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Heart of the
matter: Public Education
By William Phillis
Heart of the matter: Charters, vouchers and other strategies to
privatize public education are backdoor approaches to the annulment of
state constitutional provisions for public education
Each state has one or more constitutional provisions for a system of
public education. Words such as thorough, efficient, uniform,
fundamental value and high quality set the standards for the state
systems. The importance of these words is underlined by the fact that
school finance cases turn on these words. In Ohio, the Court ruled
"Ohio's elementary and secondary schools are neither thorough nor
efficient."
Charters and vouchers, submitted as "reforms", divert attention away
from fixing the common school system. Charter schools were promoted as
innovative "incubators" to serve as models of improvement for public
schools, but the charter school industry has typically performed less
well than peer traditional schools. Charter advocates promised that
competition would help improve the public school system which was just
a pipedream.
By embracing the privatization of education agenda, state officials
have stumbled on a strategy to circumvent their respective
constitutional provisions for public education. Instead of fixing the
constitutionally-mandated system for all students, the state of Ohio
has enacted provisions for allowing students to escape the system. This
seems to have lessened the pressure to fix the system in spite of the
fact that no court anywhere has endorsed or ordered choice as a remedy
for an unconstitutional system.
Since the 1960s, public school officials and/or other citizens have
challenged the constitutionality of the system of public education in
nearly every state. Although the challenges have been directed toward
school finance, the focal point of most cases has been adequacy and
equity of educational opportunities. Students in lower wealth districts
are typically deprived of adequate educational opportunities in the
various states because the state officials refuse to comply with their
constitutional provisions.
State officials in various states, like those in Ohio, defended their
respective inadequate systems with passion, and then subsequent to the
Court ruling, often resisted an appropriate remedy. After the 1997
DeRolph school funding ruling of unconstitutionality in Ohio, some
state officials proposed to eliminate the constitutional provision for
public education or to make public education a non-justiciable matter.
In fact, after the ruling in the DeRolph case, a state senator publicly
stated that the plaintiffs would "rue the day" they filed the complaint.
In most cases, regardless of the way the court ruled, states
appropriated additional funds for public education. State officials
typically felt the court forced them into higher appropriation for
public K-12 education. This "forced" response may have caused some
state officials to embrace the idea of cheap alternatives to
traditional public education.
The "choice" movement , whether an effect of the school funding
litigation or a coincidence, is nevertheless an end run around the
constitutional provision for appropriate educational opportunities for
all students via the public common school. Choice has been sold to the
American people as a means of allowing poor kids to escape "failing
schools." One of the pitches of choice advocates is that choice gives
poor kids the same opportunities as private school students which, of
course, is deceptive. (It is assumed by choice advocates that private
schools are better).
Choice venues are perceived as a less expensive plan. The notion of
allowing some student to "escape" from the public school in a poverty
area to a choice venue does nothing to improve educational
opportunities for either those that "escape" or those that are left in
the public school. The nearly two decades of charter school experience
in Ohio attests to the fact that choice is not a "silver bullet"; nor
is it an efficacious reform.
The bottom line:
All states have one or more constitutional provisions for a state
common school system.
School finance litigation in nearly every state has clearly highlighted
deficiencies in educational opportunities.
Typically, states have vigorously fought the constitutional challenges.
Remedies to unconstitutional systems have been costly and thus have
been almost universally resisted state officials. Choice plans have
been embraced as a cheaper "reform".
Choice plans may have had the effect of annulling the intent of
constitutional provisions for the public common school.
Who will draw a line in the sand and just say no to choice in private
settings at public expense?
William Phillis
Ohio E & A
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