Reclaiming Public Education by Reclaiming Our Democracy
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Reclaiming Public Education by Reclaiming Our Democracy

David Mathews

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Reclaiming Public Education by Reclaiming Our Democracy

David Mathews

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About This Book

Reclaiming Public Education by Reclaiming Our Democracy is about what citizens and educators alike want from public education and how they might come closer to getting it. It is also about the obstacles that block them, beginning with significant differences in the ways that citizens see problems in the schools and the ways that professional educators and policymakers talk about them. Discussions of accountability, the achievement gap, vouchers, and the like don't always resonate with people's real concerns. As a result, a deep chasm has developed between citizens and the schools that serve them.

Citizens say they are frustrated by their inability to make a difference in improving the public schools. But educators say they can't get the public support they need.

Citizens think local school boards determine what happens in schools. But board members complain that their hands are tied by external restrictions and conflicting demands.

Citizens want schools that instill self-discipline and promote social responsibility. But schools are overwhelmed by the need to meet legislatively mandated standards and raise test scores.

Can this divide be bridged? This book describes how people's sense of responsibility for the schools withers as the chasm grows. It also offers ideas about the work citizens can do to reverse this trend and improve education.

David Mathews, secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in the Ford administration and a former president of The University of Alabama, is president of the Charles F. Kettering Foundation.

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Information

Year
2006
ISBN
9781945577277

PART ONE:

A STANDOFF
BETWEEN CITIZENS
AND SCHOOLS?

WHOSE SCHOOLS ARE THESE?

WHY PUBLIC/WHAT PUBLIC?

THE RELATIONSHIP WE HAVE/
THE RELATIONSHIP WE WANT

CHAPTER ONE

WHOSE SCHOOLS
ARE THESE?

Why should Americans think that the public schools are their schools? Ideally, these schools are “ours” because they are agents of the people. Their standards and goals reflect community purposes. Unfortunately, a good many people today no longer believe that they own the public schools or that they have the responsibilities that ownership implies. This is not an issue of whether people are confident that these institutions are doing a good job, feel close to them, and would pay taxes for their support. Ownership is a more fundamental issue: When people drive by a schoolhouse, will they say “this is our school” or only “that’s the school”? What they say will influence the future of public education in America. I am not suggesting that a time will come when the public schools will close their doors. Still, I wonder what kind of institutions these schools will become if they are not ours. And I wonder what will happen to communities if the schools aren’t theirs.
The Question of Ownership
At first glance, the answer to the question of whether there is a public for the public schools may not appear to be worth raising. Most Americans believe it’s essential to have schools that are open to everyone. And they send 50 million of their children to them every year.1 Some would insist that these millions are the public for the schools. And they would add that many communities are blessed with good schools. Gallup polls suggest that the number of people who think their local schools are doing a good job has increased. I say “suggest” because other research shows that this increase may be a “false positive”; the approval rate drops when challenged.2
On the other hand, many Americans remain convinced that the nation’s school system (as distinct from their local schools) is in trouble. Only 24 percent nationally give the public schools grades of A and B.3 They doubt that they can turn the situation around and fear that teachers and administrators can’t either.4 They point to what they see as educators’ inability to maintain discipline and uphold academic standards. On reflection, however, Americans acknowledge that schools are overwhelmed by problems not of their making: child abuse, a breakdown in the norms of responsible behavior, poverty.5
If we thought the schools were our responsibility, this web of problems surely would motivate us to rally around the schools. But we aren’t all rallying around the schools. Instead, a number of us have drifted away from the public schools, looking for alternatives. For example, in 2003, over a million children were taught at home; that is a significant increase over the 850,000 who were homeschooled 4 years earlier.6 Even those who aren’t drifting away don’t necessarily feel responsible for the schools. People without children enrolled often argue that parents are solely responsible. As for parents, they tend to feel accountable for their own children, not for children generally. Lack of a sense of collective responsibility is another symptom of the lack of a sense of public ownership.
These are some of the reasons I continue to worry that too many Americans doubt that the public schools are really their schools, even if they recognize, at least intellectually, that schools serve communities as well as individuals, and even if approval of school performance has increased in recent years.7 I remember a man in Newark, New Jersey, who, when asked who “owned” the local school, said he wasn’t sure which level of government had jurisdiction. He was quite certain, however, that the school didn’t belong to his community; it was not, he said with conviction, “our school.”8 In his case, the lack of a sense of ownership appears to have been tinged with a sense of alienation. The foundation continues to hear echoes of this man’s reaction in its current research.
Kettering’s findings also resonate with recent studies of the relationship between the public and the public schools. For example, people don’t believe they “own” the standards that schools use to document their accountability. And Americans don’t think that current efforts at “engagement” as called for in the No Child Left Behind Act restore broad ownership of the schools. Some communities appear to have little sense of owning their schools, which people sometimes attribute to a diminished sense of community. In others, people are quick to say the schools belong to them. The contrast makes the absence of ownership more striking.9
The lack of close ties between the public and the schools is also evident in issues that are of deep concern to citizens but are discounted by professionals in education and proponents of reform. Jean Johnson at Public Agenda has noted a “continuing disinterest among most academics and reformers in problems of order, discipline, student motivation and civility in schools.”10 The historic agreement with citizens that the schools were to develop both mind and character seems to have been broken, a breach of contract that deepens people’s perception that they can’t determine the purposes of schools.
People who don’t think they (or their communities) own the schools aren’t necessarily indifferent to them. Schools are financed with taxes, and the quality of instruction affects property values. Americans care about both, even if they don’t have children enrolled. Furthermore, although citizens may be alienated by what they consider unresponsive school bureaucracies, they may wish they could do something to improve the situation.
Wendy Puriefoy at the Public Education Network believes a majority of Americans are “genuinely willing to get personally involved to make schools better” because they say they will vote in school board elections and mentor students.11 I believe that is exactly what people would like to do. Yet their pledges of support don’t necessarily mean they have regained ownership of the schools and are no longer alienated by school systems. Americans who are alienated from the political system still vote. But their ballots should not be taken as evidence that political alienation isn’t a problem.12
The point I am making here is that the lack of public ownership of the schools is related to but distinct from approval of their performance and general support. In attempting to make that distinction in speeches, I have tried all kinds of analogies. For example, when the hometown baseball team wins, people approve of its performance. They identify with the team, but don’t think they own it; they single out the owner for criticism if the team begins to lose regularly. People also contribute to good causes like the March of Dimes. But they don’t think they own the organizations. People who own houses, however, have a different relationship to them than to sports teams and charitable organizations. When the roof shingles blow off in a storm (as mine did recently), they know they are responsible for replacing them, and they either make the repairs themselves or hire someone to do the job (I hired somebody).
Halfway out the Schoolhouse Door
Although most people would like to stand by the public schools, many aren’t sure they can; they’ve moved at least halfway out the schoolhouse door.13 Americans believe the country needs public schools yet are torn between a sense of duty to support these institutions, on the one hand, and a responsibility to do what is best for their children, on the other. Ambivalent, they agonize over the dilemma. Reluctantly, some have decided that public schools aren’t best for their children—or anyone else’s.
As noted, champions of public schooling take comfort in studies like Gallup that show that a large majority of parents like their local schools.14 This finding leads to the claim that the people who criticize the public school system don’t know what they are talking about because they don’t have any way of judging the system as a whole. This interpretation, however, masks erosion going on under the foundations of public education. The broad mandate that once tied the schools to an array of social, economic, and political objectives seems to be losing its power to inspire broad commitment. Americans reason that if the schools can’t help individual children, they certainly can’t help the larger community.
The same erosion of confidence has affected other institutions. Even though people like their local representatives in Congress better than they do Congress in general, the declining confidence in our system of representative government is both real and dangerous. While I certainly hope that approval of the job the public schools are doing is on the way up, I don’t think approval and a sense of ownership are the same. Public ownership implies public responsibility. Approval doesn’t.15
Even among those happy with the public school their children attend, allegiance may be only to that particular institution, rather than to the cause of public education at large. When parents in a study were asked whether they would prefer public schools or alternatives such as private schools, most—including many who had spoken positively about their local schools—said they would “take our children out of public schools if we could.”16 And one journalist wrote pessimistically, “If I had to choose, I think most children would be better off with no public schools at all than with the ones we have now.”17 A decade later, the same sentiments still appear under headlines like “Let’s Get Rid of Public Schools.”18
How Ownership Is Lost
My argument so far goes like this: Too many Americans doubt the public schools are theirs, but the schools can’t become vibrant, democratic institutions until the public reclaims them as its own. The rest of this chapter will explore the meaning and character of public ownership, why professional educators may be wary of citizens, and why communities may not have a citizenry that can take responsible ownership of the schools.
First of all, the kind of ownership I am talking about isn’t the possessive sort that might foster an adversarial relationship with professionals. Public ownership expresses itself in civic work done on behalf of education. “Owning” public education is like owning a home; owners are busy keeping up the lawn, making minor repairs, and calling in professionals for tasks they can’t handle. Owners in education do the same by providing internships for students in their businesses, organizing tutorial assistance for youngsters having difficulty in academic subjects, or participating in a seemingly trivial project like making snow cones for school-community picnics.
The nature of the work isn’t as important as the sense of ownership that motivates it is. My colleague Maxine Thomas and I learned the importance of this distinction by observing a number of meetings in which school projects were being discussed. In some, the principal asked for volunteers to help out with school activities like picnics. In others, citizens identified problems they felt obligated to solve because of the way they understood their responsibilities. Then they decided on projects and parceled out the work among themselves. Maxine and I realized that there was a qualitative difference between the two cases, and it didn’t have to do with the nature of the projects. Those who made snow cones for picnics out of a sense of responsibility as community citizens were doing something more meaningful than just making the cones.
The contributions made by citizens who think they are responsible for the schools are put to their best use when educators are receptive to civic initiatives. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen. One teacher showed her hostility to outside influences when she argued that “teaching is like brain surgery”; she didn’t want the community in her operating room. When Americans reach out and their efforts are rebuffed, they usually throw up their hands and walk away.
Citizens complain that educators are preoccupied with their own agendas and inattentive to people’s concerns. In one study, the participants said the “greatest obstacle” to a better working relationship with schoo...

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