The focus of
this month’s post is to identify attributes that makes a public school
“public.” In this regard, funding, governance, accountability, and access will
be discussed. Certainly such a
discussion needs to respect the history
of public education. However, this
paper is grounded in the perspective that it is essential to recognize the historical
service of public education to understand how public education has been
continuously evolving and must continue to do so in the future to satisfy its
primary purpose.
The
main purpose of public education in the United States has consistently been to
develop an informed populace. Jefferson
(1786) wrote, "Above all things I hope the education of the common
people will be attended to, convinced that on their good sense we may rely with
the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty." Despite this desire communicated by a
Founding Father, the United States Constitution does not guarantee the
right to an education, rather, through the Tenth
Amendment such powers were delegated to the States. It was not until 1918 that every State had
enacted compulsory education laws (Swift, 1923). The result of compulsory
education has been public funding for public education.
Although public funds are typically
understood to be taxes, different states use taxes differently to pay for its
schools. Many States use its state
income tax as a primary source for funding its public schools while other States
use property taxes, which have been shown to create the greatest disparity between
districts and even other States (Kozol, 2005).
While taxes continue to be the most common form of revenue for funding
public education, another popular revenue source has been state
lotteries. While lotteries are not
taxes, their use raises the question of the ethics of a culture using gambling
as a revenue stream to pay for its public education. Furthermore, Pierce
and Miller (2004) found education spending initially gets a significant bump
from a state lottery but beyond the first year, the rate of increase on
education spending actually tends to slow to the point that after the seventh
or eighth year less money is spent on education than would have been spent if
the state didn't have a lottery at all. Federal funds for public
education, which come from federal income taxes or deficit spending, have also
become a significant source of revenue for public schools. Until 1979, the local contribution to public
education primarily from local taxes exceeded the State’s share. Currently State and Federal funding accounts
for nearly 60% of the overall revenue provided to public schools. In terms of local control, there is a
definite cost associated to these funding streams.
Local control has
long been a desired element of public education. During the last half of the twentieth
century, local school districts increasingly yielded policy-making discretion
to State legislatures and State Education Agencies. As a result of increased State funding
related to following State mandates for promoting equity while improving
student proficiency and teacher performance; local control over funding and
curricular content has diminished as local districts needed to promote the
State’s standards. Kirst (1988) cited
evidence suggesting most significant reform occurs when individual schools are
given more responsibility, rather than less.
This can certainly be evidenced through successful reform efforts linked
to the movement toward school-based management.
As a result of the adoption of school based management to promote
educational reform, the power related to the governance of a specific public
school has shifted. For the most part, in
these instances the power of the elected or appointed school board has been
reduced to hiring the district’s superintendent and developing the district’s
public school budget. Related to school administrators,
state education agency officers, elected or appointed members of the local board
of education, teachers and teacher unions, parents, and the students themselves,
Marburger (1978) identified three primary concerns of these stakeholder or
decision-making groups that involve their diverse roles, consolidation of power,
and ability to enact change. Marburger
advocated for improved parental empowerment through an elected council of
parents and citizens being established in each individual school or
collectively within any district with more than one-thousand students. Historically, attempts to improve public
education have been difficult because of the need to build consensus. Tamir (2011) believes efforts in this regard
“are met by the unspoken though persistent resentment of those who fear the
transformative power of education and would like to preserve the present social
order” (p. 395). As Tamir notes, this is
true of emerging global democracies as well as the United States. Certainly this would be more problematic for schools
involving many low socio-economic families relying upon legislators from
wealthier districts. Assuring parents
are empowered at the local school level can restore the element of local
control and accountability that was lost when the State Education Agencies
demanded adherence to their standards based curriculum and accountability
system. Although increasing parent
involvement and school based management will bring accountability closer to
home, these reform efforts alone will not improve student outcomes.
Starting with A Nation at Risk (1983) through the latest reauthorization of
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, PL 98-10) now known as the No Child Left Behind Act
(2001), the effectiveness of public schools has been politicized as education
reform was predicated on the call to fix a broken system. Although most urban cities have their high
school gems, such as Stuyvesant High School in New York City or Boston Latin
High School in Boston Massachusetts, the academic and funding disparity between
the non-elite urban public high schools and wealthy suburbs makes any
discussion of closing the achievement gap laughable.
Whereas Brown versus the
Topeka Board of Education and The
Education for All Handicapped Children Act (PL 94-142) were landmark achievements in public
education allowing public schools to become accessible to all students
regardless of race or (dis)ability, the pervasive lack of equity in quality
makes accessibility only physical in nature.
True accountability needs to ensure accessibility to equity in quality (EDA
805, Module 1 Lecture). The common
factor in both the Brown case and PL-94-142 is civil rights.
An
essential mandate of PL 94-142, since reauthorized as the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA, 2004),
is the requirement for the provision of a free and appropriate public education
(FAPE). Just as when trying to determine the
“appropriateness” of a placement for a student with a disability so too is it
essential to consider the appropriateness of placement of any student in a
public school that has demonstrated failure to adequately educate its student
population. Public education does not
merely mean access to a school funded by public dollars or governed by an
elected or appointed school board.
Effective public education entails providing access to an educational
institution that is responsible for serving the needs of the community and the
students it serves. Given the diversity
of these United States of America, choices for a public education must also become
diverse while being grounded in equity in quality.
As
public education options continue to diversify as quickly as its student
populations, schooling alternatives will emerge along with new approaches to
government funding and oversight (Hill & Johnston, 2010). It is forecast
that a large percentage of future students could attend schools very
differently than evidenced by the current dominant model, whereby students and
career teachers are in contact throughout the day and in which teachers are
fully responsible for all aspects of the learning process ranging from
teaching, remediating, enriching, and assessing the students’ current
proficiencies and then correcting deficiencies as needed. Up to half of the students that will receive
education in alternate schools will have their education paid for with government
funds (Hill & Johnston, 2010).
Alternatives to the current model of public education will be a result
of four factors: expansion of technology, changes in the United States economy,
innovations in the public sector-especially large urban districts, and the
increased commitment to more stringent national standards. These four factors will offset the reluctance
to change that is driven by historical perspectives involving local control of funding, governance, accountability, and
access. It is predicted that three
alternate forms of schooling: virtual schools, hybrid schools, and broker
schools, will become sufficiently common as to be perceived by both teachers
and parents as “normal” (Hill & Johnston, 2010, p. 44). Since hybrid schools and broker schools are
usually based on a charter, these models can already be seen in growing numbers
under the category known as Charter
Schools!
References
Casteen, J.T. (1995) UVA: The president’s report.
http://www.virginia.edu/president/presidentsreports/95/cover3.shtml
Davis Jr., O. L. (2004). Now Is The
Time For Americans To Listen and To Talk Straight About
Schooling.
Journal of Curriculum & Supervision. pp. 1-4.
Hill,
P. & Johnston, M. (2010) In the Future, Diverse Approaches to Schooling. Phi
Delta
Kappan, 92(3), 43-47.
Kozol,
J. (2005). The Shame of the Nation. Random
House
Pierce, P.A and Miller, D.E. (2004) Gambling Politics: State Government and
the Business of
Betting Lynne Rienner Publishing.
Tamir, Y. (2011). Staying In
Control; Or, What Do We Really Want Public Education To
Achieve?.
Educational Theory, 61(4), 395-411. doi:10.1111/j.1741-5446.2011.00411.x
