educational market is a good thing, but otherwise, they differ quite a bit. Charter schools are nonsectarian public schools that compete with regular public for students. Charter schools operate under contract to a sponsor, usually a state or local school board. Charter schools are accountable to their sponsors, the parents who choose to send their children to them, and the public that funds them through their tax money. In turn, charter schools generally have greater autonomy, that is, independence, over selection of teachers, curriculum, resources, and so on, than regular public schools. The first charter schools came into existence toward the end if the 1980s. By 2003, there were 2,695 charter schools with almost 685,000 students enrolled. This was a 15 percent increase over the year 2003, which shows how fast these schools are growing. There are many issues surrounding charter schools, but a study published in 2003 found that charter school students did a little better than their public school counterparts on a standardized exams.
The school voucher concept is a much more controversial one than charter schools. The idea behind school vouchers is that the government provides students with a certain amount of money each year that they can use to attend whatever school
they choose, public or private. The idea again is that competition will improve the education students receive. Voucher schools in reality are largely private schools, and most often religiously based schools. They are quite different from charter schools, which as public schools are first of all, nonsectarian, that is, not religious. Second, charter schools cannot apply restrictive admission standards, as public schools do. To date, voucher programs funded by taxpayers are operating in only three U.S. cities, and there are many court battles over the voucher system. Supporters of the voucher system feel very strongly that private schools offer better education than public schools. Those opposed to the voucher system claim that vouchers rob public schools of needed funding and that voucher schools do not truly provide school choice because of restrictive admissions standards, which can include academic performance, religion, sex, and other factors. Opponents of vouchers also strongly believe that using taxpayer funds for private religious schools violates the separation of church and state built into the U.S. Constitution.
The third and final issue I’d like to touch on today is also very controversial. I mentioned earlier that United States does
not have a nationwide curriculum nor nationwide exams set by the government. However, in the past fifteen or twenty years, there has been an increased emphasis in various states on raising standards and on giving students standardized exams to monitor their progress. The federal government in 2002 passed a sweeping education bill that requires states that wish to receive certain federal funding to develop and put in place extensive testing programs and other systems to ensure adequate yearly progress of students. Although the percentage of funding for schools from the federal government is relatively small, it still represents a lot of money that schools do not want to lose. Some people support this movement toward standardization and accountability in the educational system, while others see it as a dangerous step away from local control of schools.
No one can predict the future of public education in the United States, but it appears that emphasis on educational choice and on accountability of educational system for student results will be with us for a long time.
Chapter9PublicEducation汇总
