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Show An Explanation of the Organization through an Examination of Education Policy John hyman ideas is that they change the face of what is a stagnant educational environment without either spending billions of dollars or privatizing the nation's schools. The idea behind national academic standards is that there is some level of learning that all American students should live up to at various stages of their educational career. President Clinton has proposed that fourth graders be tested in reading and eighth graders in math. Each student would receive an individual score that could give parents information about how their children are progressing compared to those students in other states and the nation as a whole. While some say that these tests would encourage rote learning, those at the DLC argue that by regulating the ends of education instead of the means, schools are actually given more leeway to experiment with teaching methods (Soler 1997, 3-5). The idea of national testing has drawn fire from both sides of the ideological spectrum. Liberals worry about disadvantaged minorities who may not pass the tests, and conservatives claim that testing is just one step toward an eventual federal takeover of public education. Teacher accountability is also an issue that the DLC has continually raised as paramount to education reform. In "Addressing the Looming Teacher Crunch," Dale Ballou and Stephanie Soler (1998) wrote that, "The best way to ensure teacher quality is to hold teachers accountable for classroom performance. Administrators should be held accountable for classroom performance through increased parental choice and student examinations. In exchange, they should have the flexibility of merit pay and renewable contracts in lieu of rigid salary schedules and tenure." In other words, bad teachers should be fired and good ones should be paid more. This simple concept has been made impossible over the last thirty years because of the power of teachers' unions. Besides those special interests, however, few on the left or the right would dispute that teacher accountability must improve. The DLC believes that teacher quality is far more important than teacher quantity. This idea goes against decades of liberal thought that has maintained that student-teacher ratio is the key to improving education. In fact, although the overall pupil-teacher ratio fell 35 percent from 1950 to 1995 (from 27-1 to 17-1), aggregate student performance has shown no improvement over this period. A thorough review of scientific data shows that class-size reduction may actually be one of the least effective educational investments (Hanushek 1998, 1). Ending social promotion is also a goal of many New Democrats. The term "social promotion" refers to the practice of many school officials, especially in urban school districts, to allow students to move onto the next grade level simply because that is what the rest of their age group is doing. The fact that many students are not adequately prepared to move often does not matter to administrators. In Chicago, social promotion was the first problem to be addressed when control of the school system was given to Mayor Richard Daley. One hundred thousand failing students were required to take summer school courses before they were allowed to move onto the next grade (Sylvester 1997, 89). Critics of this plan argue that there is a reason why failing students did not make the grade in the first place. To put them back in the same classes they had previously failed would not correct the problem. In addition it would cause many of these students to feel stupid and not cut out for school. Advocates believe that summer school programs where struggling students are given more attention and an increase in funding for urban districts to diagnose learning problems can help correct these problems. Together, voluntary national standards, an increase in teacher accountability, and an end to social promotion would go a long way in changing the face of education in this country. But all of these ideas combined would still not affect the way America's children are taught more than would the driving force behind New Democrat education reform: the charter school. Six years ago Minnesota passed the first charter school law. Since then other states have set up experimental schools modeled after those in Minnesota. The movement rests on the idea that public education should be an education of choices for parents, students, and teachers. In the charter school, educators are freed from many of the restrictions that bind traditional public schools. The school is under contract to a public agency, run by teachers, parents, and other members of the community who are interested in creating a new type of school. In return, these innovators are held accountable for results, most notably in the form of student achievement (Schroeder 1997, 1). Eventually a move toward charter school districts would be made. Traditional districts would relinquish their role as a provider and would instead be purchasers of educational services by entering into contracts with vendors. Although in the beginning these vendors would most likely be parents and teachers, eventually the group could be expanded to include other organizations - universities, labor unions or even religious organizations. These schools would qualify for public funding if they met certain testing standards and safety requirements. Beyond this the schools would be able to function as they saw fit. There would not be the one prescription for learning that can be found in today's public schools. Institutions that failed to achieve positive results would lose their contracts and their students would enroll in better schools (Sylvester 1997, 80). One of the best things about charter schools is their ability to educate urban minority children. Many of these institutions were specifically designed for these children, who have long been on the short end of the stick when it comes to education. In 1996, a poll showed that 63 percent of students enrolled in charter schools were minorities, and more than half were poor enough to qualify for the federal lunch program (Sylvester 1997, 89). 52 |
