Knowledge is central to power. Knowledge
helps us envision the contours of our existence, what is desirable,
what is possible, and what actions might bring about the possibilities.
Knowledge helps us examine relationships between what is ethical and
what is desirable; it widens our experiences; it provides analytic
tools for thinking through questions, situations, and problems.
Knowledge empowers centers around the interest and aims of the
prospective knower. Apart from the knower, knowledge has no
intrinsic power ( Sleeter and Grant).
What has this talk of knowledge being power have to
do with public schooling in our country? First, our country has shifted
from hands on to making software. Student’s of today need to explore
keyboards, computer labs, and processing of data, while competing with
student’s across the United States and the world. Because student’s
backgrounds influence their choice of schools, it would not be valid to
infer differences among types of schools by simply comparing
achievements. Public schools have achievement scores on standardized
tests that are not based on income, so the students earn their way.
Public schools attract a more comparable mix of students, relative to
private schools. Public schools also serve a sizable proportion of
children in families where they compete for higher resources.
There are many major ideas of why public schools can become more competitive in the labor markets.
♣ Equity: Everyone pays school taxes, so everyone
should enjoy the benefits, even if they want to buy more than the tax
dollars will allow. Equity equates success.
♣ Freedom: Maximizes the range of choices, and the
decision to not harm others while allowing other children to learn
more. Society benefits when children learn more.
♣ Parental involvement: Parents choose more carefully
when there is not such a big out-of-pocket cost. Parents involved helps
to keep the children involved.
♣ Efficiency: Price is a primary market mechanism.
Changes can only reflect political forces. There are fewer costs
because each child gets the same amount of public money.
Public schools are being attacked; headlines seem to
be about violence, drugs, and desegregation. Has the education crisis
been overstated? Illiterate high school graduates and wasted tax
dollars are among a national risk report warning of the rise in school
mediocrity. Parents and educators have seized on a rash of reforms and
alternatives, ranging from national standards and private management to
school choice charter schools. With in all of this controversy there
are a growing number of scholars and public school advocates that are
questioning whether the “crisis” really exists. They are reviewing data
that has recently pointed out these ideas of failing public schools and
they are finding that most of the data has been distorted by critics in
order to seek tax dollars for support of private schools. Such charges,
the critics counter, represent the education establishment in a state
of denial.
In February 2004, a hard-driving real estate agent
placed a provocative advertisement in a local newspaper stating “Mount
Vernon Public Schools have got you down?” It then asked “That you
move.” Most reputations of public schools are precious to their
communities. The person who put that article in the newspaper received
hundreds of calls, not from potential clients, but from teachers,
parents, and school officials who were furious at the slurs on their
public schools.
Indeed, the absence of dramatic progress prompts
many critics to argue that public schools need to raise their
standards. This is what the Bush administration is working on. The
education officials have assembled what is considered one of the best
compilations of data on the problems and how to form a plan to fix our
public schools.
We are now seeing public schools pull out of a
stagnation formed in both the good news and bad news. This is progress
in closing the gaps that have been stalling public schools since the
mid 1980’s.
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