This anti-charter post (hat tip: the latest Carnival of Education at History is Elementary) is an interesting case study on the use of language in connection with education.  But first, some responses are in order.  The blogger quotes the following from a principal’s blog:

If we think it’s good practice to form charter schools who can operate free from the regulations governing public schools, then why do we support the regulations governing public schools?

As a 17 year veteran of public schools, working hard to make a difference every day, I can’t be trusted to make good decisions without regulations, but I could be as a charter school applicant? 

Personally, I’d say far too many regulations are placed on public schools, and I think principals should have much greater decision-making authority, especially concerning personnel matters, than they presently enjoy.  That doesn’t mean charter schools should be saddled with the same burdens, especially when they a) get less funding, and b) face a higher level of accountability, since charters are generally easier to shut down than mainstream public schools. 

But that’s beside the point.  Notice the principal–and by extension the blogger who quotes him–asks why we support these regulations.  Who (or whom, I guess) does he mean by “we”?  Yes, I know these regulations grew over the space of many years.  But there’s a tendency to refer to public education in rather nebulous terms regarding just who the system represents. 

The blogger’s main contention is that charters will place the system on a slippery slope to vouchers.  Even assuming he’s right, I’d say that slope must be awfully gradual (Arizona is a huge charter state, but it doesn’t have anything approaching the voucher program in Milwaukee).  While he briefly acknowledges that charter schools are public schools, apparently they just aren’t the right kind of public school.  But just what does he mean by “public” school?  In particularly, check out this sentence:

Charters are another stepping stone to subdivide the school system on the path to taking education out of the public domain.

Just what is the “public domain”?  Maybe he’s referring to reducing the influence of school boards; I would argue that this wouldn’t be a bad thing, but nowhere near as strenuously as Checker Finn (”…the local school board, especially the elected kind, is an anachronism and an outrage”).  Or it’s possible he opposes the notion of parents having more power and politicians in general having less.  But both these interpretations could be wrong because, again, this notion of a public domain is so hazy and indistinct.  In any event, if education is in the “public domain,” who calls the shots?  Presumably the system belongs to everybody, but right now it appears to be accountable to nobody, least of all to parents. 

Moreover, the idea of public education, which school choice opponents argue is the ideal, seems to suggest that everybody should be committed to the system.  The problem, as Neal McCluskey has stated, is that the system as presently designed “demands everyone’s support but can only reflect some people’s values,” meaning that that commitment seems to be a one-way street.  If one happens to be in the minority that doesn’t like a particular decision, what is that individual to do, particularly if relocating to a different district or enrollment in a private school isn’t within reach?

Opponents of school choice have also set up a very unfair and misleading dichotomy in the school choice debate in which they have the “public” moniker all to themselves.  It goes something like this: we (school choice opponents) support public schools, meaning the school choice crowd is clearly against public schools.  Yes, I’m well aware that the use of the word refers to the funding of the schools through tax dollars.  But consider other interpretations.  Private schools can easily be called public institutions in the sense that they’re open to anybody who wants to enroll.  No, they aren’t free of charge, but no school is free, least of all the tax-supported variety.  Besides, nearly all private schools routinely do some pretty heavy fundraising to help keep tuition as low as possible, even offering full scholarships to students whose families can’t afford the expense.  Private schools might not be taxpayer-supported, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t public in a different sense. 

The behavior of “public” versus “private” schools in terms of openness is also worth considering.  I think their name suggests private schools are insulated or shut off from prying eyes, a notion that is instantly dispelled by a visit.  At the very least, they’re as open to outside visitors as public schools; many of them, much more so. 

Oh, and the notion that support of school choice equates to some desire to shut down the public school system entirely is, frankly, absurd.  Frequently, school choice supporters are quite willing to increase overall education spending alongside the creation of school choice programs, such as what happened last year in Arizona, when state legislators created new scholarship programs and increased total eduspending by $480 million dollars.  Even John Stossel, reportedly Public Education Enemy Number One, has said publicly that the likelihood of ever getting the government out of education is extremely low.  Besides, consider the growing support of school choice among Democrats.  Does anybody seriously think Whitney Tilson, Dan Gerstein, or Joe Lieberman want to see a complete and total cessation of government involvement in education? 

So the concept of public education means a lot more than merely who makes out the check.  It seems to me that whether that education takes place is of much greater importance than where it occurs.