>> Welcome to our final module addressing our most recent history, Post-1983.
The closer we get to the present,
the more nervous historians are about setting out interpretations.
As we often lack the distance from which to get fresh perspectives.
Mike and I are also both involved in the current setting.
Biased participants with points of view on questions of policy and practice.
Nonetheless, what follows are some highlights of recent educational
history for our discussion.
With a bias towards some policy ships of consequence in the US and indeed globally.
Authority for
US schools has been characteristically decentralized to states and localities.
Recently, the US has been experimenting with and experiencing a far more active
federal governmental role, including in areas of curricular standards,
assessments, management options and marketing centers.
A far more comprehensive, coordinated and
systemic reform effort has been orchestrated across states
with significant nongovernmental and philanthropic players.
Including the building of an alternative institutional infrastructure for
such functions as teacher recruitment, student assessment,
educator, educator training and evaluation, applied res,
research, policy advocacy and political organizing.
Educational technology and entrepreneurial sectors continue to evolve rapidly,
if only weakly linked with current practitioners with some highly capitalized
international players as well as numerous startups and incubators.
Offering both high tech, presumably disruptive snake oil.
And profoundly, powerful new technologies in communication capacities for
educators at all levels.
And the nation's student body continues its demographic
diversification with persistent achievement gaps by varied subgroups.
Dramatic shifts in family structures and
economies and knowing in equities in both publicly provided and
family provided supplemental educational resources.
>> Amidst all of this, one prominent theme consistent with the mass consumerism
endemic to the US and other market economies has been a notion of choice.
How might we increase the educational choices families have for their children?
How might we distribute them more equitably?
And how might such a schooling market push significant improvement
in how schools perform.
But even this notion of choice with the enthusiasm of recent decades can
benefit from a wider historical perspective.
Some of the so-called new options, chartered schools and even vouchers.
Think back to colonial days in the early republic, as we've seen.
Thomas Payne, even advocated for
the voucher plan in his famous 18th century tract, The Rights of Man.
Even today, when charters schools tend to dominate US conversations around school
choice, the strong associate of school choice with charter schools is curious.
Among the various school choice options, charters, magnets, schools with
specialized admissions, usually specialized in some curricular way.
Vouchers, homeschooling, parents teaching children at home.
Intra and interschool district open enrollment options,
traditional public schools, private schools and so on.
Far more parents choose private schools and have for
decades than now attend all charter and magnet schools combined.
More parents choose and or are chosen by magnet schools as a way of exercising ed,
educational choice for their children than charters.
Even while more states allow for charters than magnets,
magnet schools still enroll roughly 15% more students than charters.
Yet, enrollment growth for charters since 2000 has outpaced magnets considerably.
Increasing more than four fold as magnet enrollment increased nearly 70%,
while private school enrollment declined about 17%.
Homeschooling has also scaled rapidly, doubling in the past decade.
And may now exceed charter schools in enrollment.
Thus, school choice trends in the last decade have favored charters and
homeschooling, perhaps explaining in some part their dominate
role in current discussions.
Vouchers in contrast are far more limited in their usage owing in part to legal and
political challenges related to persistent concerns regarding
public-private boundaries.
>> In addition to distinctive trends within school choice, our current options
also represent quite distinctive interest participants in histories.
Charter schools are heavily concentrated in large, high poverty urban districts.
In New York State, for example, 80% of all charter schools are in New York City.
93% in just four subdistricts, among the poorest in the state and nation.
Charter school households tend to include more African-American, Hispanic, single
parent and low income heads than the gen, than the general public school population.
Homeschooling households in contrast, tend to be more rural.
More white, less poor though, more near poor and
more two parent than the overall school population.
The charter school sector enjoys networks of well funded advocacy and
operating organizations.
The homeschooling sector's organizations appear significantly less robust.
Just these two options, not to mention open enrollment.
Magnets, privates, parochial schools, etc.
Reflect distinctly different histories, interests,
networks, intentions, all under the singular choice banner.
And of course, given the US tradition of local controls.
Most families choose their schools by choosing where they live.
Such that housing policy and segregation,
actually drive most of where students attend.
Further, for all the attention to increasing school choices,
it would appear that the vast majority of parents already consider that their
children attend their first choice in schooling.
Most parents, 83%, already consider their child's current school their first choice,
though with considerable demographic variation.
88% of white parents do though only 70% of African-American parents concur.
How do we begin to make sense of all this?
We start by looking at the expanding role of the Federal Government since 1983.
And how varied policy shifts have engendered considerable experimentation,
especially in large cities with how schools run and who controls them.
[MUSIC]
Dr. John L. PuckettProfessor of Education
Dr. Michael Charles JohanekSenior Fellow
