School restructuring, the move toward a more integrated curriculum, performance based assessment of students, and the development of the neighborhood school as a center or “hub” of community services, are just some of the more prominent reform initiatives being discussed and initiated in school districts across the country. In practice this means that rather than relying on experts or the application of models that have been produced elsewhere, these new reform efforts aim at involving parents, teachers, administrators, students and the community in partnerships geared toward fundamentally changing the ways in which schools have operated. Such efforts seek to build upon the uniquely democratic character of public schools rather than seeking to undermine that legacy
Rather than empowering parents through the use of vouchers as consumers of education, parents should be empowered as decision makers through efforts aimed at democratizing school governance even further. Though widely criticized by some, the movement for community control of public schools launched in the Ocean-Hill Brownsville section of Brooklyn, N.Y. during the mid 1960s provides a model worth considering again. That brief experiment in the application of grassroots democracy in the governance of public schools, showed that poor African American and Puerto Rican parents can and will become actively involved in supporting the education of their children when conditions allow for this to occur. When this happens public schools are more likely to become accountable and responsive to those they serve, and as a result, they will have to find ways to improve the quality of service that they provide.
Despite all their weaknesses, the nation’s public schools constitute an important national resource. During times of crisis and national disasters we turn to our public schools for safety and refuge. When confronted by diseases that pose a threat to the public health or social problems that undermine the well being of our communities we turn to our public schools to provide preventative education to the youth about the dangers and risks which confront them. Rather than abandoning this vast infrastructure of public schools or transferring responsibility into private hands, we should find ways to improve quality through increasing the control of the communities that are served.
in Public Education
Pedro A. Noguera, Ph.D.
University of California, Berkeley
