Public Education: Philosophy and Funding

I. PRELISTENING

B. Vocabulary and Key Concepts

1. Education in the United States is compulsory until a certain age or grade level.

2. A small percentage of students attend private schools, either reli­gious or secular, but most attend public schools.

3. There is no nationwide curriculum, nor are there nationwide standardized examinations set by the government.

4. The federal government influences public education by providing funds for special programs such as education for the handicapped and bilingual education.

5. Control of education in the United States is mainly exercised locally.

6. Each state has many school districts run by school boards whose members are elected by voters of the district.

7. The amount of funding supplied by the state and by the local school districts fluctuates over time and from state to state.

8. Public schools are funded to a great degree by local taxes.

9. Funding for private schools, which are generally religious schools, is now and has been controversial for some time.

10. Charter schools are nonsectarian public schools that compete with regular public schools for students.

11. Charter schools operate under contract to a sponsor, usually a state or local school board, to whom they are accountable.

12. Supporters of the voucher concept believe that private schools offer better education.

13. Opponents of the voucher concept claim that using tax money for private schools violates the separation of church and state built into the U. S. Constitution.

14. The federal government in 2002 passed an educational bill that re­quires states that wish to receive certain federal funding to develop and put in place extensive testing programs and other systems to ensure "adequate yearly progress" of students.

D. Notetaking Preparation

1. Structuring: Outlining <script>

Control of education in the United States is mainly exercised locally at three levels. Let’s begin with the state department of education.

The department of education of each of the fifty states has two basic functions. First, each state department of education sets basic curricu­lum requirements for all the schools in its state. For example, a high school might require four years of English, three years of math, two years of social science, and so forth. The state also sets the number of credits a student must complete in order to graduate from a high school. This total number of credits includes both required courses and electives. So much for the state part in education.

The second level of control is the school district. The number of school districts a state has depends on the size of its population and the size of the state. A large metropolitan area would have several school districts. A smaller community might have only one district. Each school district is run by a school board that is elected by the citizens of the district. The school district is responsible for the specific content of courses taught in its schools. In other words, the school district

determines what the students will study in each of their, let’s say, four years of high school English. The school district also decides what elec­tives will be available for students. Besides determining course con­tent, the school district is responsible for the operation of the schools in its district, for example, the hiring of teachers and administrators. The third level of control is the individual school itself, where teachers have primary responsibility for deciding how to teach the content of each course and for preparing and giving examinations to the students.

LECTURE: Public Education: Philosophy and Funding

Most young people in the United States today, like most young people around the world, attend public schools. Indeed, young people in the U. S. have to attend school because education is compulsory, in most states to the age of sixteen or until the students reach ninth grade.

A small percentage of American youth attend private schools, either religious or secular schools, but the vast majority attend public schools. One distinguishing feature of U. S. public education that sur­prises many foreigners is that although there are some standardized examinations, there is no nationwide curriculum set by the govern­ment. Nor are there nationwide standardized examinations set by the government. In contrast, in most countries a government ministry of education determines the curriculum that all students study and the examinations that all students take at a set time. Of course, U. S. stu­dents follow a curriculum, and they take examinations as all students do. Although the federal government does influence public education by providing funds to schools for special programs such as education for the handicapped and for bilingual education, the fed­eral government does not determine the curriculum or the examina­tions. Today I’d like to talk about the three levels of control within each state and then spend some time discussing where the money for education comes from and three issues related to funding.

Control of education in the United States is mainly exercised locally at three levels. Let’s begin with the state department of education.

The department of education of each of the fifty states has two basic functions. First, each state department of education sets basic curricu­lum requirements for all the schools in its state. For example, a high school might require four years of English, three years of math, two years of social science, and so forth. The state also sets the number of credits a student must complete in order to graduate from a high school. This total number of credits includes both required courses and electives. So much for the state part in education.

The second level of control is the school district. The number of school districts a state has depends on the size of its population and the size of
the state. A large metropolitan area would have several school districts. A smaller community might have only one district. Each school district is run by a school board that is elected by the citizens of the district. The school district is responsible for the specific content of courses taught in its schools. In other words, the school district determines what the students will study in each of their, let’s say, four years of high school English. The school district also decides what elec­tives will be available for students. Besides determining course con­tent, the school district is responsible for the operation of the schools in its district, for example, the hiring of teachers and administrators. The third level of control is the individual school itself, where teachers have primary responsibility for deciding how to teach the content of each course and for preparing and giving examinations to the students.

Local control of schools may seem very strange to some of you, but it will seem less strange if you consider how public schools in the United States are funded—that is, where money to run the schools comes from. Only about 7 percent of the money comes from the federal government. The rest of the money comes from state and local taxes. The percentages supplied by the state and by the local school districts fluctuate over time and from state to state. Currently approximately 49 percent of school funding comes from the states and about 44 per­cent comes from the local communities, that is, the school districts.

Finally, I’d like to discuss three issues related to the funding of schools that have been receiving a lot of attention recently in the United States. The first issue deals with the inequality of educational oppor­tunity that students face. Because public schools are funded to a great degree by local taxes, this means that schools in poorer communities or poorer parts of large cities do not have the same amount of money as schools located in richer communities. This, in turn, means that children from poorer areas are less likely to receive a good education than children from wealthier areas. The second issue, one that has been controversial since the beginning of public education, is the issue of funding for private schools, which are generally rim by religious organizations. As you already know, the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution mandates separation of church and state. A little back­ground on the history and development of public education will be useful here.

During colonial times, education was largely a religious concern and most schools were supported by religious organizations. However, dur­ing the nineteenth century, there was widespread support and accep­tance of public education paid for by taxes as the best way to provide equal educational opportunity for all children. Nevertheless, some parents have always chosen to send their children to either private religious schools or private schools devoted to academic excellence. Because private schools are not funded by the government, parents have had to pay tuition to send their children to private schools. Peo­ple who have wanted to send their children to private schools have long

questioned why they should have to pay taxes for public schools at the same time as they pay private tuition for their children’s education.

Although this issue is not new, during the last twenty years or so, more parents have become unhappy about what they perceive to be the increasingly secular nature of public education and prefer to send their children to schools where they will receive an education more in line with their religious beliefs. Other parents are concerned about the questionable quality of education in public schools. These concerns have led to efforts by the school system, and the government, to offer alternative educational opportunities, that is, educational choices.

Two of the most important responses to these concerns have been charter schools and school vouchers. Both of these alternatives to reg­ular public education are based on the idea that competition in the ed­ucational market is a good thing, but otherwise, they differ quite a bit.

Charter schools are nonsectarian public schools that compete with regular public schools for students. Charter schools operate under con­tract to a sponsor, usually a state or local school board. Charter schools are accountable to their sponsors, the parents who choose to send their children to them, and the public that funds them through their tax money. In turn, charter schools generally have greater auton­omy, that is, independence, over selection of teachers, curriculum, resources, and so on, than regular public schools. The first charter schools came into existence toward the end of the 1980s. By 2003, there were 2,695 charter schools with almost 685,000 students en­rolled. This was a 15 percent increase over the year 2002, which shows how fast these schools are growing. There are many issues surround­ing charter schools, but a study published in 2003 found that charter school students did a little better than their public school counter­parts on standardized exams.

The school voucher concept is a much more controversial one than charter schools. The idea behind school vouchers is that the govern­ment provides students with a certain amount of money each year that they can use to attend whatever school they choose, public or private. The idea again is that competition will improve the education students receive. Voucher schools in reality are largely private schools, and most often religiously based schools. They are quite different from charter schools, which as public schools are first of all, nonsectarian, that is, not religious. Second, charter schools cannot apply restrictive admission standards, as public schools do. To date, voucher programs funded by taxpayers are operating in only three U. S. cities, and there are many court battles over the voucher system. Supporters of the voucher system feel very strongly that private schools offer better edu­cation than public schools. Those opposed to the voucher system claim that vouchers rob public schools of needed funding and that voucher schools do not truly provide school choice because of restric­tive admissions standards, which can include academic performance, religion, sex, and other factors. Opponents of vouchers also strongly

believe that using taxpayer funds for private religious schools violates the separation of church and state built into the U. S. Constitution.

The third and final issue I’d like to touch on today is also very contro­versial. I mentioned earlier that the United States does not have a nationwide curriculum nor nationwide exams set by the government. However, in the past fifteen or twenty years, there has been an in­creased emphasis in various states on raising standards and on giving students standardized exams to monitor their progress. The federal government in 2002 passed a sweeping education bill that requires states that wish to receive certain federal funding to develop and put in place extensive testing programs and other systems to ensure ade­quate yearly progress of students. Although the percentage of funding for schools from the federal government is relatively small, it still rep­resents a lot of money that schools do not want to lose. Some people support this movement toward standardization and accountability in the educational system, while others see it as a dangerous step away from local control of schools.

No one can predict the future of public education in the United States, but it appears that the emphasis on educational choice and on ac­countability of the educational system for student results will be with us for a long time.

III. POSTLISTENING

A. Accuracy Check

1. What two things about the American educational system often surprise people from other countries?

2. What are the three levels of control of education found in each state?

3. What is one type of decision that the state department of education might make?

4. How are the people on a school board selected?

5. From what three sources does the money come to pay for Ameri­can public schools, and what percentage of that money comes from each of these three sources?

6. During the colonial period, who generally ran the schools that children attended?

7. During which century did public education paid for by taxes become widely accepted as the best way to provide education for all children?

8. What do we call nonsectarian public schools that operate quite independently under contract, usually to a school district?

9. What kind of schools do students with vouchers usually attend?

10. How do opponents of the movement toward standardized exams and accountability view this movement?