Reinventing Public Education: How Contracting Can Transform America's SchoolsA heated debate is raging over our nation’s public schools and how they should be reformed, with proposals ranging from imposing national standards to replacing public education altogether with a voucher system for private schools. Combining decades of experience in education, the authors propose an innovative approach to solving the problems of our school system and find a middle ground between these extremes. Reinventing Public Education shows how contracting would radically change the way we operate our schools, while keeping them public and accessible to all, and making them better able to meet standards of achievement and equity. Using public funds, local school boards would select private providers to operate individual schools under formal contracts specifying the type and quality of instruction. In a hands-on, concrete fashion, the authors provide a thorough explanation of the pros and cons of school contracting and how it would work in practice. They show how contracting would free local school boards from operating schools so they can focus on improving educational policy; how it would allow parents to choose the best school for their children; and, finally, how it would ensure that schools are held accountable and academic standards are met. While retaining a strong public role in education, contracting enables schools to be more imaginative, adaptable, and suited to the needs of children and families. In presenting an alternative vision for America’s schools, Reinventing Public Education is too important to be ignored. |
Contents
Preserving Public Education | 3 |
A Critique of the Current Public School System | 26 |
A Contract School Strategy | 51 |
Contracting and Other Reform Proposals | 83 |
IMPLEMENTING A CONTRACT SCHOOL SYSTEM | 125 |
How a Contract Strategy Would Work | 127 |
Paying for Contract Schools | 166 |
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African-American allocation areas attend authorities budget bureaucratic cation central central-office choice choose collective bargaining contract system contractors costs create curriculum frameworks decisions dents educa education agencies Education Vouchers effective efficient efforts employees enrollment ensure evaluation existing federal goals groups hiring improve incentives individual schools initiative instructional local education authorities magnet schools ment offer operate schools organizations parents percent political private schools problems professional programs proposals public education public school system pupil requests for proposals require responsibility role Santa Monica school board members school contracting school districts school finance school level school operators school performance school staffs site-based management specific standards statewide strategy superintendents Systemic reform teacher unions teachers and administrators teaching Temple University testing tion tract Turner School Verdin voucher Washington Wilkinsburg
Popular passages
Page 257 - Pp. 130-150 in Public Dollars for Private Schools: The Case of Tuition Tax Credits, edited by Thomas James and Henry M. Levin. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Catterall, James S., and Henry M. Levin. 1982. "Public and Private Schools: Evidence on Tuition Tax Credits.