Public education is 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:
- compulsory student
attendance (until a certain age or standard is achieved);
- certification of teachers and curricula, either by the
government or by a teachers' organization;
- 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
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 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
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