FINDINGS #6 History of the American Education System

Introduction

Accountability/PISA

Labaree/Hutt

Creation of School District

Murray/Fishe

Religion in Public Schools

School Choice

MinowII. "CHOICE" AS RESISTANCE TO RACIAL DESEGREGATION

Fuller

Introduction

“During the Colonial period of American history, there existed a common assumption that the purpose of life was to promote Christian faith. 2 It is not surprising, therefore, to find that the first form of public schools in America originated in Massachusetts for the purpose of assisting children in learning to read the Bible.” (Fuller, 1994, pg. 88)

“Religion and public education are perhaps the two most pervasive facets of American life. The Supreme Court has consistently interpreted the First Amendment to mean that these two areas should not intersect.” (Fuller, 1994, pg. 87)

Applying the Establishment Clause to Public Schools

Classrooom Curriculum

Bible Reading

Incorporation Doctrine

School Prayer

“Since this "incorporation" the Court has been much more absolute in its rejection of religious precepts in the public schools. The incorporation reasoning alone, however, does not provide an entirely satisfactory explanation for the Court's almost universal rejection of religion in the public school setting.” (Fuller, 1994, pg. 108)

“The Supreme Court has decided two major cases involving classroom curriculum; both involve the evolutionary theory of human origin. In Epperson v. Arkansas the Court held unconstitutional a state statute forbidding instruction in the public schools regarding the theory of evolution. While this case was decided before the Lemon test was fully developed, the Supreme Court stated that establishment is determined by whether the primary purpose or effect of the legislation is the advancement or inhibition of religion” (Fuller, p. 96)

“The majority found that the government involvement in religion was pervasive and that the students were forced to submit to subtle coercive pressure.” (Fuller, 1994, pg. 105)

“The Supreme Court concluded that reading the Bible itself was not violative of the First Amendment, and in fact the Court said, "the Bible is worthy of study" for secular purpose.” (Fuller, 1994, pg. 104)

“Remarkably, the Court allows the teacher to discuss personal religious views, religious views so offensive to some students that the students actually tried to walk out during the discussion. Either the Court is advocating that teachers be permitted to discuss religious principles at least when interrogated regarding those principles, or the Court is asserting that the plaintiffs religious and as in Mozert the school district cannot proscribe conduct simply because it is offensive” (Fuller, 102-103)

“In other words, the Court forbids inhibiting the instruction of evolution, a principle many feel is inapposite to traditional religion. This, at best, constitutionalizes hostility toward religion in the public classroom and, at worst, establishes a religion professing evolution over a religion professing creation. To resolve this conflict the Court must clarify the line between religion and secularism” (Fuller, p. 96)

“The court failed, however, to explicitly define religion or secularism. Justice Brennan, writing for the majority, explained that a religious intent exists if the legislature promotes a particular sect or promotes religion in general. This, of course, begs the question, what is a sect or what is religion in general. The definition of religion may be found in the evidence the Court uses to hold that a religious purpose exists” (Fuller, p. 97)

“The Court also inferred that religious motivation must exist because historically, certain religions opposed evolution. Thus, whether a view is religious may depend on how history has defined that view. This is a fairly dangerous criteria since it would exclude "modern" religions from constitution- al protection. Moreover, it is unhelpful because the Court fails to expand on what historical criteria are used to distinguish be- tween religious and secular precepts” (Fuller, p. 98)

“If the Court does not define what constitutes a religious belief, then a religious belief is whatever anyone desires. For example, a secular humanist will find the teaching in public school of any concept which leads to a belief in a Supreme Creator as unconstitutionally establishing a religion of deism. Likewise, a fundamentalist Christian will find any teaching which leads to a belief that mortality is the end of existence as unconstitutionally establishing a religion of atheism” (Fuller, p. 98)

Introduction

• “Recently in the United States, townships have seceded from towns, towns have broken away from counties, and in an even more interesting and controversial case, a town has sought sovereignty from one state in an attempt to join another.1 Yet even these cases cannot match in frequency the most common form of the redrawing of political boundaries – the instances of school district secession.” (2009, p. 48).

• “We normally conceive of secessions as tumultuous breaks of peoples from nation-states, often fueled by fiery political rhetoric in the most innocuous of cases and marked with widespread bloodshed in the most perilous instances. Thinking of state-splitting in this way is not surprising, especially if we consider the civil disorder witnessed in such places as Croatia and Bosnia after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites.” (2009, p.47).

School District Secession

• “In most cases, schools are financed via regressive property taxes raised by municipalities. A general, but quite predictable, result can arise from this mechanism for school funding – affluent communities have a more solvent tax base yet tend to tax themselves at a much lower rate than their less well-to-do counterparts in order to fund their respective schools.” (2009, p.48).

• “Additionally, since districts may encompass communities with different levels of economic well-being, tensions may arise within the district which can foster secessionist sentiments.” (2009, p.49).

School District Secession: How Pervasive Is It In The USA?

• “In at least 19 states, proposals for secession have been drawn up, presented in school board hearings, or actually decided by plebiscite.” (2009, p.51).

• “In the overwhelming majority of attempts at redrawing the boundaries of school districts, its advocates are mainly Caucasian, fairly to very affluent, and currently joined in the same school district with a community of a racial or ethnic minority, whose members garner a much lower per capita income.” (2009, p.51).

Standards vs. Mobility

• “My first response to the top-down claim is that the development and acceptance of a standard, bureaucratized system of age-graded schools was not itself invented by a central committee that bent its mind to the task.” (2010, p. 190).

• “Most blue-ribbon committees appointed to examine education issues came up with recommendations that were ignored or twisted so badly that the resulting reforms could hardly be said to have evolved from the original recommendations.” (2010, p. 190).

GED

“All that the GED represented might have been nothing more than an interesting footnote in the history of the post-war period if the test had remained, as initially planned and envisioned, a tool strictly for assessing the educational attainment of demobilized veterans.” (Hutt, 2019, pg 11)

:• “The more widely used the GED became and the more people used the GED to join the ranks of high school graduates, the more the idea of the high school graduate became intertwined with the GED itself (Hutt 13)”.

• “Embracing this view of the meaning and value of a high school education, of course, allowed Lindquist to deal with the most difficult aspect of his challenge: coming up with a test that could be given to veterans regardless of where or if they were formally educated in school. Minimizing the specific content maximized the number of people it could claim to assess fairly (Hutt 7)”.

PISA

NCLB

“PISA emerged from a series of other international efforts to assess school achievement that arose after the Second World War. The main precursor organization was the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), an offshoot of UNESCO, which conducted a 12-country pilot study in 1959, followed by the First International Mathematics Study in 1964, the First International Science Study in 1971, the second version of each of these studies in 1982 and 1984, and the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in 1995 (IEA, n.d.).” (Labaree, 2019, pg 3)

"The PISA approach is to measure a set of cognitive skills that graduates will need in order to be productive workers anywhere in the advanced world." (Labaree, 2014, p.2)

PISA stands for "Program for international Student Assesment"

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"The core aim of of the movement was to tighten the focus of the school curriculum to core academic subjects and to increase student achievement in these subjects" (Labaree 2014, p.6)

"Every state needed to set appropriate curriculum standards and to establish achievement tests that would measure how well students, schools, and school systems were meeting these standards." (Labaree, 2014, p. 7)

“White families almost uniformly selected the historically white schools, and black families almost uniformly chose the black-identified schools” (Minow, 2011, p. 823-824).

It should not be surprising that "school choice" in many quarters became tainted as an anti-desegregation tactic” (Minow, 2011, p. 824)

• III."CHOICE" AS AN INSTRUMENT OF RACIAL DESEGREGATION

o “The plurality opinion expressly called for ending the use of race as a factor when school systems invite students to choose among educational options (Minow, 2011, pp. 828).”

“As the litigation over the Boston Latin School program unfolded, the school department disclosed that most of the admitted students had taken the admission test twice and all but six of the 115 students who took the adtnission test twice came from private schools. This reinforced complaints that higher-income families sending their children to private school could offer their children an advantage in taking the high-stakes entrance test when compared with other children's opportunities.” (Minow, 828)

• IV. "CHOICE" AS AN INSTRUMENT OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY —AND A TRIUMPH OF RELIGIOUS SCHOOL CAMPAIGNS FOR PUBLIC FUNDING

“The Supreme Court had permitted public aid to students enrolled in religious schools if public school personnel offered standardized tests and speech, hearing, and psychological services'* and provided services mandated by the state outside the campus of the religious school” (Minow, 2011, p. 829).

“The fourth seductive moment brings to the fore the revival of calls for public funding of religious schools, with new advocates urging this policy as a means for affording good educational opportunities to low-income members of racial minorities” (Minow, 2011, p. 829).

2.) This item about PISA makes sense to me. I believe this, because students should be able to be taught skills that will give them the best chance at succeeding in the future.

3.)I do believe this item. I believe it, because I think that measuring how well students and schools are doing across the nation could really help to figure out what schools need improvements.

4.) This item made me think differently about allowing the intersection of the church and school. If history shows that schools should have religion taught in them, why should we try and change that? Although, if a student does not want to learn about it then they can choose not to.

5.) I am dissatisfied with this item, because I believe school is much more than just passing tests and having the material drilled into your head. I say this, because it is my opinion that you will not use over half of what you learn in school. Schools should teach more real-life skills that will benefit students. Examples: tax classes, insurance, having good credit, setting up bank accounts, etc.