Pillar for a strong democracy

A right to a public and sound education fairly shared with all children of our country is a basic pillar for a strong democracy.

Eva O'Mara, public school administrator, retired

Public schools for (and through) democratic participation

Public education has a central role to play in a healthy democracy. It is in public schools where every young citizen, no matter the circumstances of their birth, may not only prepare for their future through education, but also gain knowledge and skills for citizenship and democratic participation. Powerful interests have threatened our pursuit of the ideal of public education for the public good. Privatizers view the education of young people as a way to profit financially or to achieve ideological goals. As power and influence has grown among those far from schools and their communities (including politicians, testing companies, charter school organizations, and billionaire businessmen), their untested mandates have failed our children and local democratic control over schooling has been compromised. To recommit to public education for the public good, leadership for developing excellent and equitable public schools must be returned to professional educators and local communities.

Tricia Niesz, Professor of Cultural Foundations of Education at Kent State University

Public schools serve the common good

I have been a citizen advocate for public education for four decades because public schools serve the common good.  We invest public funds to create a strong public system because every child is valuable and we all benefit by having an educated citizenry. Public schools affirm that we are all interconnected and mutually responsible. 

Susie Kaeser, public education specialist for the League of Women Voters Ohio and an active member of the Heights Coalition for Public Education. Founder of Reaching Heights, a support organization for the Cleveland Heights-University Heights public schools, and volunteer at Boulevard Elementary School.

The need for a common system

Education in the USA evolved from a hodge-podge of private and public schooling that unevenly served students to recognition in the mid-19th century of the need for a common system that would both educate the population and meet the needs of the economy. 

“College and career ready” has become a primary goal of education In order to prepare students for financial independence and well-being and to supply workforce needs of Ohio’s employers. Ohio’s system of career technical education (CTE) is uniquely positioned to offer academic and occupational coursework and experiences in a broad spectrum of career pathways. Students carefully choose a pathway that fits their interests and aptitudes and apply their learnings to the real world. (Wrong career fit? Good to know while still in high school!)

CTE students graduate from high school career and/or college ready. Many earn college credits while in high school giving them an academic and financial head start. Over half move on to higher education programs. Ohio’s students and economy benefit.

Sandra Laurenson, former Career Technical Education Consultant with the Ohio Department of Education and current Education Issues Team Leader, Summit County Progressive Democrats

Why I believe in public schools

Public schools—publicly funded, universally available, and accountable to the public, while imperfect, are essential for ensuring that all children are served.  Public schools are the optimal way to balance the needs of each particular child and family with the need to create a system that secures the rights and addresses the needs of all children.  Our society has improved justice in our system of public education over the generations by passing laws to protect the rights and serve the needs of previously marginalized—African American, Native American, disabled, immigrant, and LGBTQ—children.  We need to keep on making public schools more authentically welcoming for every child.

Privatized educational alternatives like charter schools and vouchers for private school tuition not only extract public funds needed in the public school system to serve 50 million American children, but also undermine our rights as citizens and our children’s rights. Here is the late political philosopher, Benjamin Barber, warning about what we all lose when we try to privatize the public good: “Privatization is a kind of reverse social contract: it dissolves the bonds that tie us together into free communities and democratic republics. It puts us back in the state of nature where we possess a natural right to get whatever we can on our own, but at the same time lose any real ability to secure that to which we have a right.  Private choices rest on individual power… personal skills… and personal luck.  Public choices rest on civic rights and common responsibilities, and presume equal rights for all.  Public liberty is what the power of common endeavor establishes, and hence presupposes that we have constituted ourselves as public citizens by opting into the social contract. With privatization, we are seduced back into the state of nature by the lure of private liberty and particular interest; but what we experience in the end is an environment in which the strong dominate the weak… the very dilemma which the original social contract was intended to address.” (Consumed, pp. 143-144)

Jan Resseger Before retiring, Jan Resseger staffed public education justice advocacy and programming in the national setting of the United Church of Christ and chaired the National Council of Churches Committee on Public Education for a dozen years. She blogs at https://janresseger.wordpress.com/ .