The 21st Century: A Child-Focused Change is Needed
by J. C. Bowman
Education has been thrust upon the center stage this presidential election.
Undoubtedly education in America will undergo tremendous changes in the
first decade of the 21st Century. The public school system will always be
there. It will always be the principal choice for most Americans. It needs
to be improved, and it needs to be reinvigorated. Most importantly, any
education reform effort should be child-focused.
Unfortunately, many times parents, taxpayers, local citizens and even school
boards seem to have been left out of the process, perhaps awestruck by the
overwhelming desire of the necessity of the needed reform. So outside
influences such as teacher unions, social agencies, business, and big
government forces have converged to dominate the political debate. Many
times they place their self-interest above those of the children.
It is also fair to say that the demands and government mandates, created in
part by these outside forces, overwhelm public school administrators and
teachers. Likewise, millions of parents have turned to private schools and
home schooling because they see public schools producing students, who will
know, do, and be like what teacher unions, social agencies, business, and
big government forces want. Dr. Aldo S. Bernardo of the State University of
New York at Binghamton stated, "These parents are worried about education
shifting from creating thinkers to training workers, and about a reform
whose ultimate aim seems to be the total restructuring of American society.
As they wait and wonder, the situation gets worse."
Let's be honest. Many more children are trapped in failing schools or are
not being challenged to reach their full potential in classrooms where the
teacher is forced to teach minimum standards to the average/median student.
Yet, there are a fair number of public schools doing an excellent job.
However in urban areas, good schools are the exception rather than the rule.
For decades we have allowed those who want to shift power for education to
Washington, DC and to exercise too much control of our local schools. We
have listened as old-style politicians tell us that more money is the
answer. Al Gore, Bill Clinton and Jesse Jackson, cloaked in teacher union
rhetoric, tell us that public schools are good enough for our kids - but
would not enroll their own children in a public school.
In fact, according to a recent Heritage Foundation study, a whopping 50% of
U.S. Senators and 34% of Congressmen send their kids to private schools -
while only 14% of average American parents can afford the option to remove
their children out of the failing government school system.
What would happen if we forced every politician or education bureaucrat to
take their children out of their private schools and place them into a
public school? How long would it take until these "new" public school
parents to decide that the time to reform public schools is now? How long
before the word "school choice" is uttered from their lips?
There are innovative politicians in both political parties-including
Republican Governors Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin and George Voinovich of Ohio, as well as leading Democrats like Mayor John Norquist of Milwaukee and former Rep. Floyd Flake of New York-that have made school choice the
centerpiece of their urban empowerment agendas.
These political leaders have discovered, what has been demonstrated
throughout history, that school choice improves education for all children.
The reason competitive educational markets have consistently done a better
job of educating children are four key factors essential to educational
excellence: educational choice for parents, financial responsibility for
parents, academic freedom for educators and market incentives for educators.
School systems that have enjoyed these characteristics have consistently
done the best job of meeting both our private educational demands and our
shared educational ideals.
School choice is also becoming a popular concept, polling data conducted by
the Polling Company in Washington, DC, indicates that an overwhelming 77
percent of registered voters and 82 percent of registered Democrats support
the idea of a tax-credit for donations to scholarship organizations that
help low income children attend the school of their choice.
According to a study by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies,
71 percent of African Americans polled supported school choice. The
percentage is even higher among African Americans with an annual income of
less than $15,000. These numbers demonstrate a strong awareness in the black community of the need for educational options.
The 21st century presents an opportunity for those with innovative ideas to
challenge the old, centralized government-planning model currently used in
public schools. Instead of fear of the free market, privatization and school
choice can be used as tools to help government achieve its goal of educating
its citizens. Schools and school systems may not welcome competition but
they will benefit enormously from it.
Two citizen-run campaigns under way in California and Michigan could
drastically shape a new direction. Boosted by recent Supreme Court rulings
that say the government can use taxpayer money to support private schools,
the votes could either bolster or stall the growing school choice movement.
It is clear we must contribute solutions that transcend our traditional
political labels of conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat. In
fact, we cannot continue to allow the politicians or big government
bureaucrats to dominate this process. It is time that parents, taxpayers,
local citizens and school boards reclaim their power over local schools from
Washington DC. Most importantly, it is time we place the needs of children
first.
John C. Bowman is President of Children First Tennessee/Children's
Educational Opportunity Foundation of Chattanooga. He is the former Director of Research for the Texas Public Policy Foundation. From 1992-1998 he served as Director of Government Relations for the Professional Educators of Tennessee. He also served three terms as vice-president of the National Association of Professional Educators. His experience also includes over a decade as a teacher in public schools.