Putting the Public Back in 'Public Education'

Ever come across something that made you wonder whether the author had been reading your mind?

I've experienced just such an epiphany with the recent article by David Mathews of the Kettering Foundation that appears in Phi Delta Kappan, called The Public and Public Schools: The Coproduction of Education.

I'll resist the urge to quote the entire article, but here's one of several passages that had me shouting, "Amen!"

"The accountability that people do want is more relational than informational. Americans don't object to using test scores, but they think the scores should be used for diagnostic purposes rather than for punitive ones. Citizens want face-to-face accountability, with educators giving a full account of what happens in classrooms and on playgrounds. Most legislated accountability measures don't create a relationship of shared responsibility. Instead, the laws leave citizens on the outside looking in."

As Mathews thoughtfully develops in this piece, the public (including, but not limited to parents and teachers) have a deeper role in the education of all of our children than just attending the PTA or making sure Jasmine does her homework. As he deftly notes, "The community itself is an educational institution." Raising well-educated children has always required more than what could be done within the confines of a classroom or school day. Even more so as information and social interactions are less and less bound by physical space or time. Wiser parents have always understand this concept and sought out learning opportunities outside the schoolhouse, or exploited teachable moments during the ordinary activities of life.

Before the old proverb, "It takes a whole village to raise a child" became a socio-political catchphrase, it was a heartfelt practice in neighborhoods and towns.The entire community took the raising and teaching of children as a collective responsibility. I could as much expect Mr. Alexander across the street to quiz me on my times tables as I could my teacher. Mrs. Duncan at the corner store was well within her rights to chastise me for acting "unladylike" in public, and would make sure my mother heard of it before I made it home. I, and thousands of other children in our communities, first learned the art of public speaking not at school, but in church.

It was the neighborhood little league team (before the ascendancy of Hummer-driving "soccer moms" and overly-aggressive fans and Dads) where we learned what it meant to work together, never quit, be gracious in loss, and thankful in victory. The local public librarian knew all of us and our favorite books. In its better days, my hometown Detroit Public Schools made sure every pupil attended at least one concert of the Detroit Symphony and visited at least one of the local museums each school year. The deterioration and fragmenting of neighborhoods, along with the dispersion of families (among many other factors) has resulted in the weakening or loss of these community interactions which so richly supplemented children's formal education.

Another high point in Mathews' piece is the reminder that: "Schools were made public for democratic, not pedagogical, reasons. And the educators who administer schools and teach in them are unique among professionals in their historic relationship to democracy." Educators have always had a higher calling than simply to generate a workforce; we were to produce thinking, responsible citizens. However, we were never expected to do it entirely on our own.

Mathews also points out what has come to be a common misperception of the relationship between the broader public and the work of its schools: ""These days, the most common strategies for restructuring the relationship between the public and the schools treat citizens as consumers."  Mathews, correctly, points to NCLB and other such school reform initiatives as results of this view.

I would argue further that the push for application of free market principles in the reform of schools is insidiously counterproductive and may actually threaten American democracy in profound ways. Developing a rating system for schools based on flawed, limited testing instruments, then publishing those ratings in a push to get parents to shop around for educational options sounds like democracy in action. In reality, it exacerbates existing inequalities in educational and social resources.

The goal should not be to see how many schools we can close down or force out of business (considering in many places the schools that exist are seriously overcrowded), but rather how many schools we as a nation of citizens can reclaim, restore, and reconnect to the communities from which they should organically grow. 

4/17/08 P.S. - This blog was featured in the Carnival of Education.

Comments

[Mary Tedrow]

Here, here! Ever since their promotion, I have considered vouchers a threat to the system of public education that is bound to make our democratic principles a thing of the past. The free market system is more Darwinian than Democratic. One of my heroes is George Woods, the principal of Federal Hocking High School in Ohio who transformed his school to a community for learning that teaches the principles of democracy by living them daily in the building. Students are empowered with choice and time is provided to learn from adult mentors both in and out of the classroom. A humane and effective practice, since the students performed better and retained learning longer under his redesigned school.

[Susan Graham, Teacher]

Reading Renee's piece and the Mathews' article she referenced reminds we of what we have lost in shared responsibility as a society as we become ever more consumer oriented and vunerable to schemes that promise to give life meaning via VISA. It may be "priceless" but it does come with a price in money and committment from the whole community.

I find it hard to believe the same minds that conceived No Child Left Behind believe that a market based education system will work. Market driven economy, by design, produces winners and losers. The higher education market used this concept to college acceptance into a competitive sport, encouraging students to take on huge debt loads even though these young people may not be able to articulate why they are in college or preparing them for work where there are limited opportunties. But if school is to be cost controlled, this system won't work. At the K12 level, it is unlikely that a school voucher will put a child from a single parent family on public assistance who has a learning disability and who is an English Language Learner into an elite private prep school. Vouchers or school choice is meaningless unless that great private school will accept a voucher as full tuition; provide every parent support in the application process; accept all applicants; provide transportation; and free lunch as needed; and adapt instruction to meet the needs of every child regardless of their special needs.

And while we are talking about a sense of community, those of us who expect to live to be 80 had better begin to think long and hard about who will be the productive citizens paying for our maintenance and providing our care. If we can't summon moral strenght to work as a community to provide quality education for all our children because it's the right thing to do, then maybe fear for self preservation will motivate us.

[Renee Moore]

Thank you both. Susan, yes, the minds who created NCLB support market driven education because the real purpose of NCLB is to create a market in which private educational systems can flourish. Frankly, I don't think those minds have really thought through whether the children of the poor (working or non), or those with special needs would get a chance at quality education under a voucher system. It might be unfair to say they just don't care, but they at the very least, they don't get it. The poor are always an afterthought.

[Linda F]

Amen. However, it must be said that those communities largely shared their values. In today's "communities", it's a point of pride to be different. Mustn't say that the crystal-fondling spiritual neighbor is a tad loony, or that the middle-aged poof next door is a little creepy for bringing in teenage boys for fun and games, or that the assorted boyfriends and girlfriends of the newly divorced seem to be a little - well - strange.

In today's village, correction of an obnoxious brat is likely to bring upon you the wrath of the entire extended family. If it ends there, and doesn't also involve prosecution for racial, religious, or some other discriminatory thought crime.