Primer: Education Issues - Intro
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To understand the nature of the continuing “crisis in public education”
is to recognize that public schools in America are embedded in a society
in which multiple tensions confront schools and other core institutions.
These multiple tensions are generated by several larger crises, including
a crisis of social and political democracy, a crisis of capitalism, and
a crisis of personal well-being.
The crisis of our social and political democracy is exemplified by race-,
age- and gender-based inequities and by a persistent view that government
functions in the interests of large corporate structures. What has been
lost is a sense of the common or public good. In turn, many citizens have
withdrawn from the public arena (in the belief that elections are purchased
by monied interests), and schools are evaluated by the extent to which
they enhance the personal rather than the common good.
Economic globalism, driven by the reinvestment needs of a capitalist
economy, has generated profound tensions as productivity and efficiency
have come to dominate economic decision-making. The idea of the global
economy is suffused with an aura of inevitability, suggesting that no
one is in charge. This obscures the role that individual decisions have
played in creating the current economic structure. In turn, schools are
admonished to produce workers who possess those qualities which will contribute
to corporate success in the international marketplace.
The crisis of personal well-being, a profound social phenomenon, has
been created, in part, by political alienation, by personal or family
economic insecurity, and by perceptions that core values have eroded.
Thus, the search for solutions to the “crisis in education”
has had intensely personal overtones. Alternatives to public schools have
become popular strategies as families attempt to cope with these multiple
crises even though many are beyond the reach of the school.
The demands on public schools generated by these crises have produced
an extraordinary variety of school improvement efforts and also a variety
of public attitudes and expectations regarding public education. While
it may be unreasonable to expect that public schools can ameliorate the
injustices of racial inequity, social class divisions, the consequences
of economic globalism, and the perceived unresponsiveness of the political
system, the impact of these circumstances on schools is profound.
This monograph explores the complex dimensions of public school life
and creates a framework within which the “crisis of public education”
can be explored and understood. The document is rich with data, offers
a broad perspective on the possibilities for school improvement, and provides
candid commentary on some of the more intractable problems which confront
public schools.
Russ Allen, PhD
Ken Kickbusch, PhD
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