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Show Hinckley Journal of Politics Spring 2000 Public Education Policy There is widespread concern among Americans today about the quality of education in today's public schools. In 1996, only 1 percent of Americans surveyed by the Gallup Organization gave the nation's public school system an A while 23 percent gave it a D or an F (Elam et al. 1996). In addition, 45 percent of American parents would choose to send their children to a different school if they could (Elam et al. 1996). Most would agree that there are a variety of problems with the public schools as opposed to one major problem with the educational system. The most common worries include falling test scores, school violence, the power of teachers' unions, teacher incompetence, and large class size. With so many different problems there are just as many proposed solutions. Conservatives argue that parents need to be given "school choice." Under this proposal, the government would provide all families with vouchers or tax credits with which to send their children to school. With these vouchers educational power would be transferred from the government directly to parents. This plan would provide poor children with an immediate opportunity to leave their neighborhood schools and, the argument goes, enroll in better ones. Under a voucher system, schools would survive in a free market economy like many other businesses. Some form of standardized testing would be used to compare the schools, and innovation and improved student performance would be rewarded when more parents sent their children to the best schools. Schools that were unsafe, produced low test scores, or had poor teachers would either have to reform quickly or be phased out by market forces. On the other hand, many liberals argue that the problem with public schools today is that funding is too low and is not properly distributed. Vouchers, they argue, attack the idea that education is a public good that should be available to all children. Community relationships are undermined when replaced by competition between individuals. Raising standards for promotion and graduation without increasing the resources available, they believe, sets up students for failure. Relying on standardized tests narrows the curriculum and encourages rote learning. Liberals believe that an increased focus on class "rank" harms solidarity among students and reduces education to a game of winners and losers. Most also support President Clinton's plan for national testing and increased funding to hire 100,000 more teachers. Those at the DLC take a "Third Way" approach to education reform. Their basic vehicle for improving the quality of education in America is the charter school. These schools are freed from most of the traditional rules that apply to public schools, but are in turn held accountable for results measured by performance reviews (Sylvester 1997, 82). Many are also established to address specific needs or talents, including student disabilities such as deafness or blindness or certain concentrations such as music or dance. What this model provides is a focus on results; it exists only as long as it serves its students well and attracts support from parents. But charter schools differ from private schools in that they are still held accountable to something besides market forces. In addition to supporting charter schools, the DLC has called for voluntary national academic standards, more teacher accountability, and an end to social promotion in which students are allowed to move onto the next grade simply because that is what the rest of their age group is doing. Also, the DLC believes that while reducing class size is important, teacher quality is what matters most to a student's learning. The Heritage Foundation We first examine the proposals made by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Scholars associated with the Heritage Foundation have argued that parents should be given some form of assistance with which to send their children to the school of their choice, and in the long run that America's schools should perhaps be privatized. Significantly, the Foundation relies heavily on test scores for formulating its proposals. Many believe these tests are racially biased, improperly formatted, or are simply not a good measure of what a child should be learning. Many conservatives, however, make the assumption that standardized tests accurately reflect student performance. With that in mind, the Heritage Foundation has called school choice - a concept that gives parents control over where their children go to school - "the most promising education reform in the country today" (Bolick 1997, 1). Heritage proposals to implement this idea generally fall into three categories: tax deductions and credits, targeted scholarships, and child-centered education funding. Under current Minnesota law, residents get income tax deductions for expenses incurred in private or public schools, including private school tuition (Bolick 1997, 2). Those who favor these deductions argue that they give parents the opportunity to select the education that is best for their child without facing a financial penalty if they choose a private school. Many choice advocates prefer deductions and credits to an actual transfer of funds between the government and schools (such as would occur in a voucher system), because it increases the odds that the program will be regarded as constitutional, although it is essentially the same arrangement. Finding a system that will pass a constitutional challenge is critical at this juncture because the courts have yet to resolve the issue. It is also likely that there will never be one "final" ruling on public funds being used for private education, simply because there are so many points of dispute (states rights, separation of church and state, and other constitutional objections just to begin with). One objection to tax deductions and credits is that they do not provide immediate benefit to economically disadvan-taged families, although the Heritage Foundation believes this can be overcome by providing refundable tax credits (Bolick 1997, 2). Also, some critics say that the segment of the population that is targeted for tax reductions does not 49 |