By Margaret Arbuckle
Executive Director,
Guilford Education Alliance
Free public education that
is available to all students is one of the magnificent civil rights of our
country. Our society’s commitment to provide this opportunity, built on
principles of democracy and what is best for the common good, is the foundation
for our economic prosperity and our civil society.
For generations, education was provided through a standardized
curriculum that all were expected to achieve. But thankfully, throughout the
decades, public education has evolved to meet the needs of individual students
and the larger needs of our society as we have moved from agrarian to
manufacturing to a knowledge-based economy, and as our citizens have become
more diverse.
Today’s public school classrooms do not resemble those of our
parents. The commitment to education for all has strengthened. The underpinning
is the development of a system that provides a flexible means of providing
appropriate education to all, overseen by a State Board of Education appointed
by the governor and the legislature and locally by an elected Board of
Education.
There are many examples of the system’s flexibility, but it is
best exemplified through the changing structures of our schools, from initially
a standardized curriculum through 12 grades, to evolving to include: early
childhood education, kindergarten and now pre-K; multiple choices within the
K-12 framework, such as magnet schools and alternative schools; large
traditional high schools and middle colleges and early colleges (small high
schools with focused curricula) that connect their students with higher
education through community college enrollment or traditional
university/college coursework; and schools using the Internet to present
coursework.
Over time, we have expanded our system to include charter
schools that were conceived to create innovative education practices that could
be transmitted to traditional school settings. These schools are publicly
funded, approved by the State Board of Education, but managed by a nonprofit
board of directors (which may contract with a for-profit administrative
company) and are exempt from the same operational standards as traditional
schools. Charter schools are part of the evolving system of education.
Until now, the focus of the evolving system has been to continue
to meet the needs of the common good, the commitment that all of us have a
stake in educating our children.
Now, there is a strong anti-public school wind blowing that puts
individual interests first, advocating for a market-driven competitive system
of education that promotes expanding charter schools and removing their
oversight to a separate administrative unit and to privatization of education
through promotion of tuition vouchers and tax credits.
The mantra for this movement is “parental choice” and promoting
competition for enrollment of students, discounting the numerous choices within
the flexible system.
Privatization reduces
financial support for the traditional system by siphoning public dollars to pay
for the private interests. Further, there is much accountability for student
academic outcomes and for the financial expenditures in the traditional public
system.
This may be lost in the privatization movement. There is little
question that this movement will create a dual system: one committed to the
public good and education to everyone who comes through the door, and the other
to those who promote privatization and competition among our schools.
North Carolina and Guilford County have a strong legacy of
public education committed to the common good. In the 21st century, when all
need to achieve higher education, when only a high school diploma is
inadequate, we must not be diverted by divided delivery structures; rather, we
must recommit to the vision of high-quality public education for all of our
children through one flexible system. Let us join together to strive for
excellence for all schools and for all of our students.
Editor’s
note: This editorial was originally published in the News
& Record on April 14, 2013.
