The first public schools in America were created by groups of private individuals to serve the educational needs of the communities in which they lived. They were not mandated by state or federal government, just created to answer the need of society for educated citizens. They were called public schools not because they were part of a public government, but because attendance was open to the general public. Anyone could attend, and tuition was set based on ability to pay. Education was basic and functional. Costs were kept extremely low so that no one had to pay an unreasonable tuition.
This basic idea of practical education for a local community at a reasonable price has a rich and successful history. From the William Penn charter schools in colonial Philadelphia to parochial schools of the 19th and 20th century, communities have found it practical and economical to provide their members with the education they need. Even the earliest ancestors of modern public schools - like the Free Schools of the 1840s - were structured and funded on a local basis, not under the auspices of state or national government.
Only relatively recently has the idea of a nationwide, uniform system of mandatory education been imposed on our communities. Even in its relatively short history it has become clear that this type of education does not work. Government controlled schools provide an inferior quality of education at a much higher price with far less sensitivity to the needs and interests of the communities the schools supposedly serve.
The heart of the traditional community school of the 19th century was the teacher, a clearly identifiable individual who had real reponsibility for the children in his or her care, and was answerable primarily to the parents in the community. There were no cental regional administrators, nationwide educational initiatives or faceless state or federal bureaucrats pushing cookie-cutter curricula or promoting the agendas of special interests in place of real education. If there was something wrong in your kid's school you took it up with the teacher or principal of that school who was answerable to you and to other parents, not to some distant, uninvolved bureaucracy. This structure encouraged parental involvement and made schools responsive to community needs. It also resulted in better educated students.
Article comments
1 - SFC SKI
At first glance, I have to agree, Dave.
If schools hold no standards for students to meet, or if those standards are so low or vague as to make the student unable to face the rigors of higher education, then 12 years of their lives have ben wasted.
2 - Dave Nalle
Well, we have standards now thanks to No Kid Left Behind, it's just that the standards they're teaching are bare facts without context or understanding. Two years of highschool are now basically spent memorizing trivia so the school will get high test scores and be rewarded. I'm not sure that's a step forward.
Dave
3 - Tan Hoang
Yes. Put more emphasis on the teachers. Give them more pay and more say on the school's curriculum. However, with this, it might create inconsistencies within schools about education content (but we have that now anyway). But we should also put some blame on the students themselves and this culture we live in. When kids see that they can get rich without education by watching these uneducated celebrities gain money and fame, why try in school? Damn these romantic rags-to-riches stories.
4 - Dave Nalle
>>But we should also put some blame on the students themselves and this culture we live in. When kids see that they can get rich without education by watching these uneducated celebrities gain money and fame, why try in school? Damn these romantic rags-to-riches stories.<<
I don't think you can blame the kids for that. And it's not a new phenomenon either. You have to put the blame on the media, our culture and most of all the parents if the kids don't have the basic grounding in reality necessary to understand that they aren't all going to get basketball careers or go into the movies. Plus, the myth of getting discovered and suddenly rising to fame isn't new. It was just as present 60 years ago, but we didn't have a lot of the problems we have now in education, so what's different today?
Dave
5 - SFC SKI
You don't blame kids, you give them the tools, skills, and opportunites, and challenge them to make the most of them.
6 - Dave Nalle
Exactly, Ski. But as the system is now, half the tools and resources, or more are being sucked away into administrative overhead.
Dave
7 - Mark Saleski
do have any numbers for admistrative overhead?
the last time i check my town's school budget, the vast majority of the money went directly to the school-related costs, mostly teacher salaries and building costs.
also, i do agree that smaller (read: very small) schools would be great. don't know if it's possible though.
8 - Dave Nalle
Mark, your town may have a very small district. The smaller the district the lower the overhead. What you have may be close to the model I'm in favor of.
Typically medium to large districts spend 15-20% of their budget on central administration and another 5-10% on administrative costs at the individual school, for a total of as much as 30% in purely administrative costs. Efficiency groups suggest that the administrative costs of a school district should never be more than 5% of the total budget, a goal which almost no one reaches.
There are also other hidden overhead costs which absorb an enormous amount of the budget - things like buses and special transportation services, subsidized programs of various sorts, and one of the big killers - bond service. Between all of these things, only about half the total money most districts take in is actually spent on teacher salaries, textbooks and classroom materials. A lot of the other expense is unavoidable, but administrative budgets are bloated and can be cut. In 2004, for example, the Denver system spent over half a million dollars on bonuses and hiring incentives for administrators. That seems really excessive, and it's pretty typical. Superintendents get paid phenomenal salaries everywhere as well - like corporate CEOs.
Dave
9 - Mark Saleski
i'm not disagreeing that there are admistrative costs, some of which should go away. however, 30% is not the same as:
"half the tools and resources, or more"
10 - Mark Saleski
...and it'd be very cool to go back to very small schools. i guess my question would be how does the construction of them get funded.
taking high school as an example, in the town i moved from last year, there was one high school housing something like 2000 kids. they would need to build, i'm guessing here, four new high schools.
11 - bhw
Recent studies are showing that small schools are better for kids.
Of course, my town just finished building four K-8 grammar schools, each of which has over 1500 students. My daughter's school has 6 kindergarten classes.
It's not the best solution. The schools are overwhelming, especially to the youngest kids.
12 - Dave Nalle
My original 50%+ estimate included building maintenance and utilities, and it's really not fair to include those. They're substantial costs and very hard to do away with.
>>...and it'd be very cool to go back to very small schools. i guess my question would be how does the construction of them get funded.<<
If we have to go back and build entirely new schools it would be a disaster. I'd just like to see a simpler start with the infrastructure we already have.
First off, eliminate almost all centralized administration except for textbook purchasing and payroll. Let the individual schools handle almost everything else. Reduce administration in the schools by letting teachers drop some of their class load to do administrative jobs in that time instead. I don't think a school with fewer than 1000 students needs to have more than one full time administrator, and I think principals should teach at least one class.
>>taking high school as an example, in the town i moved from last year, there was one high school housing something like 2000 kids. they would need to build, i'm guessing here, four new high schools.<<
A single high-school with 2000 kids, which presumably means 1 or 2 middle schools and 2 or 3 elementary schoools, is really a very small district. Similar to the one near where we currently live. The first question I'd ask about a district like that is whether it even should have any kind of centralized administration. Why can't the administration of the entire district be run out of the highschool, with a minimum number of administrators?
Dave
13 - bhw
Reduce administration in the schools by letting teachers drop some of their class load to do administrative jobs in that time instead.
So people with master's degrees in their fields should be answering phones and filing paperwork?
Also, if teachers dropped their class load, who would pick it up? You might be able to reduce the administrative staff, but you'd either have to get more teachers. Or you'd have to increase class size, but that's the exact opposite of what's needed.
I don't think a school with fewer than 1000 students needs to have more than one full time administrator, and I think principals should teach at least one class.
A principal is responsible for not only the running of the school, but also for staff oversight. In a school with 1000 students, I'd think that's pretty much a full-time job, if not a job and a half. How many employees work under that principal? And while having principals keep a foot in the classroom would be nice, it's not realistic to expect them to run a 1000-student school and teach a class.
14 - Lennie
There is a big push across the country for the so-called 65% solution where 65% of monies spent goes toward instruction. Illinois is currently only averaging 59.5% and my district is at 60% after removing construction for a new school.
Money though is not the total issue. We need vouchers to promote competition. I just wrote a long article on this . It is too long for here. So click the link to read it all.
I also talk about what New Zealand did. Basically what they did was get rid all of the administration above the Principal. The school elect trustees and the Principal gets a block of money based on students. He and the trustess run the school with that. The results have been astounding.
15 - Dave Nalle
>>So people with master's degrees in their fields should be answering phones and filing paperwork?<<
Their field being what, education? A teacher with a Masters degree in a legitimate specialization should probably be in the classroom, but there are plenty of junior teachers who could fill in on administrative duties.
>>Also, if teachers dropped their class load, who would pick it up? You might be able to reduce the administrative staff, but you'd either have to get more teachers. Or you'd have to increase class size, but that's the exact opposite of what's needed. <<
Hiring more teachers would be fine. There's a surplus of teachers in many regions right now. But class sizes also need to be larger. They've taken class size limits appropriate to elementary school and applied them accross the board at ages where they really aren't appropriate. You don't need a 18 seat limit in a high-school class. They should have 25-30 kids per class.
>>A principal is responsible for not only the running of the school, but also for staff oversight. In a school with 1000 students, I'd think that's pretty much a full-time job, if not a job and a half. <<
That's why you make the staff more autonomous and have them oversee themselves. Assign a teacher administrator for each block of 3 grades to handle the administrative chores for the teachers in those grades.
But most of all, get rid of all the stupid paperwork teachers have to do to fulfill mickey mouse requirements from central administration.
>>How many employees work under that principal? And while having principals keep a foot in the classroom would be nice, it's not realistic to expect them to run a 1000-student school and teach a class.<<
Why not? I attended a private school with about that many students and every administrator except for the secretary taught at least one class. The work still seemed to get done.
Dave
16 - SFC SKI
IN my experience, class sizes under 20 work better than the 25 to 30 you recommend. Even with computer based instruction, there is a level of necessary human interaction that is best served by smaller class sizes.
17 - Dave Nalle
Different subjects work well at different class sizes, of course. I went to a bunch of different kinds of schools, but for certain subjects - math, basic english and history in particular the straight lecture format with a teacher and 30 students seemed to work as well as anything I was ever exposed to. I know that style of teaching is out of fashion now, but it worked for 100 years and it still ought to. It requires a certain level of discipline, which most schools seem to lack these days, but maybe bringing that back wouldn't be such a bad thing.
Dave
18 - Silas Kain
Dave, your points are well taken. I've commended you before on your views in the area of public education. I hope that you write more on this subject. I think we're doing a terrible disservice to our youth by not providing them with a sound, basic education. We're ushering kids through 12 years of school and it seems to me they come out at a 6th grade level.
19 - Dave Nalle
Silas, I wish I had definitive answers to the problems of public education. A lot of my ideas are almost shots in the dark. I know things which I've seen work, but times are different today and I don't know if they'd work in the current environment. I've also seen problems friends are running into with kids in public school, or as teachers in public school. One thing I've observed is that a lot of the efforts to fix the system just make things worse. All the teacher accountability measures just result in more paperwork and less focus on actually teaching. Stuff like standardized testing and other elements of 'No Child Left Behind' have resulted in diluting the curriculum and destroying the learning environment of the classroom in many cases.
Dave