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Choice: The great struggle in public education today
I am convinced that when the history is written of North Carolina public education in the early part of the 21st century the most notable story will be that of "choice." That is the move from strong centralized government control of where children attend school to a more open system in which parents exercise the predominate choice of the kind of education their child receives. The reasons for this shift are numerous but that is a story for another day. What this article looks at is how the transition is occurring.
What many people do not realize is that over the history of elementary and secondary education in this state, going all the way back five hundred years to colonial days, is that it has always been an enterprise close to the family. That is to say, the first schools, and then for hundreds of years even up until the early 1800's, schools were the province of the parents in the local community. Parents got together, built a school, and selected a teacher to teach the children of the community. The curriculum was essentially reading, writing, arithmetic and the Bible. When they acquired several teachers the parent chose one of the teachers to be the Principal Teacher. Often as not, the school was also the local church on Sunday morning. Records indicate that often two offerings were taken up on Sunday morning, one for the church and the other for the school's expenses. Bazaars were a common way to garner support for the school. It was not a common concept for anyone to consider schools being supported or controlled by the government. Taxpayer support did not come until the mid-1800's, after schools had been in existence for two centuries. It was not until Archibald Murphey submitted a report to the State Legislature in 1817 proposing state support of "common schools" that the idea of state control of public education became a viable idea.
Calvin Wiley was elected the first State Superintendent of Common Schools in 1852.
"Public schools" still remained predominately a local institution until the Great Depression hit in the 1930's. The School Machinery Act of 1931 established state supported public schools, taking over the funding of the operating costs (while the counties constructed the facilities) and extended the term from six to eight months. The "Golden Rule" then took control: "he who has the gold makes the rules." Since then the trend has been toward greater centralized control and less local control.
In recent years to movement has been to provide state funding but allow parents to establish charter schools. This movement has been strenuously opposed by the Educational Elite but Republican control of the Legislature in the last couple of years has given an impetus to the growth of charter schools. That is expected to continue and grow if Pat McCrory is elected governor and appoints new members of the State Board of Education as the Democrat-appointed members' terms expire.
We are too close to it now, but I believe the period we are in now will someday be recorded as the beginning of the shift from central (state) control of the public schools to parental control. The vehicle for accomplishing that I believe will be choice. As the constituency of choice grows it will become less a partisan issue and more of a reform movement.
But the shift will not come easily. There is a strong collection of elitists who control public education in this state, including the Education Establishment, who believe sincerely that they know what is best for school children. Politician also often like to ride the "education bandwagon" for votes. The problem with their position, however, is that strong state control has been a failure. It worked when the demands on public schools and of society were lower, but the globalization of the economy accentuates the shortcomings of the public schools. That, increasing demand, coupled with the fact that really astronomically increased amounts of funding have not produced commensurate improvement in results, has resulted in greater public support to "fix the schools."
The tension in the transition of which I speak can been vividly seen in a recent article posted by Dr. Terry Stoops in the Carolina Journal. In it he explains the struggle of a unique charter school to gain approval by the Education Establishment. Terry says:
Recently, the NC School Boards Association began forwarding a petition to school boards across the state asking them to "seek intervention as a party in the pending litigation captioned North Carolina Learns, Inc. v. State Board of Education." The case involves the failure of the State Board of Education to act on a charter school application submitted by a non-profit organization, North Carolina Learns.
Advocacy groups like the NC School Boards Association and NC Policy Watch have been critical of the proposed school because NC Learns would contract with K12, Inc., an accredited for-profit online education company, to provide computer-based instructional services. Like all charter schools in North Carolina, however, the non-profit board would maintain oversight of the school, the North Carolina Virtual Academy.
The role of K12 is only part of the story. The state's disregard for North Carolina charter school law and policy is a much more substantive and far-reaching issue.
In November 2011, North Carolina Learns submitted a charter school application to the Cabarrus County Board of Education. State statute gives local boards of education the power to grant preliminary approval to charter school applicants. Nevertheless, all charter school applicants must obtain final approval from the NC State Board of Education (SBE).
The following January, the members of the Cabarrus school board gave preliminary approval to the school and NC Learns subsequently applied to the SBE for final approval of their charter. The applicants hoped to obtain a "fast track" charter that would have allowed them to begin operation in 2012.
Enter the chairman of the NC State Board of Education Bill Harrison.
In October 2011, Harrison declared -- without a vote of the board and outside the parameters of the charter school law -- that the State Board of Education would not consider "fast track" applications for virtual or online charter schools. Certainly, Harrison did not have the power or authority to arbitrarily deny review of an application unless there were valid or extenuating reasons for doing so. In this case, no justification existed. The applicant met the deadlines and requirements established by the board.
As a result of the SBE's inaction, the NC Learns application remained in "limbo." At the same time, the NC Public Charter School Advisory Council received and acted on 27 other applications for "fast track" charters. In March, the NC State Board of Education approved nine charter school applications recommended for approval by the advisory council.
NC Learns filed a complaint with the Office of Administrative Hearings. That is when things got interesting.
As part of a motion to dismiss the NC Learns complaint, the attorneys for the SBE argued that the State Board of Education is not part of the executive branch and "exists as its own constitutional body." Later, the attorneys claimed that the SBE was part of the legislative branch. If true, then the Office of Administrative Hearings would not have jurisdiction over the matter. Of course, the claim is laughable and the judge rejected the motion to dismiss.
The administrative law judge determined that the actions/inactions of the SBE "were arbitrary, capricious, and without valid basis in law, rule, policy, process, or fact." Further, the judge determined that SBE action was not based on 1) action by the State Board of Education on the application; 2) any defect in the preliminary approval process; and 3) preliminary approval by the Cabarrus County Board of Education.
More importantly, the failure of the SBE to act on the application constituted "a loss of jurisdiction" over the NC Learns application. As a result, the administrative law judge approved the charter school's application.
Public school advocacy organizations, with help from the mainstream media, prefer to focus the public's attention on K12, Inc. But there is no evidence that K12 or NC Learns acted inappropriately. In fact, NC Learns made every effort to play by the rules only to find that the State Board of Education was making up the rules as they went along.
Click here to go to the original source.
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.
Go Back
What many people do not realize is that over the history of elementary and secondary education in this state, going all the way back five hundred years to colonial days, is that it has always been an enterprise close to the family. That is to say, the first schools, and then for hundreds of years even up until the early 1800's, schools were the province of the parents in the local community. Parents got together, built a school, and selected a teacher to teach the children of the community. The curriculum was essentially reading, writing, arithmetic and the Bible. When they acquired several teachers the parent chose one of the teachers to be the Principal Teacher. Often as not, the school was also the local church on Sunday morning. Records indicate that often two offerings were taken up on Sunday morning, one for the church and the other for the school's expenses. Bazaars were a common way to garner support for the school. It was not a common concept for anyone to consider schools being supported or controlled by the government. Taxpayer support did not come until the mid-1800's, after schools had been in existence for two centuries. It was not until Archibald Murphey submitted a report to the State Legislature in 1817 proposing state support of "common schools" that the idea of state control of public education became a viable idea.
Calvin Wiley was elected the first State Superintendent of Common Schools in 1852.
"Public schools" still remained predominately a local institution until the Great Depression hit in the 1930's. The School Machinery Act of 1931 established state supported public schools, taking over the funding of the operating costs (while the counties constructed the facilities) and extended the term from six to eight months. The "Golden Rule" then took control: "he who has the gold makes the rules." Since then the trend has been toward greater centralized control and less local control.
In recent years to movement has been to provide state funding but allow parents to establish charter schools. This movement has been strenuously opposed by the Educational Elite but Republican control of the Legislature in the last couple of years has given an impetus to the growth of charter schools. That is expected to continue and grow if Pat McCrory is elected governor and appoints new members of the State Board of Education as the Democrat-appointed members' terms expire.
We are too close to it now, but I believe the period we are in now will someday be recorded as the beginning of the shift from central (state) control of the public schools to parental control. The vehicle for accomplishing that I believe will be choice. As the constituency of choice grows it will become less a partisan issue and more of a reform movement.
But the shift will not come easily. There is a strong collection of elitists who control public education in this state, including the Education Establishment, who believe sincerely that they know what is best for school children. Politician also often like to ride the "education bandwagon" for votes. The problem with their position, however, is that strong state control has been a failure. It worked when the demands on public schools and of society were lower, but the globalization of the economy accentuates the shortcomings of the public schools. That, increasing demand, coupled with the fact that really astronomically increased amounts of funding have not produced commensurate improvement in results, has resulted in greater public support to "fix the schools."
The tension in the transition of which I speak can been vividly seen in a recent article posted by Dr. Terry Stoops in the Carolina Journal. In it he explains the struggle of a unique charter school to gain approval by the Education Establishment. Terry says:
Recently, the NC School Boards Association began forwarding a petition to school boards across the state asking them to "seek intervention as a party in the pending litigation captioned North Carolina Learns, Inc. v. State Board of Education." The case involves the failure of the State Board of Education to act on a charter school application submitted by a non-profit organization, North Carolina Learns.
Advocacy groups like the NC School Boards Association and NC Policy Watch have been critical of the proposed school because NC Learns would contract with K12, Inc., an accredited for-profit online education company, to provide computer-based instructional services. Like all charter schools in North Carolina, however, the non-profit board would maintain oversight of the school, the North Carolina Virtual Academy.
The role of K12 is only part of the story. The state's disregard for North Carolina charter school law and policy is a much more substantive and far-reaching issue.
In November 2011, North Carolina Learns submitted a charter school application to the Cabarrus County Board of Education. State statute gives local boards of education the power to grant preliminary approval to charter school applicants. Nevertheless, all charter school applicants must obtain final approval from the NC State Board of Education (SBE).
The following January, the members of the Cabarrus school board gave preliminary approval to the school and NC Learns subsequently applied to the SBE for final approval of their charter. The applicants hoped to obtain a "fast track" charter that would have allowed them to begin operation in 2012.
Enter the chairman of the NC State Board of Education Bill Harrison.
In October 2011, Harrison declared -- without a vote of the board and outside the parameters of the charter school law -- that the State Board of Education would not consider "fast track" applications for virtual or online charter schools. Certainly, Harrison did not have the power or authority to arbitrarily deny review of an application unless there were valid or extenuating reasons for doing so. In this case, no justification existed. The applicant met the deadlines and requirements established by the board.
As a result of the SBE's inaction, the NC Learns application remained in "limbo." At the same time, the NC Public Charter School Advisory Council received and acted on 27 other applications for "fast track" charters. In March, the NC State Board of Education approved nine charter school applications recommended for approval by the advisory council.
NC Learns filed a complaint with the Office of Administrative Hearings. That is when things got interesting.
As part of a motion to dismiss the NC Learns complaint, the attorneys for the SBE argued that the State Board of Education is not part of the executive branch and "exists as its own constitutional body." Later, the attorneys claimed that the SBE was part of the legislative branch. If true, then the Office of Administrative Hearings would not have jurisdiction over the matter. Of course, the claim is laughable and the judge rejected the motion to dismiss.
The administrative law judge determined that the actions/inactions of the SBE "were arbitrary, capricious, and without valid basis in law, rule, policy, process, or fact." Further, the judge determined that SBE action was not based on 1) action by the State Board of Education on the application; 2) any defect in the preliminary approval process; and 3) preliminary approval by the Cabarrus County Board of Education.
More importantly, the failure of the SBE to act on the application constituted "a loss of jurisdiction" over the NC Learns application. As a result, the administrative law judge approved the charter school's application.
Public school advocacy organizations, with help from the mainstream media, prefer to focus the public's attention on K12, Inc. But there is no evidence that K12 or NC Learns acted inappropriately. In fact, NC Learns made every effort to play by the rules only to find that the State Board of Education was making up the rules as they went along.
Click here to go to the original source.
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.
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