Why Should States Fund Denominational Schools?

It is generally accepted that liberal states should fund public schools for compulsory education. But whether states should also finance denominational schools is controversial. Does such funding not compromise the principle of liberal neutrality? In this article we evaluate two opposing views on this question. Both views give different interpretations of liberal neutrality and both have contrasting views on the relation between education and conceptions of the good. Arguing that neither view is convincing, we defend an alternative view, which holds that the liberal state under certain conditions should fund denominational schools.     

Homogeneous education: A contemporary common school ideal from Ontario

This article compares the proposals for independent schools inThe Report of the Commission on Private Schools in Ontario (1985) to the common school ideal that was the basis for public education. The article compares the Commission's key proposals to themes associated with the common school ideal. This comparison leads to the conclusion that the Commission's proposals for independent schools would not promote freedom and diversity but rather ideological conformity and would lead to more homogeneous education for the province of Ontario.The Report of the Commission on Private Schools in Ontariois now seven years old but the problems related to private school funding have not died either in Canada or in other Western democracies. For this reason Interchangewelcomes John Vriend's discussion of this report and encourages readers in other parts of the world to comment on further developments in school funding, both in private and public systems. The Editor     

INSIGHTS FROM PRACTICE

This essay, in discussing religious education in the Netherlands, takes its starting point in the dual Dutch educational system of denominational private schools and public state schools. For several reasons, the stringent dividing line between religiously neutral state schools and religious or denominational schools is no longer defensible. On the basis of an empirical as well as a normative line of thought, the author argues for multireligious schools. Such schools would meet the demand for coherence‐‐and, thus, particularism‐‐ by stressing the need for a stable primary‐ and secondary‐school culture, and at the same time would address the plurality of social, cultural, and religious traditions among students.     

School sector variation on non-cognitive dimensions: are non-public but publicly supported schools more effective?

Denominational schooling makes up an important part of European educational systems. Given its specificity, denominational schooling can be expected to place a greater weight on values teaching and moral education. It also may be more successful in creating a warm and caring atmosphere, thus helping students to better emotionally connect to the school community. We compare public and publicly supported private (as a proxy to denominational) schools on 2 dimensions, namely the emotional integration with the rest of the school community and the concern and feelings of responsibility towards the environment. Except for Austria, Belgium, and Spain, no evidence could be found that the type of the school has any impact on the reported psychological adaptation to the school. In these 3 countries, publicly supported private schools tend to be more successful in integrating their students. Also, students in public and private dependent schools were equally environment oriented.     

Some proposals for change to the role of the catholic sector in the Australian school funding policy process

This paper is set against a history of school funding policies in Australia that begins with the first public policy recognition of the disadvantages experienced by government and non-government schools in the 1973 Schools in Australia (Karmel) Report. The paper traces a history of school funding policy linking it with the current backlash against public education and retaliatory backlash constructions of public schools as the new disadvantaged in an increasingly competitive and deregulated school funding policy environment. These backlashes, argued to be against the indiscriminate funding of independent schools policy by several protagonists of public education, are framed in terms equivalent to what Lingard and Douglas (1999) have called ‘recuperative’ politics. From the kind of recuperative statist politics considered in this paper, construing the backlash effects of public and private schools as damaging and unproductive as those emerging from the gender wars in education policy, I propose a move to an Australian school funding arrangement in which all schools, both public and private, are integrated into one deregulated and equally funded sector, as typify diverse school provisions in several OECD polities (Caldwell 2004, FitzGerald 2004).While briefly tracing a school funding policy chronology, this paper also concentrates on the current policy moment in relation to school funding, that signals the end of distinctive public and private education sectors, and in the context of which it argues that private schools should be funded equally to state schools, a trend in evidence since 1996. The focus on the current policy moment entails an abbreviated analysis of the Fitzgerald Report (‘Governments Working Together: A Better Future for All Australians’ 2004), which makes a number of recommendations to the Victorian and other governments in relation to the public funding of all Australian schools¹. The paper addresses the impact of this trend especially on the funding of Australian Catholic schools.     

Unmasking: on violence, masculinity, and superheroes in science education

Through exploration of public mask/private face, the authors trouble violence and its role in science education through three media: schools, masculinity, and science acknowledging a violence of hate, but dwelling on a violence of caring. In schools, there is the poisonous ??for your own good?? pedagogy that becomes a ??for your own good?? curriculum or a coercive curriculum for science teaching and learning; however, the antithetical curriculum of I??m here entails violence??the shedding of the public mask and the exposing of the private face. Violence, likewise, becomes social and political capital for masculinity that is a pubic mask for private face. Lastly, science, in its self-identified cultural, political and educational form of a superhero, creates permanent harm most often as palatable violence in order to save and to redeem not the private face, but the public mask. The authors conclude that they do not know what violence to say one should not do, but they know the much of the violence has been and is being committed. All for which we can hope is not that we cease all violence or better yet not hate, but that we violently love.     

Half a century of Islamic education in Dutch schools

During the second half of the twentieth century, faithful followers of non-Western religions immigrated into Western European countries. Their children were a challenge for the respective educational system in the host countries. In the Dutch context, the educational system consists of public and private schools in which religion is the most dividing factor. Private schools are largely denominational schools with, as main denominations, Roman Catholics and Protestants, while state schools are presented as religiously neutral. How did this dual system cope with the import of a relatively new religion like Islam? In our contribution, we describe half a century’s history of Islamic children in Dutch schools by addressing the following questions. In what way did state and denominational schools on the one hand and the government on the other hand try to include Islamic pupils (and their parents) and facilitate their integration into the Dutch educational system and by consequence into Dutch society? And, the other way around, how did these new comers adapt themselves to the Dutch educational system, and did they stimulate, directly or indirectly, reflection on religion and values? We come to the conclusion that the most influential initiatives came from both Christian and Islamic schools as a consequence of their focus on the importance of the formation of pupil identity and life orientation and that teachers’ knowledge about and attitude regarding (religious) diversity are pivotal in processes of learning about and from each other as a precondition for integration into a society characterised by diversity.     

Effects of key state policies on private colleges and universities: sustaining private-sector capacity in the face of the higher education access challenge

The relationship between key state policy variables — (1) relative (private–public) tuition prices, (2) state student-aid funding, and (3) public institution density — and the competitive position of private colleges and universities is examined. Elite private schools are found to be nearly impervious to state policy. Large and moderately selective private institutions are adversely affected by public institution density and low public prices. Such prices divert students who would otherwise prefer these private institutions to similar public schools. State student aid funding most affects the enrollment market shares of the small, low-selectivity private colleges enrolling the greatest proportions of minority and modest-income students. The findings suggest state policies in this era of strong demand for higher education and constrained public sector capacity should use price signals (student aid and public institution pricing) to encourage students to consider seriously whether private higher education might serve their needs as well as or better than public institutions.     

Reforming education in post-partition Northern Ireland: state control and churches’ interference

ABSTRACT

After the partition of Ireland, the newly established parliament in Belfast was given control over education. The unionist government, mainly representing the majoritarian Protestant population, embarked on a reform of the pre-existing denominational education system and tried to persuade all the churches to transfer their schools to state control in exchange for public funding. Despite the sincere efforts of the first Minister of Education, the Catholic Church rejected interference in education from a government that its followers perceived as hostile, while the Protestant churches became increasingly intransigent in their demands for more control over state schools. In order to ensure their support, the government met their requests, ignoring the instances of teachers and principals who called for independence from clerical managers. The result was a segregated education system that contributed to maintain the deep divisions of the Northern Irish society.     

Privatising form or function? Equity,outcomes and influence in American charter schools

The American experiment with charter schools advanced on dual impulses of increasing opportunities for disadvantaged students and unleashing market competition. While critics see these independently managed schools as a form of privatisation, proponents contend that they are public schools because of funding and accountability arrangements and potential benefits, and believe that the economic logic around these schools will produce equitable educational opportunities. This analysis considers how charters are or are not instances of privatisation in education, showing that the marketised environment they are intended to nurture serves as a route for profit-seeking strategies. In reviewing the research on charter school organisational behaviour and outcomes in marketised environments, I find evidence of de facto privatisation in function if not in form. As charter schools often act like profit-seeking entities, but fail to achieve expected academic and equity outcomes, the concluding discussion considers how these schools are placed between conflicting goals, and serve as entry points for private organisations seeking to penetrate the publicly funded education sector. I conclude that perhaps their most important role is in serving as a vehicle for privatising public policy—diminishing the public while enhancing the position and influence of private interests and organisations in education policymaking.     

The public-private division of responsibility for education

In this chapter “private” schools are defined as those that were privately founded and are privately managed; they usually have some private funding, although in some cases considerable funding and control come from the government. The size and nature of the private sector is viewed as stemming from excess demand for education due to limited public spending (i.e., these are students who would prefer to use the public schools but are involuntarily excluded and pushed into the private sector); differentiated demand due primarily to cultural heterogeneity (i.e., these are students whose differentiated tastes along religious, linguistic or ethnic lines lead them voluntarily to choose the private sector even if a public school place is available); and the supply of non-profit educational entrepreneurship (e.g., founders who start schools to maximize religious faith or believers, rather than profits) by competing religious organizations. The impact of public policies, including public educational spending and private subsidies, is also considered.     

How Much Do Good Early Childhood Programs Cost'

Although elementary schools have firmly institutionalized programs for children aged 5 and older, the United States is still developing operating public definitions for programs for children below age 5. These programs include public school prekindergarten programs, Head Start programs, and child care homes and centers. This article estimates the per-child and aggregate costs of providing good programs to the populations of young children who need them, specifically: (a) full public funding for part-time programs for 3- and 4-year-olds in poverty with parents who are not in the labor force; (b) full public funding for full-time programs for children under 5 in poverty with employed parents; and (c) both public and private funding for full-time programs for non-poor children under5 whose parents are employed. The article does not estimate program costs for non-poor families of children under 5 whose parents are not employed. It appears that the United States now spends only half of the public and private dollars needed to provide good early childhood programs and thereby may well be sacrificing the potential for a substantial return on investment.     

Embracing Jewish day school education in England, 1965–1979

Between 1965 and 1979 the demand for places at Jewish day schools in England rose dramatically. In the preceding decades, most parents sent their children to state non‐denominational schools, showing little interest in providing their children with a solid Jewish education. Sunday or after‐school Hebrew classes, rarely extending beyond Bar/Bat Mitzvah age, sufficed. Yet beginning in the mid‐1960s, parents evinced increasing enthusiasm for Jewish day schools, both primary and secondary. This phenomenon has been attributed to various factors, such as the changing ethnic mix at state schools and Anglo‐Jewry’s communal pride after the Six‐Day War. It is argued in this article that the major concern of Jewish parents was academic achievement. Upon the introduction of the non‐selective comprehensive schools, parents fled the non‐denominational state system, preferring voluntary aided Jewish day schools, or, for those who could afford them, private schools.     

Finance, management, and costs of public and private schools in Indonesia

This paper investigates the impact of public vs private finance of education and public vs private management of schools on school cost and efficiency, using school-level data on revenues, expenditures, enrollments, examination scores and student characteristics from Indonesian primary schools. We find that in Indonesia, where schools generally operate at very low funding levels, more money is likely to bring better school quality. Private management is more efficient than public management in achieving academic quality. Private funding also improves efficiency whether the schools are publicly or privately managed, but the incremental effect declines as the local funding share increases.     

The perceptions of stakeholders of the implementation of a state funding model in South African public schools

The government has made great strides in redressing past imbalances in education through the National Norms and Standards for School Funding (NNSSF) policy that focuses on equity in school funding. This NNSSF model compels the state to fund public schools according to a poverty quintile system, where poor schools are allocated much more funding for resources than affluent schools. Using qualitative research, school management teams, school governing bodies and principals of six public schools located within the Gauteng West District were interviewed to determine their views of how the NNSSF policy had been implemented. One of the findings revealed that equity in public schools has not been fully achieved since funding provided by the state is insufficient to address the backlog in educational resources. It is recommended that the state abandons the policy of funding schools according to quintile rankings but instead, fund schools based on resource needs.     

Parental Choice and Schooling: some factors influencing Muslim mothers’ decisions about the education of their daughters

In recent years parental choice in education has become an important focus of political debate. Muslim demands for the state funding of Islamic schools have attracted a significant amount of media attention, with opposition sometimes coming from those who argue that such schools are likely to offer limited opportunities to pupils, particularly girls. This article reports on a small‐scale research project which examined the attitudes and values of Muslim women in the UK to their daughters’ education, particularly the basis on which they had selected either a private Islamic school or state primary school. It considers whether the concept of parental choice is a valid one for these women     

Failed regulations and school composition: selective admission practices in Chilean primary schools

This is an exploratory study about pupil selection. Admission regulations are central to understanding issues of school mix, segregation and educational justice. In Chile, student selection has been intensively discussed but scarcely studied. Using a questionnaire for headteachers (N = 581), we explore how school admission processes are organised and implemented within a market-based educational system with a high-stakes testing regime where schools are pushed to use selection practices. Despite the existence of a national (although weak) legal prohibition at the time the survey was conducted, half of the headteachers state that they use some mechanism to select students (play sessions, student testing, or interviews with parents) even when they do not face demand pressures. Exploratory data suggest higher levels of selectivity in subsidised private schools. Regression analysis shows a strong association between ‘selectivity’ and homogeneous academic intake and social composition. Presumably, the widespread use of selection procedures responds to the structuring force of a double system of educational accountability; strong pressure on performance within a testing regime and where funding depends on enrolments makes selection a fundamental strategy for schools, but which is seriously affecting equality goals.     

The Legality of School Vouchers

ABSTRACT

In 2002 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state-supported vouchers, which parents can redeem in private schools, do not offend the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Thus, the legality of government vouchers to fund education will be determined primarily on the basis of state law. Specifically, programs are being challenged under state constitutional provisions calling for the legislature to provide for a uniform system of education or provisions prohibiting the use of public funds in sectarian institutions. This article explores legal developments in this regard, with particular emphasis on implications of the recent state supreme court decisions striking down challenged voucher programs. Also addressed is current legislative activity, which will likely generate additional litigation pertaining to school vouchers. doi:10.1300/ J467v01n03_05     

明治前期日本人的公私观考察

在近代西方思想的影响下,明治初期日本人的公私观发生了巨大变化。在私权方面,思想家呼吁个人独立、自由平等、财产私有的权利,这标志着日本人的私意识不断增强;在公权方面,进步思想家以及政治家中的开明派主张民众参与政治的权利,并积极促使国会、议会的召开,而民众则在启蒙思想运动、自由民权运动的影响下提升了公权意识;在公共思想方面,近代日本"社会"的发现以及知识分子对"社会"的审视推动了近代公共思想的出现,激发了人们关注社会、关心国家的热情。但是,由于受到强大的近代残留的公权力这一封建因素的影响,日本人的私权意识、公权意识、公共思想都被限制在一定的范围内,最终难逃被扼杀的命运。     

Balanced Development for Provincial-Level Coordination and Higher Vocational Education

Abstract

In the rapid development of Chinese higher vocational education, large gaps have appeared in the scale of development and resource generation among the provinces, among regions in the provinces, and among higher education institutions in the provinces. Balanced regional development and provincial-level coordination have become policy focal points, but a discussion of the relationship between the two has been lacking in the academic world. Based on 2009 data on vocational colleges in China, the quantitative analysis in this paper shows that there is a tension between the governance models of higher vocational education and balanced development of vocational colleges within provinces. Research findings show that school affiliation is related to the ability to attract public funding, appropriations for public schools are significantly higher than for private schools, and tuition for private schools is significantly higher than for public schools; school affiliation is related to output, and the new student registration rate and number of cooperating enterprises is higher for public schools than private schools; and there is a significant positive correlation between the ratio of prefecture-level city schools and the average number of cooperating enterprises for schools in a province, and a significant positive correlation between the ratio of private schools and the average tuition of schools in a province. This paper suggests that to achieve the dual objectives of balance and development, provincial-level governments should adjust their administrations and financing for higher vocational education and decentralize their authority to local governments, in order to build a diverse and flexible new model for higher vocational education governance.