…and ensure existing charter schools are held to the same level of transparency and accountability as public schools.
Lizzie, sweetie, you have that wrong way round. If only public schools were held to any level of accountability at all, the need for charter schools would dry up & blow away.
Provision of primary and secondary schooling through public agency or public corporation is largely an anachronism. At one time, when transportation costs were high (and local autonomy through elected government high), the range of the service was such that you could support only one school. It was a situational monopoly. That's now seldom the case in non-metropolitan counties and never the case in metropolitan counties. Primary and secondary schooling is a fee-for-service enterprise that emerges naturally on the open market. The characteristics and the living situation of > 90% of the population are such that there is no justification for making use of public agency as a delivery vehicle. Currently, schooling is run by conventicle of occupational guilds, labor meatheads, and local politicians, none of whom have decent motives. One of their objects is a series of inane schemes in the realm of social and cultural engineering, all of which should end.
If justice were to prevail, the use of public agency as a delivery vehicle would be limited to (1) remote areas like eastern Oregon, where high-overhead schools would be operated by state governments; (2) Indian reservations, with schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Education; (3) garrisons, with schools operated by the Armed Services for the children of dependents; (4) high overhead schools operated by state governments for special clientele (e.g. the profoundly autistic); (5) high overhead schools operated by the federal government or contractors as refugee resettlement enterprises; (6) juvenile prison systems, operated by state governments for inmates, (7) subsidiaries of local sheriff's departments or consortia of sheriff's departments, operated for their juvenile inmates and for incorrigibles no one else will take.
Ordinary schools would be operated by philanthropic corporations run according to one or two governance models. Some would be financed by vouchers and debarred from charging tuition, room-and-board, or fees; some would be financed by tuition, and could charge what the market would bear. There would be a voucher for every child, issued by a local education fund. Those opting for voucher-funded education would register their child at their municipal clerk's office and give the voucher to the school in question who would in turn present it to the local education fund who would redeem the voucher at face value. Those opting for tuition-funded schools or home schooling would register their child at the municipal clerk's office and then present the voucher to the educational fund directly, who would redeem it for a fraction of it's face value calculated according to a formula making use of the family's direct tax payments as arguments. Students in all modes of schooling would be subject to annual regent's examinations administered by proctors employed by the state board, which would in turn generate league tables of all schools.
The local education authority would be the county legislature or a convocation of county legislatures proceeding by weighted voting. The fund they operate would be financed by a state grant distributed to all counties according to formula to which local tax revenue would supplement.
All schools would be subject to a regulatory architecture: corporation law (esp provisions regarding philanthropies), contract law, consumer protection law in re solicitations, the state penal code, child-protective law; local ordinances of various sorts, especially land use and health and safety provisions; state health and safety codes; and a stripped down state labor law which government modes of compensation, frequency of compensation, insurance mandates, and tort liability for near-criminal conduct. Otherwise, every school as an expressive association could operate free from interference, influence only by where state regents' examinations place them on league tables.
The teachers' colleges, accrediting agencies, labor meatheads, local pols, and Lizzie would hate every element of this. So would a great many teachers and nearly all administrators.
Translation: We must quadruple federal funding for public schools and ban private and charter schools so we can indoctrinate all students without interference from pesky religious principles or effective educational methods.
4 comments:
…and ensure existing charter schools are held to the same level of transparency and accountability as public schools.
Lizzie, sweetie, you have that wrong way round. If only public schools were held to any level of accountability at all, the need for charter schools would dry up & blow away.
Provision of primary and secondary schooling through public agency or public corporation is largely an anachronism. At one time, when transportation costs were high (and local autonomy through elected government high), the range of the service was such that you could support only one school. It was a situational monopoly. That's now seldom the case in non-metropolitan counties and never the case in metropolitan counties. Primary and secondary schooling is a fee-for-service enterprise that emerges naturally on the open market. The characteristics and the living situation of > 90% of the population are such that there is no justification for making use of public agency as a delivery vehicle. Currently, schooling is run by conventicle of occupational guilds, labor meatheads, and local politicians, none of whom have decent motives. One of their objects is a series of inane schemes in the realm of social and cultural engineering, all of which should end.
If justice were to prevail, the use of public agency as a delivery vehicle would be limited to (1) remote areas like eastern Oregon, where high-overhead schools would be operated by state governments; (2) Indian reservations, with schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Education; (3) garrisons, with schools operated by the Armed Services for the children of dependents; (4) high overhead schools operated by state governments for special clientele (e.g. the profoundly autistic); (5) high overhead schools operated by the federal government or contractors as refugee resettlement enterprises; (6) juvenile prison systems, operated by state governments for inmates, (7) subsidiaries of local sheriff's departments or consortia of sheriff's departments, operated for their juvenile inmates and for incorrigibles no one else will take.
Ordinary schools would be operated by philanthropic corporations run according to one or two governance models. Some would be financed by vouchers and debarred from charging tuition, room-and-board, or fees; some would be financed by tuition, and could charge what the market would bear. There would be a voucher for every child, issued by a local education fund. Those opting for voucher-funded education would register their child at their municipal clerk's office and give the voucher to the school in question who would in turn present it to the local education fund who would redeem the voucher at face value. Those opting for tuition-funded schools or home schooling would register their child at the municipal clerk's office and then present the voucher to the educational fund directly, who would redeem it for a fraction of it's face value calculated according to a formula making use of the family's direct tax payments as arguments. Students in all modes of schooling would be subject to annual regent's examinations administered by proctors employed by the state board, which would in turn generate league tables of all schools.
The local education authority would be the county legislature or a convocation of county legislatures proceeding by weighted voting. The fund they operate would be financed by a state grant distributed to all counties according to formula to which local tax revenue would supplement.
All schools would be subject to a regulatory architecture: corporation law (esp provisions regarding philanthropies), contract law, consumer protection law in re solicitations, the state penal code, child-protective law; local ordinances of various sorts, especially land use and health and safety provisions; state health and safety codes; and a stripped down state labor law which government modes of compensation, frequency of compensation, insurance mandates, and tort liability for near-criminal conduct. Otherwise, every school as an expressive association could operate free from interference, influence only by where state regents' examinations place them on league tables.
The teachers' colleges, accrediting agencies, labor meatheads, local pols, and Lizzie would hate every element of this. So would a great many teachers and nearly all administrators.
Translation: We must quadruple federal funding for public schools and ban private and charter schools so we can indoctrinate all students without interference from pesky religious principles or effective educational methods.
Post a Comment