A modest proposal to reform our public schools | Eastern North Carolina Now

    We recently posted a Heritage Foundation video entitled "School choice made simple." See the video below.



    While we strongly support the idea of parents being able to choose where to send their child to school we would like to propose for debate another idea.

    The idea is for parents to take over governance of a school.

    Here's how it would work, in simple terms. If a certain percentage of parent/guardians (we would suggest 2/3rds) of the parent of any school voted to do so they could remove the school from the governance responsibility of the local board of education. The parent would be required to elect a local school board of education and that board would then govern the school. The local board could decide whether to enter into a management agreement with the local school system's administration (superintendent) or could hire its own administrators. The law would have to stipulate that all the money that would have gone to the school, including its pro rata share of central office expenditures would be available to the local school's board.

    A radical idea? Not at all.

    If you study the history of American public education you find that this kind of governance is exactly how American schools operated for over two hundred years. In fact local community control by parents is older than the current model of state control.

    State control did not originate in America until the first half of the 1800's. Prior to that education was a function of, first the family and then the local church and then the local community. The way it happened was that a group of parents would get together and form a school. The parents hired a teacher. It became such a popular idea that other parents joined. As the school grew one of the teachers was selected to be the "principal teacher." Over time the parents decided that rather than run the school as a democracy they would select a committee to run the school.

    This idea served the nation well. But in the early 1800's men like Horace Mann and in North Carolina, Calvin Wiley decided that the state should operate schools.

    If you're interested, you can read Calvin Wiley's First Annual Report of General Superintendent of Common Schools to the Legislature by clicking here. Perhaps the time has come that we should go back and examine our history and see if there aren't some things that worked better then than are working now and give them a try.

    Delma Blinson writes the "Teacher's Desk" column for our friend in the local publishing business: The Beaufort Observer. His concentration is in the area of his expertise - the education of our youth. He is a former teacher, principal, superintendent and university professor.