Alternatives to Public Schools

1. Alternatives to Public Schools

2. Magnet Schools • Alternative schools within a public school system that draw students from across the whole district • Emerged in the 1970’s primarily as a way to desegregate • Milwaukee examples? • Typically have 3 distinct features • An enrollment policy that opens the school to children beyond a particular geographic attendance zone • A student body that is present by choice that meets variable criteria established for inclusion • A curriculum based on a special theme or instructional method

3. Vocational-Technical Schools • Provide an education for students who wish to enter the trades or to develop technical skills for future employment • Students may go on to a community college • Generally three approaches used to integrate academic work with technical training • Encourage vocational instructors to use more reading, math, and/or writing in their courses • Least effective • Operate as academies aligning the content of both academic and vocational to reinforce each other • Appear to increase enrollment and decrease drop-out • Organize and deliver academic courses on clusters of related occupations

4. Montessori Schools • Preschools focus mainly on the development of children’s perceptual, motor, intellectual, and social skills • Programs are based on the ideas of Maria Montessori (1870-1952), a physician who developed preschool teaching methods in the early 1900’s focused on student’s maturation levels and readiness to learn particular skills • Teachers use a curriculum that is based on materials specifically designed to help children discover the physical properties of objects • Teachers act as observers, assisting indirectly by asking questions of providing materials to optimize learning • Can extend beyond preschool • Often teachers organize their curriculum around a particular theme • http://www.montessori.org

5. Waldorf schools • Oppose a focus on the structured acquisition of specific learning skills • Roots in the spiritual-scientific research of Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), Austrian scientist and educator • Steiner’s philosphy: children learn primarily through their senses and respond in the most active mode of knowing- imitation • Creative play is viewed as the critical element in a child’s development • Premature intellectual demands weaken the powers of judgment and practical intelligence • Ideally teachers remain with the same group of students throughout their schooling

6. Private/ Independent Schools • Nonprofit, tax-exempt institutions governed by boards of trustees and financed through private funds: tuitions, endowments, grants • Religious affiliation or secular • Must meet state and local health and safety rules, and must observe mandatory school attendance laws • Differ from public school in the following • Public schools are tax supported, private schools are not • Public schools must accept all those who come for an education, private schools may set admission requirements • Public schools serve the students in their district, private school students are enrolled by choice • Public schools are driven by inclusivity, private schools may favor philosophies directed at a particular group

7. Blurring the lines of difference between public and private schools • Vouchers • State loans of secular textbooks to church schools • State reimbursement of funds for transportation to church schools • Public funding for mandated standardized testing and scoring and for diagnostic, therapeutic, and remedial services in private and parochial schools

8. For-Profit Schools • Late 1980’s and 1990’s gained notoriety as alternatives to public schools • Do not claim tax-exempt status because they are run by companies to make money • Underlying idea is that private enterprise can deliver better education to children than public schools and do so with less money • Edison Project • 1995-96 taught approx. 2,000 students in Boston, Massachusetts; Mount Clemens, Michigan; Sherman, Texas; and Wichita, Kansas. Continues to expand • Experimented with school schedules to create a longer school day and longer year • Invested heavily in technology • Education Alternatives, Inc. (EAI) • Started out too big, couldn’t run effectively, and lost contracts

9. Parochial Schools • Private schools that are maintained and operated by religious organizations • Fundamentalist Christian schools are growing in number more quickly than other private schools in large part due to the appeal of their philosophies

10. Charter Schools • Independent public schools supported by state funds but exempt from many regulations • Based on a contract or “charter” between a group of school organizers (parents, teachers, etc) and a sponsor (usually a local or state board of education) • Organizers generally have the power to hire and fire staff and to budget money as they see fit • Meant to be innovative to reach out to those not being served by the public schools

11. Home Schools • Wisconsin has one of the nation’s most lenient homeschooling laws,requires only that parents submit an annual statement that they plan to educate their children at home. • Since 1985 the number of homeschoolers in the state has increased by 20% each year