 

 

Television and Democratic Education & Culture:

 

Whereas libraries are local and can have significant positive benefits for democratic education and the promotion of democratic culture, Gutmann’s discussion of television’s role in and democratic education and in promoting democratic culture (pp. 238-251) notes that while its reach is much broader, it is far less beneficial.  First, public support for educational programming is more contentious both in terms of it funding and governance.  Moreover, much of television is passive and geared toward entertainment—it is difficult for the medium to promote critical thought or interaction with others.  She does note that programs like Sesame Street are of high educational value, but while governments may attempt to encourage educational offerings by licensing requirements, the move toward deregulation makes this an increasingly unlikely tactic. 

 

Thus her discussion of the role television can play in promoting democratic education and culture strongly parallels her discussion of the democratic education in the primary schools.  In both arenas the focus is not on democracy (in schools on training for employment and in television on entertainment):

 

246 television is as closely tied to democratic culture as schooling is to democratic education.  The analogy…properly suggests that among cultural media, television is uniquely powerful ad pervasive in our society.  It is probably the most influential, it is certainly the most universal culture to which children are exposed.  Because television shapes and conveys popular culture, it should be primarily publicly rather than privately controlled.  Like public authority over schools, public authority over television should be constrained by society as not to be repressive. 

 

She suggests that the British sort of mix of significant public and private television is a superior model for promoting democratic culture, but her discussion on pp. 247-251 does not provide a model for developing this in the case of programming for children (or for adults).  While we can see why she advocates public control, it is harder to believe it could readily be implemented, and in the current climate it does not seem to be without danger for the promotion of either democratic education or the enhancement of democratic culture. 

 

252-255 New Technology:

 

Here her discussion is clearly dated.  She discusses cable television, but is unable to successfully contend for either public funding or control of that medium.  In light of the fact that now the cable networks are “old” technology, it is clearly apparent that the newer ones (streaming TV, websites, information platforms, file sharing services, etc.) are even less subject to public control. 

 

C. I will also be unable to cover her Epilogue. 

 

I greatly appreciate comments and corrections.  

 

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Last revised on 03/06/26