The Constitutional Crisis in our Schools
Russell Sadler
Empty political slogans like “eliminating waste,” “getting more bang for the buck and “reducing administrative costs to put more money in the classroom,” are blinding Oregon legislators to another urgent crisis hurtling down on Oregon public education.
Oregon’s public schools -- particular middle schools and high schools -- no longer conform to fundamental requirements of the Oregon Constitution.
Article VIII Sec. 3 says, “The Legislative Assembly shall provide by law for the establishment of a uniform, and general system of Common schools.”
The phrase “common schools” is what lawyers call “words of art.” Their meaning goes beyond simple dictionary definitions. Additional meaning is spelled out in decades of court cases and statutory definitions by the Legislature.
Common schools -- a national movement created by the educational reformer Horace Mann in Massachusetts in 1837 -- means free public schools, open equally to all, with a similar or uniform curriculum in every school. At the dawn of the Industrial Age, common schools with compulsory attendance were intended to make “Americans” out of immigrants, Protestants out of Catholics and factory workers out of farm families.
The common school movement swept the nation. Newly formed western states -- Oregon became the 33rd state in 1859 -- actually mandated the creation and maintenance of “uniform and common schools” into their original constitutions.
There were some rough patches in the road. In many states, Protestants controlled school boards. Any religion in the public schools was invariably some variant of Protestant religion. The anti-Catholic prejudice was so pervasive, the slandering of the Pope so common that American Catholics formed their own system of parochial schools that survives to this day.
Despite the rough patches, public schools became one of the nation’s primary engines of upward mobility. Public schools still send an unprecedented portion of the population on to college, creating one of the highest living standards in the world.
Oregon’s public schools are now anything but uniform or common. A new and parallel system of alternative schools have created an educational smorgasbord filled with something for everyone -- except there is not enough room for everyone in the alternative schools.
Research in Eugene has led to complaints about discrimination, economic segregation and financial inequities that have grown up around the district’s alternative schools.
The editors of the Register-Guard put the problem succinctly:
“Some neighborhood schools have suffered because the district's alternative schools have drawn away children from families with time, money and a commitment to education. Many of the nine alternative schools enjoy advantages such as stable class sizes, low student mobility and an ability to raise funds. The district is witnessing the emergence of a two-tier school system, with low-income and minority students concentrated in some of its neighborhood schools.”
Eugene’s superintendent, George Russell, one of the sharper superintendents in the state, has proposed a vigorous response to the socioeconomic segregation creeping into the district with alternative schools. But the Eugene School Board, faced with opposition from the parents of children enrolled in alternative schools, is reluctant to back up its superintendent or act on its own. The controversy is growing bitter. Both sides are entrenched, and the issue probably will not be settled without a lawsuit.
Although the issue is coming to the surface in Eugene, similar problems exist in many other school districts in the state.
In the past, Oregon Courts have permitted a limited number of special public “magnet” schools, ruling that special schools might create innovations that could be applied to “uniform and common schools.” But alternative schools have become so numerous, and receive such a large amount of public money, that no court can avoid concluding Oregon schools are no longer the “uniform, common schools” required by the Oregon Constitution.
This column is not an argument to return to the common school of the Industrial Age. In the Postindustrial Age, smaller, more specialized schools are probably a better alternative. The point is the change has come by default, not design. The alternative schools’ problems of elitism, segregation by socioeconomic status and lack of access can be dealt with, but it will require a degree of civility lacking in public discourse and a political maturity lacking in too many of today’s civic leaders.
Replacing Oregon’s constitutionally mandated “...uniform, and general system of Common schools” requires creating a consensus on what a public school education ought to be at a time when no such consensus exists. Modern American politics has become a process of dividing the population into “them and us,” then demonizing those you don’t agree with.
The urgent question is whether Oregon is still up to the task of creating a consensus in a poisoned political atmosphere deliberately designed to foster division at the expense of consensus and do it voluntarily before the courts order it done.
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Apr 3, '05
There is another, different and more pressing crisis in Portland Public Schools. It is called lack of funds. A new round of belt tightening is now forcing aditional firing of teachers. While the people of Portland pay $300 million annually into the state coffers to support school districts state-wide, we cannot even maintain the current (crisis) level of staffing here in Portland. If there is no leadership on this issue soon, the Republican leadership in the house will have again ratcheted down the status quo, as well as people's expectaions. The schools will continue to fail, and it is not because reform is not underway. Which political leader is aware of the conditions in PPS builings and willing to make a public issue of the seriousness of the funding shortfall?
Apr 4, '05
Which political leader is aware of the conditions in PPS builings and willing to make a public issue of the seriousness of the funding shortfall?
Many Democrats have been pointing this out for years. But without a House majority, they are limited in what they can do.
And this is not just about Portland--the column addressed a situation in Eugene.
All schools in Oregon need better funding, school boards which care about more than just what the most vocal in the community say (parents in this column, real estate people who don't want SDCs to pay for schools but do want to build family housing where schools are already overcrowded, etc),high quality management.
As a Republican staffer said to me not long ago, "we got rid of tenure and some schools still have low quality teachers. Could that be a problem of low quality management?".
Schools present many complex problems not solved by soundbite answers.
Apr 4, '05
Ron,
I appreciate your concern with free speech and consider very serioiusly any curtailment of it. Just about everyone recognizes some limits, such as prohibition of yelling "fire" in a crowded room or speaking libelously. I believe that the corrosive effect of political campaign contributions on democratic government is serious enough to justify carefully crafted and monitored regulation of speech, when payment is made to communicate that speech in an election campaign.
The ACLU agrees with me in supporting voluntary publicly funded campaigns. They do not agree with me in supporting strict contribution limits, although the federal courts have [not Oregon's].
The maxim that the best antidote for free speech we don't like is more free speech works when parties have roughly equal access to the public's eyes and ears. The advantage of the wealthy in turning their contributions into law and government policy is not available to those with little wealth, however. I am convinced that this is a serious perversion of democratic governance that should be addressed.
Apr 4, '05
I agree with your comments. It's a strange set of cirumstances with charter schools. In the case I am most aware of, in my own district, there are students who can't seem to find their way in a regular high school. Unfortunately, being in the charter school has already shown the students are not learning the basics overall and the reason...in my opinion, there is no sense of the future.
I believe all students can succeed if there are high standards, high expectations, parental support, and a mutual respect between students and teachers. Charter schools have unlimited grant funding while the rest of us have to beg for bucks to keep alive.
The state needs to find out what IS working instead of making excuses and coming up with demonstrations of failure. The real losers turn out to be the students who don't have the tools to make it in the real world. And, we wonder why...
Apr 5, '05
Tom,
I think your comment got posted to the wrong thread. I just ranted some more here on stuff that will not likely sink-in if it has not already.
On Charter Schools here is a perspective from Casey J. Lartigue Jr.
Russell, the only thing the courts need to order is that the state's operation of a trust fund for a select group of folk's savings accounts be treated wholly and completely apart from the ongoing costs of education so as to assure that the common schools, the ongoing costs, are adequately funded, consistent with the Oregon Constitution. If 20 percent is culled off to cover unsound pension plan design or to indulge the fancifull investment plans of our state treasurer then that should not be pegged to a criticism of either our public schools or the stability of our tax structure.
7:25 a.m.
Apr 5, '05
I'm not sure that Russell is talking about charter schools when he mentions alternative schools. I think he's talking about alternative schools--sometimes called magnet schools--that are created by school districts and usually offer a curriculum centered around a particular subject, for example math, art or science.
If so, this is not just a Eugene problem. In Portland, these schools do seem to be drawing away the best and the brightest students away from neighborhood schools, and may be propagating what becomes a two-tiered educational system: high quality, specialized magnet schools for the middle and upper classes, and neighborhood schools for the rest of students.
Apr 5, '05
Magnet schools and Charter schools have but one functional difference, participation in PERS or no participation in PERS. Strip out the PERS differential and they can be lumped together against the notion of assuring that everyone is afforded an opportunity for an education. Neither the Magnet nor the Charter can be expected to take all comers, for that would destroy the very purpose behind their branding as unique and thus they would become just a common school.
Leslie, it is a national issue. I tend to believe that if the state did not recognize the OEA as a bargaining partner and strike state level bargains, which are then mandated upon the local school districts, that the local school districts could have the flexibility to remedy their own problems.
Apr 5, '05
Ron:
Charter schools are required to enroll their employees in PERS by attorney general office ruling. It would be a boon to charter schools and PERS retirees if charter schools were able to hire PERS retirees without their being subject to the half-time requirement on PERS retirees.
The state does not enter into state level bargains with the OEA or AFT, and mandate them on local school districts. Teacher contracts are negotiated locally and expire as agreed upon. Portland Public Schools and the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT) have a history of allowing contracts to expire, starting a new school year under provisions of the expired contract and reaching agreement on a new contract under the cloud of a mid-year strike threat.
Over the years, the PAT has employed the leverage of mid-year strike threats to saddle PPS with an expensive and inflexible contract.