The Volokh Conspiracy - Finnish Government Trying to Suppress Private Schooling?

Maybe I'm missing some important context here (for instance, may private schools function without a license?), but this seems quite troubling:

In its Thursday session the [Finnish] government decided to deny licenses for new private schools, as well as to turn down applications for the expansion of the activities of existing schools. . . .

Minister of Education Antti Kalliomäki (soc dem) said in a statement Thursday that it was not the function of schools to proclaim one single truth, religious or otherwise. "One school teaching according to the convictions of some and a second school teaching according to the convictions of others is not real pluralism." Mr Kalliomäki previously proposed also denying extensions to fixed-term licenses held by existing private schools. . . .

It's dangerous enough when state and local governments have a de facto near monopoly over primary and secondary education, as they do in the U.S. But at least here private schools are legal, though they labor under a stiff competitive disadvantage against the government-subsidized public schools; and even public schools are mostly controlled at the state level and the local level, not at the federal level. When a government actually prohibits private schools (which would be unconstitutional in the U.S., incidentally), or prohibits new private schools, that seems much more troublesome. And if the Finnish government's control over the schools is centralized (a matter that I'm not sure about) rather than mostly decentralized, that would be more troubling still.

The "not the function of schools to proclaim one single truth" argument also strikes me as weak to the point of disingenuousness. I will bet you that government-run Finnish schools, like all government-run schools and likely all schools, period, do proclaim one single truth on certain matters.

Sometimes that's uncontroversially right -- few schools, I suspect, even discuss the flat earth theory (at least in geology class). Sometimes it's controversial, but also right: While I think that at least private schools should be entitled to teach creationism (I set aside for purposes of this post whether the U.S. Establishment Clause bars government-run schools from doing the same), surely a school should be entitled to say that it will teach just the theories that it thinks are scientifically sound. (Perhaps in some situations it would be good to spend some time discussing rival theories, but that's a complicated decision, and schools should certainly be free to decide otherwise.) And sometimes the decision is subject to very serious political and ideological dispute, and far from clearly correct, but I suspect inevitable in any country: I'm pretty certain that Finnish government-run schools do proclaim a single truth on many historical, ethical, and other matters.

Finally, I recognize that many people support government-run schools precisely because they do teach an orthodoxy, an orthodoxy that one hopes will create better future citizens, and a more cohesive society. But my view is that the benefits of such government-imposed teaching of orthodoxy are considerably outweighed by the risks.

By the way, just to head off one possible source of speculation: As best I can tell from The CIA World Factbook, the move seems quite unlikely to stem from concerns about the presence of large and potentially dangerous unassimilated ethnic or religious minorities. The Factbook reports Finland's demographics as "Finn 93.4%, Swede 5.7%, Russian 0.4%, Estonian 0.2%, Roma 0.2%, Sami 0.1%," "Lutheran National Church 84.2%, Greek Orthodox in Finland 1.1%, other Christian 1.1%, other 0.1%, none 13.5%," and (as to language) "Finnish 92% (official), Swedish 5.6% (official), other 2.4% (small Sami- and Russian-speaking minorities)." The Swedes have been part of Finnish life for centuries, and while one should always be scared of us Russkies, I doubt that we're causing the Finns that much trouble these days . . . .

	[Eugene Volokh, February 10, 2006 at 1:11pm] Trackbacks Finnish Government Trying to Suppress Private Schooling? Maybe I'm missing some important context here (for instance, may private schools function without a license?), but this seems quite troubling: In its Thursday session the [Finnish] government decided to deny licenses for new private schools, as well as to turn down applications for the expansion of the activities of existing schools. . . . Minister of Education Antti Kalliomäki (soc dem) said in a statement Thursday that it was not the function of schools to proclaim one single truth, religious or otherwise. "One school teaching according to the convictions of some and a second school teaching according to the convictions of others is not real pluralism." Mr Kalliomäki previously proposed also denying extensions to fixed-term licenses held by existing private schools. . . . It's dangerous enough when state and local governments have a de facto near monopoly over primary and secondary education, as they do in the U.S. But at least here private schools are legal, though they labor under a stiff competitive disadvantage against the government-subsidized public schools; and even public schools are mostly controlled at the state level and the local level, not at the federal level. When a government actually prohibits private schools (which would be unconstitutional in the U.S., incidentally), or prohibits new private schools, that seems much more troublesome. And if the Finnish government's control over the schools is centralized (a matter that I'm not sure about) rather than mostly decentralized, that would be more troubling still. The "not the function of schools to proclaim one single truth" argument also strikes me as weak to the point of disingenuousness. I will bet you that government-run Finnish schools, like all government-run schools and likely all schools, period, do proclaim one single truth on certain matters. Sometimes that's uncontroversially right -- few schools, I suspect, even discuss the flat earth theory (at least in geology class). Sometimes it's controversial, but also right: While I think that at least private schools should be entitled to teach creationism (I set aside for purposes of this post whether the U.S. Establishment Clause bars government-run schools from doing the same), surely a school should be entitled to say that it will teach just the theories that it thinks are scientifically sound. (Perhaps in some situations it would be good to spend some time discussing rival theories, but that's a complicated decision, and schools should certainly be free to decide otherwise.) And sometimes the decision is subject to very serious political and ideological dispute, and far from clearly correct, but I suspect inevitable in any country: I'm pretty certain that Finnish government-run schools do proclaim a single truth on many historical, ethical, and other matters. Finally, I recognize that many people support government-run schools precisely because they do teach an orthodoxy, an orthodoxy that one hopes will create better future citizens, and a more cohesive society. But my view is that the benefits of such government-imposed teaching of orthodoxy are considerably outweighed by the risks. By the way, just to head off one possible source of speculation: As best I can tell from The CIA World Factbook, the move seems quite unlikely to stem from concerns about the presence of large and potentially dangerous unassimilated ethnic or religious minorities. The Factbook reports Finland's demographics as "Finn 93.4%, Swede 5.7%, Russian 0.4%, Estonian 0.2%, Roma 0.2%, Sami 0.1%," "Lutheran National Church 84.2%, Greek Orthodox in Finland 1.1%, other Christian 1.1%, other 0.1%, none 13.5%," and (as to language) "Finnish 92% (official), Swedish 5.6% (official), other 2.4% (small Sami- and Russian-speaking minorities)." The Swedes have been part of Finnish life for centuries, and while one should always be scared of us Russkies, I doubt that we're causing the Finns that much trouble these days . . . .