Education is, of course, in part a matter of schools and colleges and the formal information systems. That’s true whether the goal of education is education for freedom and democracy, as Dewey advocated, or education for obedience and subordination and marginalization, as the dominant institutions require. The University of Chicago sociologist James Coleman, one of the main students of education and effects of experience on children’s lives, concludes from many studies that the total effect of home background is considerably greater than the total effect of school variables in determining student achievement. So it’s therefore important to have a look at how social policy and the dominant culture are shaping these factors, home influences and so on.

— from the chapter “Democracy and Education,” in Chomsky on MisEducation by Noam Chomsky, edited with introduction by Donaldo Macedo.