Alternatives for American 21st Education, Research Paper Example

According to the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, presently more than 48 million students in the United States are being instructed at approximately 90,000 elementary and secondary schools. Yet America remains significantly behind where it ought to be and rates poorly when compared to the education in comparable countries worldwide.  In addition, the quality of education provided in the U.S. is not consistent, with a “have” and “have not” between wealthier and poorer school districts. How can the educational process and this inconsistency of learning nationwide be improved? A number of educators have addressed these questions. This report provides examples of the wide variety of alternatives being suggested including deinstitutionalization, provisions to personalize urban schools and provide professional development for educators and the continued development of charter schools. Whatever approach(s) is used, it is necessary that it provides a legitimate education that looks at each student’s individual learning capacity, in order to provide a challenging and personalized education where no one is left behind in any subject.

Recognizing the great dichotomy that exists between education for the rich and poor in the United States, Ivan Illich calls for what he has termed a “deschooling” of the educational system that includes the major component of economics. He emphasizes the need for equal education as well and, as importantly, an education system that actually teaches instead of schooling children and stresses reason over memorization. Illich stresses that education cannot be successful unless it (and society) is deinstitutionalized. Most learning today is not the result of teaching. Instead, the teacher has become a custodian of societies’ rituals, therapist and preacher. Illich instead suggests a lifelong learning society where skills training is nationally available and dissociated from the institutionalized aspects of schooling and people openly associate to create a critical education that may be led by “masters.” In the modern schools, there is a false belief in salvation of progress. Regardless of how much money the government pumps into the schools, the results are not improved.

To reach the goals that he proposes, Ilich recommends a technology redeployment that exists away from the large corporations that are manipulative in their manufacture of demand, just as schools manufacture demand. His practical vision for a de-schooled society is based on what he terms “learning webs,” in which there will be an exchange between a skills teacher and a student, among individuals who are engaged in critical discourse, and between the master practitioner and a student that exists in intellectual disciplines and the arts, as well as in the crafts or skills that are now considered unworthy by the schools. Illich also discusses the

deinstitutionalization of resources, proposing that the resources that society now offers be available for educational purposes. For instance, a store can help people make their own repairs. This network of educational resources can be financed through the community or a system of vouchers that could pay for these free-market providers. Humans have forgotten that they do not require institutions to survive. Instead they need nature and the support of other individuals.

Eventually, Illich relates, a minority of people will emerge who are critical of the institutionalization of society: They will place hope above expectations, love people more than products and see the earth as a vehicle for people meeting one another. Naturally, such a revolutionary approach as promoted by Illich takes a complete change in the mindset of the country in terms of education. Since education as it is now known has been such an integral part of the society’s structure, the feasibility of this alternative seems remote.

Similar to Illich, Halford looks at ways of improving the existing school system but through a less revolutionary way. She focuses on the “provisions to personalize urban schools, and professional development for educators.”  This means that education of the educator is as important as that of the child in the classroom. Inequality is the child of racism and ignorance.  The issue for policymakers is how to get funding to bring knowledge into the inner-city school and thus impede racism.  Halford states in “Policies of Promise,” “In center-city schools, equal funding may not be adequate funding, because urban schools may require an initial extra investment just to be elevated to an acceptable baseline for academic achievement.”  She paints a grim example of schools that is seen in school districts nationwide.  Without the quick action by policymakers, decrepit buildings revert back to nature and the already crowded school next door has to harbor all the students whose school is dilapidated.

In “Polices of Promise,” Halford explains that some policymakers are focusing on the change of organization and control of urban schools in order to face overwhelming social and economic issues. Some legislators, who are disenchanted with unruly bureaucratic systems of boards of education that are distant from their constituents, have experimented with new designs that promote local ownership, involvement and responsiveness. She cites Chicago as an example, where publicly elected local school councils hire and fire administrators, prepare school budgets, and develop school-improvement plans. In addition, many educators now recognize the necessity for comprehensive urban educational reforms that stress “personalization,” or human-scale schooling, which acknowledges that a key to academic achievement is long-term relationships between educators, students, and families.

Halford explains that personalization can include a number of changes such as smaller teacher-student ratios, as well as larger efforts such as decentralization. Larger urban school systems, for example Los Angeles, are studying ways to break the entire district into smaller units. Additional ways to enhance personalization in urban schools include team teaching, mentoring programs and increased use of paraprofessionals to support teachers. Improving personalization also necessitates correcting other fundamental problems, such as lack of adequate materials, which lower the possibility of teaching and learning effectively.  What Halford proposes, although not as radical as Illich’s approach, may also take considerable time due to the diversity of thought within the country.

In “A Viable Path for School Reform,” Robelen discusses the greater utilization of public charter schools to resolve the problem with educational disparity.  Supporters of these schools share a fundamental bottom line: Schools should be held accountable for their performance, encouraged if they succeed, shut down if they fail. Robelen admits that charter schools have their share of controversy, since their autonomy represents a dramatic shift in the power structure of public education. Many argue that the charter school take needed money from other public schools and worry whether they truly solve the diversity issue. Some school districts say that the charter schools have not had any kind of effect on improving the school systems in the inner cities. There is also no consensus on the definition of a charter school and its goals. Overall, it is hoped that these schools provide families with new public school options, act as laboratories to show how innovation can be accomplished and pressure districts to change by building an element of competition into what is otherwise a local monopoly, and represent systemic reform or decentralized approach to public education that shifts the power.

Robelen explains that proponents to charter schools also state that the competition is a powerful way that schools can affect public education. “When school districts know they cannot take students and money for granted, they have turned to teachers to create new and more effective programs,” he writes. School districts respond to charter schools, “whether existing or proposed, by reexamining and trying to improve what happens in the traditional public schools” (1996). James Goenner, president of a collation of charters, the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, says that these schools are a “vehicle for infusing competition and market forces into public education, a proven method for responsive change and improvement. In Michigan, this means improving education for all 1.8 million school children” (1996). The initializing of charter schools across the country should be focusing on improving student’s scores and aptitude and cognitive abilities and not catering to negligence and dumped down proficiency as opponents warn.

The educational system can have a major impact on a child’s learning capacity. The country needs to undergo a major paradigm shift. As Goodman notes in “Compulsory Misedcation,” subjecting young people to institutionalized learning stunts and distorts their natural intellectual development, makes them hostile to the idea of education and turns out regimented competitive citizens likely only to aggravate the current social ills. The issue of whether charter schools or any other alternative should be in existence is whether it will provide a high-quality education that meets the goals established by educators and places American students on par with those in other countries.

Works Cited

Goenner, James N. “Charter Schools: The Revitalization of Public Education.” Phi Delta Kappan 78.1 (1996): 32–36.  Print.

Goodman, Paul.  “Two Simple Proposals,”1964. Web. 22 October 2010. http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/goodmane.PDF

Halford, Joan M.  “Policies and Promise.” Urban Education 5 (1996). Web. 22 October 2010 http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/infobrief/jan98/num12/toc.aspx

Illich, Ivan.  “Deschooling Society,” 1970. Web. 22 October 2010 http://www.davidtinapple.com/illich/1970_deschooling.html

Robelen, Erik W.  “A Viable Path for School Reform.”  ASCD Info brief 12 (1998). Web. http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/infobrief/jan98/num12/toc.aspx