Public Education In America

Every election the state of the public education system is a major player. In some years in some states it is a property tax cap. In my state this year it is a local levy to prop up the schools after a property tax cap gutted funding.

We seem to have lost sight of the proper role of both the state and public education. Before we argue about how to fund our schools we ought to decide what we want them to do.

The first "public schools" in America were run by private citizens out of their homes. These schools taught whatever subjects the people who ran them knew themselves. They charged a fee either to the parents or to a church or civic organization.

Then around 1900 these schools began to recieve state funding and accreditation. Then teachers associations and unions were formed. Due to the constitution reserving to the states all rights and duties not explicitly given to the feds the game remained largely local until federal testing benchmarks in the 2000's.

In most states compulsory education didn't come until WWI. Prior to that higher education was largely limited to agricultural colleges such as Oregon State University (1868) in Corvallis. It was regularly accepted that students would drop out even before high school to work in the fields or shops of their parents.

Around 1850-1910 many districts in Protestant America worried about the rising tide of immigrants from "Papist" European states such as Italy and Poland. Public schools were a way to teach these students English and "secular civics" as a ward against the ways of the "old country".

Families who expected their children to go on to college or university regularly sent their kids to "Prep School", that is private schools designed to prepare kids for the rigors of academia. Everyone else was happy to have their children graduate public high school and get a job selling Fords or Kirbies.

With the return of vets from WWII we entered the era of mass college attendance, thanks to the GI bills and universities housed in old barracks trailers and defunct high schools, such as Portland State University (1955), once housed at Vanport before the flood and then at Lincoln High School (now Lincoln Hall). Now everyone hoped that their boys (and increasingly girls) would go on to higher education.

Now we are a nation confused about public education. What is it for, what must it do, how will we fund it? In my hometown the old local high school doggedly held on to a hope to be state champions in football, choir, and band. Other schools dreamed about state science fairs and "model UN" meetings. And we all hoped for a good sized stadium, gym, and ample computers.

But at the same time aging boomers refused to pass bonds to fund schools in which they had no children enrolled. Property taxes were deemed out of control and were then capped. But property taxes had always funded schools, which suffered then from regional divides, the rich cities vs. the poor country districts.

My own school never passed its local levy while I was enrolled in the 80's, but parents always "donated" the difference and we always made it to the playoffs in football and choir. And this mechanism has ensured that local differences have survived the property tax cap and other efforts to equalize the school budgets.

So today we have no federal funding, but federal test minimums to meet. We have no permanent funding mechanism through the state "general fund". And conservative Christians push "school vouchers" while Liberals push "charter schools", all of which drain funds and support from local public schools.

We need to decide if public schools are for everyone or just for the poor. We need to decide if public schools are there to absorb immigrants unfamiliar with our secular values or if they are to be used to push the religious views of the current majority. We need to decide if public schools are supposed to train our children in a vocation or send them on to college. And then we need to figure out how to pay for this service.