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State school

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Public education refers to schooling mandated for or offered to all children by the government, whether national, regional, or local, provided by an institution of civil government, and paid for, in whole or in part, by taxes. The term is generally applied to basic education, including kindergarten to twelfth grade (K-12) education, also referred to as primary and secondary education. Public education can also be post-secondary education, advanced education, or universities, colleges, or technical schools funded and overseen by government rather than private entities.

Public education is inclusive, both in its treatment of students and in that enfranchisement for the government of public education is as broad as for government generally. Public education is often organized and operated to be a deliberate model of the civil community in which it functions.

Public education may be provided by a national, regional (province, state, territory, etc.), or local/municipal government, or a combination thereof. Where public education is provided by a state or a regional government, it is often referred to as "state education", a term which is rarely used when public education is provided by a local government.

Public education is typically provided to groups of students (classrooms; the "one-to-many" model of delivery), with a number of groups of students clustered in a school. However, the term "public education" is not synonymous with "public schooling". Public education can be provided in-home, employing visiting teachers, supervising teachers, and/or distance learning. It can also be provided in non-school, non-home settings, such as shopping mall space.

The term "public education" is not synonymous with the term "publicly funded education". Government may make a public policy decision that it wants to have some financial resources distributed in support of, and it may want to have some control over, the provision of education which is not public education. Grants-in-aid of private schools and voucher systems provide examples of publicly funded education which is not public education. Conversely, a public school (including one run by a school district) may rely heavily on non-public funding (such as high fees or private donations) and still be considered public by virtue of public ownership and control.

Public education often involves the following:

  1. compulsory student attendance (until a certain age or standard is achieved);
  2. certification of teachers and curricula, either by the government or by a teachers' organization;
  3. testing and standards provided by government.

The United Kingdom provides an anomalous use of the term "public school". In England and Wales the term "public school" refers to an elite of privately funded independent schools which had their origins in medieval schools funded by charity to provide education for the poor. (The anomaly points to one of the fundamentals of public education, which is inclusion: in times past the commitment to inclusion was demonstrated by reaching out through charity.)

Public education is generally available to all. In most countries, it is compulsory for children to attend school up to a certain age, but the option of attending private school is open to many. In the case of private schooling, schools operate independently of the state and generally defray their costs (or even make a profit) by charging students tuition fees. The funding for public schools, on the other hand, is provided by tax revenues, so that even individuals who do not attend school (or whose dependents do not attend school) help to ensure that society is educated. In poverty stricken societies, authorities are often lax on compulsory school attendance because the children there are valuable laborers. It is these same children whose income-securing labor cannot be forfeited to allow for school attendance.

In some countries, such as Germany, private associations or churches can operate schools according to their own principles, as long as they comply with certain state requirements. When these specific requirements are met, especially in the area of the school curriculum, the schools will qualify to receive state funding. They are then treated financially and for accreditation purposes as part of the public education system, even though they make decisions about hiring and school policy (not hiring atheists, for example), which the state might not make itself.

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. 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 or states, these views are distinctly in the minority.

National public school systems

Australia

Government (or state) schools are run by the respective state government. They offer free education; however, many schools ask parents to pay a voluntary contribution fee. They can be divided into two categories: open and selective school. The open schools accept all students from their government-defined catchment areas, and teach using the CSF. Many open government schools have selective classes in which well performing students are offered extended and accelerated work. Selective government schools are considered more prestigious than open government schools. They have high entrance requirements and cater to a much larger area. Entrance to selective schools is often highly competitive. Some of the renowned selective government schools are Fort Street High School, Sydney Boys High School, Sydney Girls High School, Melbourne High School (2nd in Victoria), Mac.Robertson Girls' High School (1st in Victoria), James Ruse Agricultural High School (1st in NSW), North Sydney Girls High School, Adelaide High School, Marryatville High School and Perth Modern School.

Scotland

Main article: Education in Scotland

The Church of Scotland was established in 1560, during the Protestant Reformation period as the official state religion in Scotland, and in the following year it set out to provide a school in every parish controlled by the local kirk-session, with education to be provided free to the poor, and the expectation that church pressure would ensure that all children took part. In the year of 1633 the Parliament of Scotland introduced local taxation to fund this provision. Schooling was not free, but the tax support kept fees low, and the church and charity funded poorer students. This had considerable success, but by the late 18th century the physical extent of some parishes and population growth in others led to an increasing role for "adventure schools" funded from fees and for schools funded by religious charities, initially Protestant and later Roman Catholic.

In 1872 education for all children aged 5 to 13 was made compulsory with "public schools" (in the Scots meaning of schools for the general public) under local school boards. The leaving age was raised to 14 in 1883, and a Leaving Certificate Examination was introduced in 1888 to set national standards for secondary education. School fees were ended in 1890. The Scottish Education Department ran the system centrally, with local authorities running the schools with considerable autonomy. In 1999, following devolution from the Parliament of the United Kingdom to the new Scottish Parliament, central organisation of education was taken over by departments of the Scottish Executive, with running the schools coming under unitary authority districts.

United States public

Main article: Education in the United States

Public schools in the United States are administered mainly at the state level. Most states employ a three-tiered model of government that parallels the general governmental model of state/county/township. There is usually a state superintendent of schools, who is elected to coordinate the state department of education, the state board of education, and the state legislature itself. Statewide education policies are disseminated to school "districts" or their equivalents. These are associated with counties, or with groups of counties; but their boundaries are not necessarily coterminous with county boundaries. These intermediate school district comprise many local (city- or township-level) school districts.

In most states, the county and regional "intermediate" school districts and their boards implement state education policy, and provide the channels through which a local district communicates with a state-level board of education, superintendent and department of education.

Local school districts are administered by local school boards, which operate public primary and secondary schools within their boundaries. Since public schools are funded by taxpayers, members of school boards are democratically elected to represent the public's interest. The authority of school boards is limited to taxpayer-funded schools. Therefore, schools which receive no taxpayer funding, including privately-funded, parochial (religiously-affiliated) and home schools are not required to abide by school-board policies. (Homeschooling laws vary from state to state.)

See also

Notes

References

  • Li Yi. 2005. The Structure and Evolution of Chinese Social Stratification. University Press of America. ISBN 0-7618-3331-5

External links

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