Education Law Prof Blog: Network for Public Education Conference to Feature Groundbreaking Report on the Privatization of Education
This summer, the Network for Public Education and the Schott Foundation released on new report on the privatization of public education titled, Grading the States: A Report Card on Our Nation’s Commitment to Public Schools. The report was the one I had been waiting for. It filled in key facts that have been missing from the public debate and will help move it in a more positive direction. The Network's national conference on October 20 to 21 will feature a panel on the report. John Jackson, President of Schott, and Tanya Clay House, a long time civil rights advocate and former Obama appointee, will be on the panel along with myself. Registrationn for the event is still open here.
The panel promises to be an important one. As I argue in Preferencing Educational Choice: The Constitutional Limits, the analysis of charter schools and vouchers needs to be reframed. Toward that end, I identify a handful of categorical ways in which states have actually created statutory preferences for charters and vouchers in relation to traditional public schools. I explain why a statutory preference for these choice programs contradicts states’ constitutional obligations in regard to education. I also explain how, even if there is no statewide statutory preference, choice programs can have the effect of undermining the delivery of adequate and equitable education opportunities in particular locations. When they do, the programs violate state education clauses. We just have to examine the facts on a case by case basis.
My research, however, analyzes the issues from a relatively high level of abstraction, highlighting problematic examples in particular states and districts and synthesizing constitutional principles from various states. The NPE/Schott report drills down into the facts deeper than anyone before. It offers a systematic examination of charter and voucher laws in each state. As a result, it clearly shows the extent to which each state’s laws represent a decommitment to public education.
The report is the “yin” to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools’ “yang.” Each year, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) releases a report detailing charter school laws, with the frame of reference being the extent to which states have law that promote the expansion of charters. The report normatively assumes that charter schools are good and state laws that overly restrict them are bad. So the states that it labels as having excellent charter school laws will probably fair poorly on the Network for Public Education (NEP)/Schott Foundation report. For instance, NAPCS ranks Indiana as the top state for charters, but NEP and Schott rank Indiana in the 40s.
But that is what makes this report so important. Because there hasn’t been any systemic to response to NAPCS’s reports, it has been able to skew the conversation. This new report brings balance.
Here are some key paragraphs from the executive summary:
Public schools remain a source of pride and hope, helping to level the playing field for children from incredibly diverse racial, ethnic, religious and socioeconomic groups. Even amid concerns and often unsubstantiated criticism, Americans continue to view public schools as a defining hub for their communities. In the spring of 2001, a national poll found that Americans ranked public schools as “the most important public institution in the community” by at least a five-to-one margin over hospitals, churches and other institutions. Nonetheless, within the past two Continue reading:Education Law Prof Blog: Network for Public Education Conference to Feature Groundbreaking Report on the Privatization of Education | National Education Policy Center
Privatization Report Card - Network For Public Education -https://wp.me/P3bR9v-2IA via @Network4pubEd
Privatization Report Card - Network For Public Education -https://wp.me/P3bR9v-2IA via @Network4pubEd