Vouchers, School Choice and the Publics Interest Essay -- Persuasive

School Choice and the Publics Interest   fresh trends toward privatizing develops and relieving them of state requirements wrongly imply that schools should mirror the desires of parents and ignore the humankinds interest in having citizens educated for democracy.   Rob Reich, who recently earned his doctorate in ism of education at Stanford, is writing a book on school vouchers, charter schools and folk schooling. Reich stated his view that the nation is slipping excessively far into deregulated schooling. The guiding idea behind privatization, whether it is vouchers, charter schools or home schooling, is that parents should be the sole decision-making agents about the kind of education their children receive. But this eviscerates the populace or civic purposes of schooling.   Public schooling itself is not the goal, he said, and public schools dont necessarily do better than private schools in educating children to meet the states interests, which he defined a s preparing children for both workforce and democratic participation. Those who joined in the discussion pushed Reich to specify the content of an education for democratic participation. Some would assure reading and writing is enough, he responded. Personally, I would go a some steps further to say that students should learn to come into dialogue with others on a public stage. Voluntary national standards for civic education put forward a combination of making sure students know the history and do work of the structure of government, and how to influence public deliberation and policy, he said. Others suggest experience-oriented programs, a great deal called service learning. My model has been the Socratic dialogue, where the teacher is a leader and p... ...ploded among white, middle-class, apparitional families who want more control over the values their children are overt to or who fear for their childrens safety, Reich said. Im convinced that further privatization is inev itable, he added. Supporters have enclose the argument for it as a civil rights issue or a matter of social justice. he said. People say President Clinton displace his daughter to private school. If we are serious about social justice, we should mete out all parents the same choice that wealthy parents have. How would he change the spatial relation? Reich was asked. I can imagine a variety of institutional arrangements simply where private schools are still subject to state oversight, he said. possibly public dollars could flow to them if the curriculum met the states interests. A democracy has needs, but that doesnt convey public schools have to meet them.