I have always had mixed feelings about local control. On one hand, I think it is very important for people to feel a sense of pride, belonging, ownership, and engagement in their local school. On the other, I don’t want the school to reflect nothing more than what the local people already know and believe. That way, no one every learns anything new or is challenged to rethink what they know. Education is about tradition but it is also about encountering and grappling with new ideas.
So, I don’t want to seem wishy-washy, but I recognize that there is merit to both sides of the argument and that, as in so many things, a sensible balance is needed between the forces of localism and those who push against localism. I should add that, these days, I find no case to be made for federal control of curriculum, as the federal bureaucrats are even less thoughtful, less imaginative, and more rule-bound than their local counterparts. At least one can engage the local bureaucrats in conversation, and the conversation is possible. There is no way to engage the federal bureaucrats, because they are so distant and also so powerful. Once they gain control, it’s hard to hear dissent at all.
That said, I thought you might enjoy reading what Diana Senechal has to say about local control in response to a post earlier this morning (my note: growing up in Houston, where we almost never saw snow, we read “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” and yes, we imagined what it must be like to experience what Robert Frost described):
| There are two sides even to the points that this teacher makes.Yes, a school should be able to have sheep without that being part of the statewide curriculum.
Yet children in Phoenix should get to read “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” The fact that they don’t see snow around them shouldn’t prevent them from reading about it. The teacher just might have to explain a little more about snow. I see no reason why there couldn’t be a slim (but high-quality) common curriculum that left plenty of room for variation and choice. (I distinguish between curriculum and standards–the standards, as I see them, are not curriculum.) Otherwise you could end up with schools that didn’t offer physics because they didn’t think the kids needed it; that didn’t teach Sophocles because his message isn’t Christian; that didn’t teach poems or stories about snow because, well, they weren’t relevant to the kids’ lives. You’d have schools that based their curriculum on student and teacher preferences, with little or nothing to counterbalance them. Yes, I enjoy teaching my favorite works of literature, but I also want to be challenged to teach something outside of my preferences, provided it’s good. Local control could also subject schools to the temporary emotions of the community. A few years ago, a Sixth Circuit panel in Ohio decided that a teacher’s curricular and pedagogical choices are not protected by the First Amendment. Parents had petitioned against a high school teacher who was teaching Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha (which the school board had ordered). There was more to this than Siddhartha alone, but still, it’s disturbing that the parents had more say than the teacher here. There should be some protection of subject matter. (I wrote about this case in a guest blog: http://www.joannejacobs.com/2011/05/evans-marshall-and-the-canons-of-the-profession/) What I find constraining is not curriculum but the packaging of it–big, bulky, cluttered textbooks; bad tests; constraining pedagogical directives; and misleading jargon and buzzwords.
|
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The question is not local control vs. federal control, the question is democratic governance vs. corporate governance. The power of the purse strings exists in both forms of governance, but it constitutes an abuse of that power in either system to think that financial power can dictate the truth in opposition to reality.
The education community is a component of the community of inquiry, its role being to communicate to each succeeding generation what inquiry discovers about reality — real history, real information, real knowledge. A society that sets itself against reality is doomed, against which fate the community of inquiry is charged to serve as lookout on the ship of state.
Democracy provides the best environment for unfettered inquiry, but the process of inquiry is not one of reaching true descriptions of reality by polling popular opinion. The proper relation between democracy and inquiry is not as simple as that.
A nation that would sustain itself will be wise to invest in inquiry and education, but funding does not mean control of the truths that are discovered and communicated.
That is what is so appalling about the so-called parent trigger law in California. It allows one small group of parents, one time, to hand over the governance of a school to outside corporate (even if they’re non-profit) interests indefinitely. By the time the “trigger” is implemented, the parents who pulled it may not even have kids in the school. And, so far, it’s only been initiated by outside groups with no ties to the community of the affected school.
Charters are very fashionable with some. But why doesn’t their creation *always* come with a locally elected community school board for the charter when they are created outside of district oversight? Why not just make them essentially their own mini school districts?
What part of: (PARENTS) …it’s THEIR CHILDREN and THEIR TAX DOLLARS is everyone missing?
Sorry teachers, but if you want to bring in objectionable material, the parents SHOULD have a voice. It’s THEIR kids and it’s THEIR earned income paying for that school.
This is what infuriates parents!!!
When did these schools become the domain of the govt. teachers or administrators.? They are supposed to serve the parents and students in the local community.
I appreciate a good teacher and certainly want to include their voice in any decision making process, however if you cut parents out of the process, parents will no longer support you.
I hear you, but should a teacher poll all the parents before teaching a play by Shakespeare or a novel by Twain or Steinbeck to see if anyone objects?
If the parents are opposed to teaching evolution, should the science teacher respect their opinions or teach modern biology?
Frankly, I think it is shameful that we continue to debate evolution. I am embarrassed at international conferences, because I think that people from other advanced societies are laughing at us–and they should.
Teachers are professionals. They should be free to teach what is appropriate for students of a certain age, based on their trained, professional judgment.
Take away that professionalism, and you will get teachers who cower to the prejudices of the local community.
Yes, I agree. I didn’t see this when I was writing my own reply; sorry for the partial redundancy.
I’d add that a school should back what the teachers are doing and make its curriculum public (at least the general outline). Of course the teachers will supplement and adjust the curriculum–but if it’s there for the parents to see, then they can come to grips with it. The principal should know the curriculum well enough to defend and describe it in general terms. The teachers can explain it in greater detail.
This doesn’t mean teachers must clear or list everything before teaching it. There will always be materials that come into play at the last minute. But when the school can say, “this is what we do,” it both protects its curriculum and allows parents to understand it better.
Also, it can be helpful, time permitting, to have occasional seminars for the parents–where they can come into the school and read some of the literature (or other subject matter) that their children are learning. At my first school, we had Saturday English classes for parents. I taught one of these courses and included poetry, songs, grammar, conversation, and practical skills such as interviewing for a job. There was some overlap with what my students were learning; I think the parents appreciated this.
Objecting to Hesse’s Siddhartha is a bit extreme. Siddhartha moves beyond carnal desire–and the carnal part is only mildly explicit. If you can’t read that in high school, then what can you read?
I do not consider Siddhartha Hesse’s best, but merit was not the issue here. It’s a gentle little novel about moving toward wisdom.
Literature often provokes and upsets us–not gratuitously, but honorably. If you aren’t allowed to go through those upsetting parts, then you don’t reach their meaning, either. Of course, schools should take students’ ages and maturity levels into account. They should exercise good judgment when shaping their curriculum. But if they try to keep everything mild, acceptable, and pat, it won’t be literature they’re teaching.
Schools must be in a position to protect the subject matter. It cannot be at the mercy of people who don’t know it. (Some parents know it well; some don’t.) Parents should have some say, but there should also be some established parameters, some definitions of the subjects and what they contain. Otherwise you’ll have teachers getting in trouble for teaching Oedipus Rex to tenth graders.
Just for clarification: I’m referring to the case where the parents petitioned against a teacher who included Siddhartha in her syllabus. Again, there was more going on there, but the parents were in an uproar over Siddhartha, which in their view had some explicit passages.
And when I said “Siddhartha moves beyond carnal desire,” I was referring to the novel’s protagonist.
You do understand that it’s more than just parents who pay school taxes, don’t you?
Now why should they keep doing that?
Take a minute to review this: CBS News Channel 12 West Palm Beach
http://www.cbs12.com/news/features/treasure-coast/stories/vid_164.shtml