Education has always played a primary role in human development
and it is generally understood that parents are responsible for
their children's education. Yet, amongst a variety of roles ranging
from the minor act of meeting a teacher or signing a report card
to major fundraising efforts and investments in private schools,
parents were always considered secondary to the educational system.
Recent public efforts, however, have resulted in more diverse curriculums
that meet the various learning requirements of children from different
special needs groups, as well as facilitate parental involvement
in curriculum development. Now, parents have more than just a marginal
role in their children’s schools - they are running them.
Whether it is a difficult student or the school lacking the resources
to effectively deal with a difficult situation, one standard educational
system is not designed to meet the needs of every child in every
community.
Freedom of choice
Choice and equality in education has become a worldwide strategy
for school reform. While choice is well established in the UK
public school system, the British government still responded to
equity issues by basing the admissions processes on academic ability
alone. However, the US’s “No Child Left Behind Act” turned
choice into a civil rights issue and was introduced along side
the Clinton administration’s funding incentives for state
charter schools.
Alberta was the first Canadian province to implement similar innovation
in education policies and since then, school boards across the country
have been responding to public pressure for schools and curriculums
of choice. But similar to Australia’s cautious response, Canada
has been less certain about how these new policies will benefit
Canadian students.
The study of charters
A new concept in public education, charter schools are parent
driven independent education centers with the freedom to
implement alternative structures and teaching models. In
exchange for autonomy, they must be able to demonstrate
enhanced or different education delivery systems and prove
that they increase the learning abilities of their student
body.
Often, these schools accommodate special needs children and, as
is the case in Alberta, designated special education schools are
eligible to receive full funding. In addition to special needs children,
charter schools come in a full range of choices to meet almost any
specialized learning requirement. Not only can the gifted, artistic,
multilingual, religious and athletic student get their needs met,
all girls schools (such as Alberta’s Nellie McClung) cater
to the issues of adolescent females and a public high school for
homosexuals will soon be opening in New York City.
Choosing sides
The Society for Advancement of Excellence in Education, an
independent research group in British Columbia, conducted a three
year study and found that Canadian charter school students outperformed
their peers by sixty per cent on standard exams, doing better than
other students in their region. However, success is the US is somewhat
harder to measure.
According to the results of a recent UCLA study of seventeen charter
schools in ten California school districts, the reform movement
does not look so promising. Among its findings, the study concluded
that California’s chartered schools are not yet held accountable
to the enhanced academic achievement of their students.
And while the American Teachers Federation released a similar report
claiming that US charter schools were not living up to their promises,
Jeanne Allen, (president of the Center for Education Reform) thinks
otherwise. Referring to the results of their eight-year study of
over four hundred charter schools, she reports that although ten
per cent had shut down, over eighty per cent remained successful.
“Charter schools have had a measurably positive impact on
the health of traditional public schools and have often shown enormous
achievement among even some of the nation's poorest children”,
claims Allen.
While advocates continue to provide evidence of their success,
opposition groups are pointing out the results of their own data
and the debate has yet to be resolved. In any case, what started
as parental concern over their children’s education has now
evolved into a pro-active movement of education delivery reform,
and as we can continue to develop policies that verify accountability
and promote academic achievement in charter schools, then perhaps
we have really learned something about learning.
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