Private versus Public: Democracy and Rhetoric

Access to private education remains, in minds of many, the gold standard of education--the choice all parents aspire to. This argument is a reasonable one, as common knowledge holds that the public schools have more or less failed both students and parents. Education is, like most things, a commodity--you get what you pay for. But is this really true? Have we as a country given up on our public schools? As a student reared in the public school system, I know I internalized this myth; when I first attended a private college, part of a freshman class made up of a large number of students from private schools, I was insecure, assuming that, skill-wise, I would not be able to compete with my "better educated" peers. And yet, I was fine. Despite this, I feel guilty pains of hope when students tell me they are transferring to a private school. I often wonder what is best for my students, for all students.
I pose these questions not to denigrate private education, or as an attempt to justify my experiences and career choice, but rather as a way to begin to think about the way we, as a country, view access to education at large. Knowing that, despite my own experience, if given the opportunity I am sure I would sent my own child to a private school, makes wonder where the disconnect lies and what the implications are for all children. As the veritable founder of American educational thought Dewey said in 1899, "[w]hat the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy" (Good, 1999, p. 384). Access to free, quality public education has long under-pinned the ideals of our political system. Yet as charter schools and "choice" now are at the fore-front of our public debate around education, are we as a nation willing to give up on a privilege, or right, still denied children around the world?
An exploration of these issues must begin with our conception of the public school system's current failure of students. Since the eighties, the nation has been engaged in a debate as to the actual performance of American public schools. Much of this debate was sparked by American students' scores on tests in comparison with students from other countries (Good, 1999). As a result of this reality, and the well-known failure of public education for poor and minority students, politicians have moved to provide students and parents with more options, from vouchers to charter schools, and to further legislate all public schools, particularly through No Child Left Behind. Yet while many of these changes have received public and institutional support, the public perception of "their own" public schools is not so bleak--"in various polls citizens have expressed confidence in the quality of public schools, especially in their local schools--the ones they know the most about (Good, 1999, p. 385). In fact, a Gallup Poll indicated that "'the low grades given the nation's public schools are primarily media-induced. Whereas people learn first hand about their children's schools, they learn about the nation's school primarily from the media'" (Good, 1999, p. 385). Interestingly, the need for the "privatization of education", from charter schools to corporate sponsorships to funding through vending machines (Seaton, et. al), is facilitated by corporate media reporting.
The reality is, as in all things in education, more slippery. In 2006, the results were made public of a "large-scale government-financed study [... that] compared fourth- and eighth-grade math scores of more than 340,000 students in 13,000 regular, charter and private schools on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress" (Schemo, 2006, para. 2). The researchers themselves were surprised to find that the sample "showed public schools to be outperforming private schools in mathematics achievement after student background factors were considered" (Lubienski, et. al, 2008, p. 689). Historically, private schools had out-performed public schools on national assessment, yet the study used "advanced statistical techniques to adjust for the effects of income, school and home circumstances", finding that "while the raw scores of fourth graders in Roman Catholic schools, for example were 14.3 points higher than those in public schools, when adjustments were made for students backgrounds, those in Catholic schools scored 3.4 points lower than those in public schools" (Schemo, 2006, para. 4). While I wonder about, and to some degree fear, these "adjustments for student backgrounds", it appears that, when standardized tests are more standardized, popular conceptions about the effectiveness of public schools are confronted.
In fact, the study also found that charter schools "did significantly worse than public schools" (Schemo, 2006, para. 6). As charter schools are privately run but publicly financed, the study demands a reexamination of popular beliefs about public and private education, and the ways this discourse is presented politically. Interestingly, the above-mentioned study was controversial not only in its findings, but also in its delivery. Days after the study was released, Democratic aides and public education advocates accused the Bush administration of politicizing the government financed report. Apparently the report, which counters justifications for the administration's push for privatization, was released, without contacting media on a Friday afternoon, when few people are consuming news. Advocates and reporters contend that the move was orchestrated and political, an attempt to bury reports that do not agree with the administration's goals (Sanchez, 2006). The divided, and often shifting, political winds serve only to make the "right" choice for students and parents more confusing.
Parents choose, rightly so, private schools for a variety of reasons; as teachers we know that test scores are only a part of the equation. But as a nation, we should examine the implications of our beliefs in regards to public versus private education, especially when the debate lies at the heart of our founding ideals. As Teaching Fellows, this debate is particularly relevant, for as Seaton et. al. notes, "much of the privatization debate is about the education of economically disadvantage minority students" (2007, p. 164). In fact, "often overlooked in discussions of privatization of education are explicit discussions of the educational needs of minority urban communities. This is ironic [...as o]ften marketed as an alternative to failing urban public schools, charter schools have emerged primarily as a minority phenomenon" (Seaton et. al, 2007, p. 164). In fact, "some researchers have pointed out that the clustering of minorities in charter schools serves to further isolate an already socially, economically, racially isolated population" (Seaton et. al, 2007, p. 164). At this point, further examination of the above-mentioned "adjustments for student backgrounds" is needed. Sanchez tells us that these adjustments were based upon racial, income-level, and free-school lunch figures (2006). Recognizing that these are factors for adjustment implies our nation's failure of a large segment of it's population. We must admit that the rhetoric behind the political debates on public schools is in reality a reflection of our cynicism about true equality. This type of honest reflection is the best way to begin to re-imagine Dewey's call for an understanding of the relationship between public education and democracy.

References
Good, T.L. (1999). The purpose of schooling in America. The Elementary School Journal,
99(5), pp. 383-389.
Lubienski, C., Crane, C., & Lubienski, S. T. (2008). What do we know about school
effectiveness? Academic gains in public and private schools. Phi Delta Kappan, May, pp.
689-695.
Sanchez, C. (2006, July, 26). Public vs. private school report spurs controversy. National
Public Radio. Audio retrieved from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?
storyId=5584516.
Schemo, D. J. (2006, January, 28). Public-School students score well in math in large-scale
government study. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/
2006/01/28/education/28tests.html.
Seaton, G., Dell'Angelo, T., Spencer, M. B., & Youngblood, J. (2007). Moving beyond the
dichotomy: meeting the needs of urban students through contextually-relevant education
practices. Teacher Education Quarterly, Spring, pp. 163-183.