|
| |
Ignorance Preserves
Education’s Status Quo
Education/Nancy
Salvato |
February 1, 2005
- The following quote, from an article in
MyrtleBeachonline, (Tuition
bill back in House for 2nd go-round) is indicative of the limited
knowledge required of a public school official charged with formulating
public policy in education.
"This is one of the most dangerous bills we've had before us," said Molly
Spearman, executive director of the S.C. Association of School
Administrators. "It's abandoning a covenant our founding fathers made to
provide a public education for everyone."
Not only is this an extremist position, but she is completely incorrect when
she suggested that the framers guaranteed an education to the citizens in
the United States. In a piece by David W. Kirkpatrick, a Senior Education
Fellow with the
U.S. Freedom Foundation, he quotes
Thomas Jefferson on Education, "If it is believed that these elementary
schools will be better managed by the governor and council...or any other
general authority of the government, than by the parents within each ward,
it is a belief against all experience." A second source verifies that
Jefferson was not alone in his thinking on this matter. "There is no
constitutional right to an education. A state constitution may include such
a right, but I doubt that being required to pay for education would be
considered a violation of that right.”
The
U.S. Constitution Online.
In essence, states may mandate that an education be made available but not
necessarily cover all of the costs associated with taking advantage of the
opportunity.
That being said, we’ve come a long way from the original intent for the
federal government to leave un-enumerated authority over education to the
local communities residing in the states. By going over the history of the
federal role in education, it is clear that it is only in the last 50 years
or so that public education has been unduly influenced by the promise of
state and federal money.
Fred G. Burke, the author of Public Education: Who's in Charge? provides a
great synopsis of the events leading to the No Child Left Behind Act, which
has so divided the educational community. He begins by explaining that in
l867, the U.S. Office of Education was established; its role limited to "the
gathering of statistics and later to research on teaching methods.”
In response to a threat to our national security, the Smith-Hughes Act
(1917) was established to provide federal funds for vocational education to
secure more skilled manpower. An unforeseen consequence was that it diluted
"local control” over education and began legitimizing "an expanded federal
role in education.”
This Act also set the precedent that, in order for states to receive federal
funds, funds had to be matched dollar for dollar, states had to provide a
plan for the money that met federal guidelines, and the funds had to be
utilized for limited purposes and for specific children. Unexpectedly, this
had the effect of establishing some federal influence over educational
policy because funds could be withheld for not meeting the required
conditions.
During WWII and the Korean War, the government provided general aid to local
school districts to help supplement the cost of providing services to
children of military personnel. The NEA sought to use this precedent to
legitimize "non-categorical federal support” for education and lobbied for
such legislation. However, the National School Boards Association resisted
any federal funding which might eventually result in the encroachment on
local school control. Opponents of school desegregation had their own
concerns about government mandated desegregation of the schools. Parochial
schools feared that supplemental funding for public schools would make it
more difficult to compete for students.
In Painful trade-off: Good news for city schools could be bad for parochial
system, Richard Schwartz echoes that same concern today. "A
court-appointed panel ruled that city schools are due an extra $5.6 billion
from the state. If the verdict is upheld, the city will eventually spend
nearly $19,000 per student. Which raises a question: At about $4,200 per
student, how will the New York Archdiocese compete, let alone survive?” He
feels it would be a shame, "if these islands of competence were to die off
and all that remained were the public schools - still miserably run, just
better funded.”
Kirkpatrick provides yet another great Jefferson quote, with regard to the
judiciary, perhaps revealing an even further reaching vision than to which
he’s previously been credited. "The great object of my fear is the Federal
judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever acting, with noiseless foot, and
unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step, and holding what it gains,
is engulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which
feeds them." In instances such as the above, judicial activism continues to
advance the monopoly of public education by usurping the authority of the
legislature and deciding on the dollar amount necessary to fulfill the
mandate of government funded education for all. But I digress.
Going back to the l950’s, the "Space Race” between the United States and the
Soviet Union became the catalyst for the National Defense Education Act (NDEA)
(1958). The fear generated by Sputnik’s launch was that our students were
receiving an inferior education in science and technology to that of the
Soviets. NDEA provided a solution in the form of federal funds earmarked for
science, math, and foreign language instruction.
Brown v. Topeka Board of Education (1954) further expanded the federal role
in education by raising awareness to the long term implications and
consequences of severe educational inequality.
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1964 was successfully passed
because it provided funding "for carefully targeted programs” reflective of
social policy being implemented to address societal concerns. Since their
inception, interest groups actively lobby for the continuation of these
programs and the federal money to keep them alive.
The Department of Education was established during Carter’s administration
in the l970s. Reagan felt that the Founding Fathers would not have approved
of a Department of Education and wanted it dismantled. His administration
tried to "roll back” federal encroachments on the states’ educational
domain. One way was to provide block grants as opposed to categorical
funding, giving more control over money to the states. Furthermore, he
planned to massively reduce federal expenditures for education, his goal
being to return education to "state and local jurisdictions and, where
possible, to the family.” His supporters firmly believed that schools should
be created through free enterprise. Congress prevented him from abolishing
the Department of Education.
Fast forward, through the Clinton years, and it brings us up to date with
NCLB. The No Child Left Behind Act changed the rules again, attaching a few
seemingly simple conditions to the federal funds; students who benefit from
such money must receive an appropriate education. To ensure that students
were getting a fair shake, teaching methods must be based on sound
scientific research on learning. States were to decide on the specific ways
to meet these conditions. A time frame of one generation of students was
given to make adequate yearly progress and eventually accomplish this goal.
There was one catch, parents could take the money earmarked for their child
and move them into a school of their choosing; one able to provide an
adequate education, if the local school could not meet the conditions
required of the mandate. Unfortunately, the "Educrats” hijacked the language
of the bill and limited alternative options to schools within the public
school system. In this way, they were able to keep all the federal money in
the present monopoly of public education. They were able to limit
competition for students and preserve the "status quo” which NCLB was
intended to break.
NCLB might work in the end. If the ineffectiveness of the public school
system continues to make headline news and parents finally decide to take a
stand and demand that they keep the money required of an education instead
of continuing to feed the bottomless pit of the public trough, the education
monopoly may yet be dismantled. Parents have the right to choose the most
appropriate education for their children. It’s up to the parents to demand
that they be given this right.
The source for a significant amount of the history
of education used in this piece was found in: Questia Media America, Inc.
www.questia.com
Book Title: Public Education: Who's
in Charge? Contributors: Fred G. Burke - author. Publisher: Praeger
Publishers. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1990. Page
Numbers: 15-45. Federal Role in Perspective: SOME HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS
|
|
