Preserving the "Public" in Public Education for the Sake of Democracy

At the dawn of the 21st century, public education in the United States is undergoing intense, fundamental change, a "revolution" possibly as remarkable as the common school movement that gave rise to publicly supported schools. The past few decades has brought a host of neo-conservative education reforms. We have witnessed the emergence and rapid expansion of charter schools (Bulkley & Fisler, 2002; Center for Education Reform, 2005), the proliferation of private voucher plans in metropolitan areas including New York City, Dayton, Ohio, San Antonio, Texas, and Washington, D.C. (Godwin & Kemerer 2002; Howell & Peterson, 2002), and the implementation of publicly-funded voucher programs in selected urban districts and statewide in Arizona, Florida, Maine, Ohio, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2007; Shaul, 2002). Moreover, these reforms have been gaining momentum from federal regulation and court rulings, most notably the charter school option in No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the Supreme Court's decision upholding the constitutionality of tuition vouchers in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002), and, more recently, the Obama administration's choice to keep vouchers in the D.C. school system and provide stimulus package incentives (e.g., Race to the Top funds) for states to permit or expand charter schools. Teacher unions are under constant attack as well. New York City Schools Chancellor Joseph Klein, for instance, called for an end to the "three pillars of non-meritocracy"--teachers' seniority rights, tenure, and pay scales (Gootman, 2003), and D.C.'s former Education Chancellor Michelle Rhee adopted an evaluation system that dismisses teachers who fail to improve students' standardized test scores despite fervent resistance from the teacher union (Edsall, 2009; Turque, 2009). Merit pay schemes have also reemerged in districts throughout the nation with political support from both the Bush and Obama administrations, and performance-based accountability (with dramatic implications for teachers and school administrators) has become the modus operandi of public education (Hannaway & Hamilton, 2008). While primarily the province of neo-conservative policymakers, these reforms have also attracted (and in a few cases, such as Milwaukee's Democratic Mayor John Norquist, been led by) some liberals who have become disenchanted, indeed impatient, with the inability of traditional education reforms to improve educational opportunities for children most at risk of academic failure. In this article, we argue that while the influence of these reforms on classroom instruction and student achievement are still contested, these reforms may help schools achieve other goals that are part of their mission and promote outcomes for the common good--"certain general conditions that are in an appropriate sense equally to everyone's advantage" (Rawls, 1971, p. 246). The first section of the manuscript provides an overview of the private and public benefits of educational attainment. Arguments in the second section suggest that the current state of public schools precludes public schools from accomplishing these goals, in particular supporting a stable, democratic society. In the last section, we consider current reforms in light of public goals and suggest that these reforms, coupled with accountability measures, may change how we think about "public" education and rekindle optimism in the ability of public schools to meet their goals to the advantage of both the individuals receiving an education and society. Education as a Quasi-Public Good Because education not only produces benefits for the individual, but also yields benefits to the public, education is often considered a public good. The term public good is misleading, and at least partially erroneous. In the strict economic sense of the term a public good: (a) is non-excludable--others cannot be prevented from using the good or service, (b) is non-rivalrous--use of the good or service does not prevent others from using the good or service at the same time, and (c) has externalities--provides benefits that extend beyond the person consuming the good or service. …