Public education
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Public education is schooling provided by the government, and paid for by taxes. Proponents of public education assert it to be necessary because of the need in modern society for people who are capable of reading, writing, and doing basic mathematics. Hence it emerged in the early 19th century as a tool of industrialisation. However, some libertarians argue that education is best left to the private sector; in addition, advocates of alternative forms of education such as unschooling argue that these same skills can be achieved without subjecting children to state-run compulsory schooling. In most industrialized countries, these views are distinctly in the minority.
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Overview
Public education is generally available to all. In most countries, it is compulsory for children to attend up to a certain age. Public education can be contrasted with private schooling, in which schools are run independently and charge students tuition fees. In the USA, schools run by the state at the expense of the taxpayers and not charging tuition are called public schools, but in other English-speaking countries that term has quite a different meaning. In some poor countries, this compulsion is sometimes not enforced well because in those countries, children are important laborers who cannot be left to school to secure enough income. This phenomenon also occurs in some poor districts in wealthy countries like the US.
In the United States (and other countries to be added), public education has traditionally been under the control of individual states. Local school districts, with elected school boards administer the public primary and secondary schools within a metropolitan area, city, town or rural area. Within the United States (and perhaps some other nations) in particular, the expanding role of the federal government in public education is often a subject of heated debate.
In other countries such as France, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, the public education system has traditionally been highly centralized at the national level.
History
The Land Ordinance of 1785 established a mechanism for funding public education in the United States.
Coeducation and the emergence of modern high schools; the expansion of compulsory education. The growth of extracurricular activities (1890s-1950s)
The United States Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education was a hallmark in education. It forced previosly segregated schools to integrate, and led to the rise of desegregation busing across the country.
Issues in modern public schooling in the United States
School vouchers
In recent years, politicians have criticized the public education system, arguing that it has failed in some areas (particularly inner-cities). School performance is generally measured by student performance on standardized tests, typically administered by the state. One major problem facing the modern education system is how to fix schools that consistently "underperform" - have large numbers of students who score poorly on the test.
One solution advocated primarily by the US Republican Party is the use of school vouchers. Students in districts with underperforming schools would be given money by the government to attend the school of their choice. Proponents argue that this would put the public schools in competition with private ones, and that competition would result in better choices for the public. Critics argue that this unnecessarily saps much-needed money out of the public school system without giving the student enough money to attend private schools (which generally cost considerably more than the vouchers provide), as well as violating the separation of church and state, as many private schools (though not all) are run by religious denominations.
Alternative/Charter schools
Also in recent years, there has been a proliferation in alternative schools. Most prominent of these has been the movement towards charter schools. Charter schools are publicly funded schools which are run independently of the local school district and tend to have less bureaucracy. Additionally, charter schools can have a "theme": some specialize in teaching mathematics and science, others in teaching students who are considered "at-risk".
Bilingual education
Bilingual education, the teaching of students in more than one language, has become a contentious topic in recent decades. See bilingual education for main article.
References
- Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Public_education" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_education, used under the GNU Free Documentation License
