Recent trends toward privatizing schools and relieving them of state requirements wrongly imply that schools should mirror the desires of parents and ignore the public’s interest in having citizens educated for democracy. Rob Reich, who recently earned his doctorate in philosophy of education at Stanford, is writing a book on school vouchers, charter schools and home schooling. Reich stated his view that the nation is slipping too far into deregulated schooling.
The guiding idea behind privatization, whether it is vouchers, charter schools or home schooling, is that parents should be the sole decision-making agents about the kind of education their children receive. But this eviscerates the public or civic purposes of schooling. ” Public schooling itself is not the goal, he said, and public schools don’t necessarily do better than private schools in educating children to meet the state’s interests, which he defined as preparing children for both workforce and democratic participation.
Those who joined in the discussion pushed Reich to specify the content of an education for democratic participation. “Some would say reading and writing is enough,” he responded. “Personally, I would go a few steps further to say that students should learn to come into dialogue with others on a public stage. ” Voluntary national standards for civic education suggest “a combination of making sure students know the history and shape of the structure of government, and how to influence public deliberation and policy,” he said.
Others suggest experience-oriented programs, often called service learning. My model has been the Socratic dialogue, where the teacher is a leader and participant, and everyone’s contribution is respected. ” His preferred model is based on the idea that school should not “simply reinforce the values and beliefs that the student learns at home,” he said. “On the contrary, one of the most important functions of schooling is to be sure that each student comes into contact with a range of different beliefs and learns lesson of critical reflection.
This lesson is important for both civic reasons how to participate ably as a citizen and individual reasons how best to pursue one’s own interests. Reich summarized a number of reform areas in which the balance between state and parental interests is moving toward the parent: publicly financed or privately financed vouchers for existing private schools; new private, for-profit schools; publicly financed “charter” schools freed of local school board control; and home schooling by parents. Vouchers financed by taxpayers on an experimental basis in several states allow parents to cover part or all of the costs of tuition at a private school.
Last month, Florida approved the first statewide voucher plan, which will offer $4,000 vouchers to all students in the lowest-rated schools. Vouchers provided by wealthy individuals or corporations perform a similar function in other communities. Business executives in San Antonio’s Edgewood district have pledged $50 million over 10 years to allow all parents the choice of a private education for their children. Ted Forstmann, a wealthy individual, recently offered 40,000 vouchers on the Oprah Winfrey show and received 1. 25 million applicants.
One-third to one-half of families in several eligible inner-city areas applied for the $4,000 vouchers. The dollar amount is typical of voucher plans, Reich said, and tends to cover Catholic school tuition but not that of elite prep schools. Some communities are experimenting with for-profit public schools. The Edison Project runs about 30 schools that reward teachers with stock options in the for-profit company. Home schooling by parents has grown from an estimated 300,000 children in 1990 to 1. 5 million in 50 states today.
Regulations and requirements vary, but oversight is typically extremely lax,” Reich said. “Forty-one states have no education requirements whatsoever for parents who wish to home school. Sometimes the children have to take annual standardized tests or a public school teacher has to come and take a look. ” About 800 public “charter” schools currently enroll 300,000 students. Permitted in 34 states to encourage local entrepreneurship in public schooling, they get the same tax support as local public schools but are free of most local school district regulations.
They are typically small schools organized by people with a passion for a particular educational philosophy, he said. While vouchers are popular with ethnic minorities who are concerned about academic standards in city schools, home schooling has exploded among white, middle-class, religious families who want more control over the values their children are exposed to or who fear for their children’s safety, Reich said. “I’m convinced that further privatization is inevitable,” he added. Supporters have framed the argument for it as “a civil rights issue or a matter of social justice. e said. “People say President Clinton sent his daughter to private school.
If we are serious about social justice, we should give all parents the same choice that wealthy parents have. ” How would he change the situation? Reich was asked. “I can imagine a variety of institutional arrangements but where private schools are still subject to state oversight,” he said. “Perhaps public dollars could flow to them if the curriculum met the state’s interests. A democracy has needs, but that doesn’t mean public schools have to meet them. “
