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Here's how a major presidential commission stated the objectives of public education more than 20 years ago:
From its roots in the early 19th century, there has been a guiding vision of the great benefit, to individuals and to American society, to be derived from universal public education. From the 1830s through the Second World War much of this country saw the rise of a great industrial economy, accompanied by massive immigration. Educating the rapidly growing working class--at least to a level of basic literacy and facility with arithmetic--provided useful employees for industry. At the same time, education afforded the immigrants access to this burgeoning society. But not in the South. For blacks, slavery was followed by relentless repression. After a brief window of enlightenment early in Reconstruction, those in power in an aristocratic, agrarian society were grudging in providing education for blacks (and poor whites)--education was seen as a danger to the status quo. Industrialization in the South through the 1950s, with textile mills and furniture factories, saw the continuation of a powerful, white, elite and an oppressed underclass, white and black. The U.S. Supreme Court, in the Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education decision of 1954 set off a tumultuous decade of attention to the public schools and made politically acceptable the notion of federal concern in what had been a matter for each state. Intervention in the structure of schools to help blacks evolved into a focus on instruction as well. By the 1970s it was apparent that there were profound problems in the public schools, particularly in urban areas. The presidential inquiry quoted above was the beginning of serious attempts at reform and improvement. It is now twenty years later and the public schools continue to be the focus of criticism for poor outcomes. There is widespread pressure for further reform of instruction, and for new approaches in school organization. There are learning problems and behavior problems in the public schools, nationwide:
And school systems are failing, with
In this article I will outline some of the issues in public education as I see them. Notes and references for information in the main text follow the article, for greater ease of reading. Some of these issues are not highly relevant in the Charlottesville and Albemarle area. A further article will focus on where we share these problems and where we do not, and try to figure out why. Fairness and equality of opportunity If American society is truly egalitarian, public education should be a part of the larger effort for the society to be inclusive. If we are indeed committed to social justice, then public education must be part of the effort to redress past inequity. The purpose of public education, in this egalitarian view, is:
This ideal of public education serves the larger American ideal of equality of opportunity
Who is public education failing? Public education has always been a social experiment. The attempt to use schooling to redress economic disparity began with Jefferson, and continues, among many efforts, with Head Start and with affirmative action programs. For over 40 years, there have been attempts to provide fairer access to education. As Rod Paige, the recent U.S. Secretary of Education put it at the 2004 Education Summit, "education is the road out of poverty and oppression." There is a large gap in achievement between black (and brown) students and whites. The poorest-performing students and those most likely to turn off or disrupt or drop-out, are African-American and Hispanic, particularly boys. These poor outcomes clearly reflect deeper issues in society, of poverty and low expectations. Factors outside the classroom which make it difficult for the schools to be effective include
The public schools are also called on to accommodate and educate children of immigrant families with limited English and a different culture, while maintaining the sense of self worth that comes from their cultural heritage. There are other groups of students whose educational needs will not be met in a homogenizing regime:
Because these kids will not thrive in a standard classroom, most school systems strive to provide enrichment for the gifted and separate facilities for the very slow or disruptive. It is considered to be unfair to the gifted to be held down by a curriculum geared to the average. And unfair to the general population of students to be held hostage by the others. Providing these special services takes resources away from the main educational effort. Resources--money, facilities and highly qualified teachers--are in limited supply. The diversion of resources means there is less available for the main group of students. There is a chorus of complaint about the poor product of public education from the business community. Large sums are wasted on the search for competent employees, and further large sums spent on remediation or functional education that could have taken place before people hit the labor market. The complaints will increase as the workplace continues to require more people with more education, and people educated not just in specific skills but in how to learn. Equality of Opportunity and Equality of Outcomes In his 1961 story "Harrison Bergeron," Kurt Vonnegut Jr. makes serious fun of the notion of Americans all being equal by reducing the notion of equality to an absurdity. Diana Moon Glampers, the 'Handicapper General of the United States,' oversees the imposition of penalties--disfiguring masks for the beautiful, headphones blaring distractions into the ears of the bright, weights to hobble the strong or graceful--so that all in society are brought to a low, common level of functioning. The story conflates equality of outcomes with equality of opportunity. In the story, it is easy to see how unfair are the artificial limitations of that fictional society. Are not discrimination, poverty and failed families artificial limitations on the possibility of achievement for many children as well? The "Nation at Risk" report speaks of 'a fair chance,' which is not entirely a call for equality of opportunity, but it is a lick and a promise in that direction. Attempting to level the playing field, to offer a fair chance to everyone whether at pre-kindergarten or in graduate schools, means that if opportunity is enhanced for some through society's intervention, others will have less opportunity than they might otherwise have had. While few question the earnest good intentions of Head Start, preferences for the economically disadvantaged at higher educational levels (affirmative action) have become the subject of litigation and intense debate. There have been some state-level attempts at equalization. For example, there have been proposals that all property taxes be paid to the state instead of the locality, and then distributed equitably among the districts. Nowhere has this kind of legislation got very far. There have been howls of indignation. Wealthy suburbs willing to provide a high level of funding for education mightily resent the notion of lowering their standards--and people who live in these districts have much more political clout than do the poor. Coming to grips with 'No Child Left Behind' Those who see the problem of public education as a need to provide increased equality of opportunity want money to be spent for that end. Those who see the problem as a need to provide better outcomes, want standards and testing. The reauthorization in 2001 of Title I of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary
Education Act is known as "No Child Left Behind." This provides
federal funds to schools with a high proportion of children who live in
poverty. NCLB adds highly specific criteria for assessment of schools' performance
in educating and graduating their students to the general qualifications
for funding. Although all public schools are required to meet the federal
No Child Left Behind requires each state to implement a uniform testing regime. In the 1990s, Virginia instituted statewide academic testing to set uniform Standards of Learning (SOLs) for many academic subjects, and this qualifies for reporting to the U.S. Department of Education to comply with NCLB. NCLB has already had a very positive impact by requiring disaggregation of test results--scrutiny of results not just for the whole group, but of sub-groups by sex and ethnicity. This is intended to force school districts to put resources where they will have the greatest impact on the overall result--to have not just the fewest kids failing, but the fewest kids within each segment failing. If schools fall behind NCLB requirements, the penalties imposed require the redistribution of resources by the local school division. Resources required to be put into the failing school means less for others in the division. Title I funds have been increased in recent years but there is much debate over the adequacy of the funding. There are already some school districts opting out of Title I rather than comply with what they see as excessively restrictive requirements. Within a group of students there will be a range of abilities. Some will find the course work easy, some will find it difficult, and some will find it just about impossible. Schools' emphasis, in the world of SOLs and NCLB, is to focus intensely on the group just below the line, in order to maximize the number of kids passing. "Teaching to the test" to improve results for just these kids, will inevitably limit the range of subject matter in course work. A justification for standards and testing is that it can pinpoint the needs of individual students for remediation. But this does not require the framework of statewide tests, or the attendant high stakes for the schools. David Berliner is a professor at the School of Education of Arizona State University and a leading advocate for improved public education--and against high-stakes testing. In a recent talk at the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education he laid down the marker: "What we need is not more accountability if it's one-way. What we need is two-way accountability. Sure, schools have to be accountable to the community, but so does the community have to be accountable to the schools…. [For instance] if a kid misses 15 days in one semester because of asthma, and does poorly on the test, that's not an educational issue, that's a community health issue…. Transportation, social services … [what we need is] strong communities and strong families." Unintended consequences of NCLB The issue of school dropouts is a major factor in assessing the effectiveness and impact of NCLB. In Richmond last June, leaders of grassroots organizations concerned with youth and education called attention to truly startling dropout numbers. "Four years ago there were more than 95,000 high school freshman in Virginia," said Debra Grant from Virginia Beach. "Now there are less than 70,000 seniors getting diplomas this month. … If [as the state is reporting] 4,500 of this year's seniors aren't graduating, where are the other 20,000 children?" It is the contention of these groups that there is a strong racial component within these numbers--blacks drop out of school in a much higher proportion than whites--and that school districts throughout Virginia (and the nation) are extremely disingenuous in their reporting. Under guidelines from the Department of Education intended to assist the states in complying and reporting, the dropout reports need not break out numbers by race, so the overall numbers do not reflect the true situation for each group. The stakes in passing the NCLB senior-year high school tests are agonizingly high--despite all other academic achievement, fail the test and you don't graduate. Professor Berliner makes a strong case against high-stakes testing. Not only does it massively disrupt the curriculum and undermine good teaching, in his view, it inevitably corrupts the system. He points to reports of states "gaming the system" by under-reporting the poor results and over-reporting the good. One example he gives was uncovered in Texas. Students sitting for the tests must report their race, for the disaggregation mentioned above. Some check "Other," since they do not think of themselves as being in any of the available categories (Tiger Woods would check "Other," I believe). In Texas, Other kids with good test results were simply reclassified "African American," thereby improving the statistics and helping the school systems avoid penalties. And a Lehrer Newshour report explains how high school guidance counselors in Florida are steering low-performing kids out of the classroom and into GED programs--where they are not counted as part of the cohort for NCLB reporting. (A further scandal revealed in the report is that no attempt is made to follow these kids, and see if they actual pass the GED at any point.) School systems in Virginia as elsewhere, under NCLB, are under great pressure to produce results. They face the shifting of funds away from the main body of students; they face being labeled as, essentially, 'failing;' and they face additional scrutiny from the localities that fund them. To avoid unpleasant consequences, schools need to have at least a set percentage of each student demographic passing standard tests. If low-achievers drop out before sitting for the tests, the numbers will improve with nothing else having been done. Public Schools must take all comers School attendance is compulsory, so public schools must take everyone not enrolled elsewhere and figure out what to do with them. Lots of students--most students, one hopes--of all races and social classes, do get a good education and go on to become happy, productive members of society. The cognitively or developmentally slow, the dyslexic and those with behavioral problems are all accommodated. The bright and artistic are offered enrichment and challenging Advanced Placement courses. A puzzling question is, if kids in the U.S. (we are told) do not look especially good compared with the rest of the developed world in test results in math and science (and have not for many years), how come the U.S. has shown consistent growth and leadership in developing new technologies? One clue, explains Professor Berliner, is that the results in the U.S. show a much wider dispersal of results than in other industrial democracies. That is, the overall test results conceal the fact that while there is a high-achieving cohort at the top of the heap, there are an awful lot of people in this country who are profoundly ill-educated. Other industrial democracies have a much more compact distribution of results. Why do some families send their children to private schools? The upper social class in this country has always sent its children to boarding or private day schools. The public schools, well into the middle of the twentieth century, were seen as functional--to provide a basic education for people who would not need much more of one, to work in mills and factories. Prep schools (primarily in the northeast) turned out the professional, business and government leaders. People with the means pay local property taxes as well as state and federal taxes to support the public schools and then pay large tuitions for private schooling--and provide transportation as well, for day students. If public education suits an American ideal, why do so many people send their kids elsewhere? It is not hypocrisy but pragmatism, if the problems in the public schools are so profound. The thought often expressed is, 'I know that if all of us sent our children and put our money into public schools, things would be better in the long run--but my child cannot wait for the long run.' Private schools are perceived to offer
And there is fear,
The skimming of the student population, putting the children of privilege in private schools, makes the public schools less economically diverse. And it takes a group of interested and influential families away from public education and the wider community. Private schools achieve 'diversity,' often, by attracting (recruiting, offering financial aid) African-American and Hispanic students who would otherwise be in the public schools. The students to whom they reach out are those with academic gifts and high potential (and some for athletic ability). So the loss of these students depresses overall outcomes for their cohort in the public schools, and raises outcomes for the private schools. Who benefits from the present distress in the public schools? The poor reputation of the public schools is ammunition for:
An article in The Progressive earlier this year by education writer Barbara Miner explains why, in her view, strategies to privatize education fit a conservative political agenda: a) Education is a multibillion dollar market, and the private sector
is eager to get its hands on those dollars. In some localities where it has been on the ballot, advocates of school
choice have run advertising campaigns specifically targeting blacks--one
compares voucher opponents to Gov. Wallace of Alabama 40 years ago, blocking
access to good schools. Who benefits from public education as it is today, and will benefit more if public schools improve? (Ninety-one percent of school-age kids in the U.S. are in public schools.)
Sadly, the dream of a great society, fair and with opportunity equal for all, is not much discussed these days, and seems farther off today than it did 40 years ago. So, is it about money?
Public schools arose sporadically in neighborhoods and communities, and were paid for by local property taxes--we have always been willing to tax ourselves for the benefit of our own children. Control of schools and the funding of their budgets are still largely local, which means that, most of the time, poor communities with fewer resources will have poorer schools. The federal government did not get involved until 1954, with the Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Topeka Board of Ed. Following this, through the mid-60s, inequities were given widespread public attention. This has given rise to forty years of increasing federal participation--the creation of a cabinet-level Department of Education, interest groups to lobby it, and the redistribution of federal taxes back to the states for use in the schools. There is disagreement as to whether, in a school district with adequate resources but poor academic performance, more money is the answer. But there is no question that there are many schools and districts that desperately need money to be brought up to anything like 'adequate.' Will more money for the schools bring more and better teachers? Most educated people, on starting out in life, select career paths that they hope will provide personal satisfaction and adequate compensation. Teaching pays less than other professions that require the same level of preparation. And idealists entering the profession often leave within a few years, having been disabused of the notion of being socially useful. Turnover among teachers with less than five years experience has been estimated, nationwide, at close to 50% overall, with many leaving the profession. Writes Charlottesville City Council member Kendra Hamilton, "Teachers, teachers, teachers--they are the forgotten element in this equation--buffeted by parents, administrators, state and federal legislators, poorly paid, scapegoated … what person with any options who was not motivated by a blinding passion would put up with it?" And, Hamilton tells us of a Carnegie Foundation study that reveals a conclusion that should not be startling: it is the quality of the teacher that predicts successful outcomes. Grade school students with three successive years in classes taught by highly-rated teachers average at the 83rd percentile on standardized tests. Those with three years in a row with low-rated teachers average at the 34th percentile. These figures must be qualified by the thought that higher-achieving schools will usually attract better teachers. Paying teachers more at every level would provide a dual benefit. It would alter the personal equation young teachers make about the desirability of sticking with the career, and it would alter society's view of teaching as a profession. Staffing schools with more teachers and support would reduce class size and undoubtedly facilitate better conditions for learning. Providing comfortable modern facilities enables effective learning and tells teachers and students that the community values education. Money will pay for additional structural support outside the classroom, like consultants and mentors--Johnny Appleseeds, spreading proven ideas and methods from school to school and district to district. But money is just a part of the answer. It is the school and community environment that nurtures good teachers. There are schools with low-paid teachers and modest facilities that turn out high-achieving kids. Some other countries spend less than we, per capita, and have better outcomes as demonstrated on test results, over a period of many years. And more to the point, in a few districts where the per-pupil expenditure is level, outcomes vary among schools with similar populations. A marketplace of education is proposed as a way of redirecting resources A major statement of the case against the educational establishment and the possibility of reform within the present system is made in Politics, Markets & America's Schools, by John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe, published by the Brookings Institution in 1990. They see the failure of school reform as institutional, and argue that attempts at reform will never work as long as they are implemented within the present democratic structures--centralized, elected school boards appointing school administrators, and on down the food chain to the actual classroom. They argue that members of the power structure in public education--the DOE and state Departments of Education, the teachers' and administrators' unions, the big curriculum providers and textbook publishers--are more interested in preserving turf and advancing their own interests than in improving the schools. Some form of school choice is put forward as the solution--informed and concerned families will seek out schools that suit their child's needs, providing a market-style universe of education. The conservative economist Milton Friedman has long advocated vouchers and choice. Here's the abstract for his 1997 article on the subject in Education Economics:
Many of the scenarios for vouchers would be financed by corresponding reductions in public school funding. A recent California proposal, for example, set the worth of a voucher at the average amount spent per pupil in the California schools. The proposal would have subtracted that amount from the California school system for each student opting out of the public system for private schools--a direct transfer of funds from the public systems to private schools. But most private and parochial schools will not be able to function on statewide per pupil amounts. If the voucher amount is not enough to pay the tuition, the family will have to come up with the difference. In the commercial marketplace 'you get what you pay for.' There's no reason to believe it will be different in a marketplace of education. Voucher proposals also raise questions about public information and state-church separation. Milwaukee started a program in 1990 which gives poor students public vouchers to attend private and religious schools. Participating schools are exempt from open meetings laws, teacher certification rules, statewide testing, and salary disclosures. And school choice has a distinctly urban flavor, with the implicit notion of a pool of existing schools as well as those that will spring up to satisfy market demands. The choice for families in rural areas will in fact be between a community school or a two-hour bus ride each way, each day, and even less opportunity for after-school enrichment or activities. Chubb and Moe, in their endorsement of the fragmentation of public education, speak glowingly of the "organizational foundation of effective school performance:"
The sad part is, they write about these things as if they were not present or possible in the public schools. (Dave Sagarin, December 17, 2004) Notes and references: Books referenced in the article, as well as some thought-provokers Politics, Markets & America's Schools. John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe, The Brookings Institution, 1990 Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools. Jonathan Kozol, Perennial Books 1992 Schools in Conflict: Political Turbulence in American Education. Michael Kirst (with Frederick Wirt), 1992 Private Wealth and Public Education. John E. Coons et al, Harvard U. Press 1970 Revolution at the Margins: The Impact of Competition on Urban School Systems. Frederick M. Hess, Brookings Institution, 2002 Public School Choice vs. Private School Vouchers. Richard D. Kahlenberg , ed. Century Foundation Press, 2003 Other writings referenced in the text or used as resources "A Nation at Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform" Report of the National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983 "What Makes Schools Work?" Richard D. Kahlenberg and Bernard Wasow, Boston Review Oct/Nov 2003. "Why the Right Hates Public Education" Barbara Miner, The Progressive, January 2004 "In Response to David Berliner" Asa G. Hilliard III (Baffour Amankwatia II) Georgia State University. Good summary of Berliner's thought, plus useful bibliography "Teacher Quality: Understanding the Effectiveness of Teacher Attributes" Jennifer King Rice, Economic Policy Institute, 2003 "Class and Schools--Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap" Richard Rothstein, Economic Policy Institute, 2003 "How Minority Youth Are Being Left Behind by the Graduation Rate Crisis" Gary Orfield et al, 2004 "Equality of opportunity" Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy The Weekly Standard presents a conservative view of many issues including ongoing articles about education People who have demonstrated that things can be turned around Organizations National Education Association Virginia Education Association American Federation of Teachers American Federation of School Administrators Parents Across Virginia United to Reform SOLs Interested Parties Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Public Agenda: issues in Education Phi Delta Kappa articles on policy issues for educators Public Education Network Locality-based activism for public school reform: Center for Education Reform Charter School advocacy Resources United States Department of Education The National Center for Educational Statistics part of the U.S. Department of Education, runs the National Assessment of Educational Progress, NAEP. Edweek.org News and information for classroom teachers and administrators Educator's Reference Desk Major
Resource for educational sites for educators and researchers
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