Introduction
A school project usually transforms a student’s general perception of things. It exposes him/her to various important perspectives of experts in different academic fields. A student who completes a project exhibits a changed perception of the project theme. Usually, the project makes the student a better person about his/her respective responsibility. Also, it contributes significantly to the student’s leadership skills coupled with changing the way a student interacts with other members of the institution.
Experts on School choices
Public schools
A good public school is an obligation of any society to the lives of the children (Wikispaces, 2011). Access to a good public school is a right of every child; therefore, society must ensure that a good public school(s) is provided in every neighborhood, so that this significant task is not left to the free markets that will exploit the chance for their benefits, at the expense of the lives of children.
According to experts, public schools require democratic governance, to help reduce the public school systems and change them completely. This translates into reduced costs of running the system. Also, democratic governance will increase inequality among public schools, and therefore, students and parents will have the opportunity to choose a public school based on competition. From this section, I have gained the knowledge that competition helps greatly in improving the quality of education offered by any school. Moreover, public schools have relatively more qualified teachers in terms of experience and education than their private school counterparts.
Charter schools
According to Ravitch (2010), Charter schools receive public funding, although they are privately managed (p.80). Previous administrators of the school system had objected to this model of school, contemplating that it would draw money and students from public schools. This form of school is accorded greater priority at the expense of regular public schools. The conclusion that I have drawn from this section is that the government embraces private facilities that help ease the government’s load of providing education explaining why charter schools are increasingly gaining popularity in different states.
Charters have facilitated certain significant new school replicas. The charters offer the opportunity to draft a unique approach to education and maintain them without pressure from shifting district views, curriculum, management, and evaluation mandates. Nevertheless, charters and choices distinctively do not offer a universal remedy to the problems of education. Both the public school of choice and charters elicit mixed results. For instance, while some public choice schools are successful, others make an insignificant difference. Nationally, charters have manifested positive outcomes in certain areas but negative outcomes in other areas.
Voucher program
I have gained an understanding that voucher program engages tutoring companies and presents an open market where schools and the tutoring companies contend for the available students. There is no limitation on the legibility of an organization to provide tutoring. Based on Ravitch, I now know that any organization regardless of whether it is “public school, community group, school district, mom-and-pop operation, a for-profit corporation, a faith-based agency, or a social service organization can apply for voucher program” (2010, p.115). Vouchers aid parents to fund their children’s schooling and allow them to choose the schools they prefer, as far as they meet the “specified minimum standards. A variety of schools will emerge to meet the demand, and this condition will favor competitive private enterprises as opposed to any government agency. Moreover, the triggering of competition helps satisfy the justifiable parents’ complaints on the double cost they incur by enrolling their children in religious schools. Vouchers help to induce the development and the expansion of private schools besides, promoting a strong variety of schools. In this section, I have concluded that public schools must make their systems more flexible and adjust the salaries of their teachers to meet the market forces posed by nonpublic schools.
Another conclusion I have drawn is that vouchers have positive implications for the quality of education and the living standards of the teachers because it drives many schools to seek highly qualified teachers as a way of gaining a competitive advantage in the market. Therefore, teachers will be compelled to put more effort to meet the standards expected by different schools and all this translates to improved quality of education.
The governor of Ohio supports voucher and charter programs that cater to just 10 percent of the state’s students although they do not enhance the changes that favor student success. This phenomenon has profound consequences for the other 90 percent of the student who goes to traditional public schools. The implications here include the need to expand classroom sizes to ease congestion, reduced direct attention, reduced art and foreign languages courses, and less chance to engage in advanced placement courses (Wikispaces, 2011).
Personal views
The government should take the lead in sustaining the education of its citizen to ensure that they become useful people within society. A country needs well-educated citizens to sustain its economic progress. Therefore, the government should give priorities to strategies that improve the education system and make it accessible to its citizens given the fact that “knowledge is expanding at a breathtaking pace” (Darling-Hammond 2010, p.4). In this regard, this project has affected my thinking; it is hard for me to comprehend why the government gives more support to charter schools and voucher programs while reducing its support for public schools. Most parents can afford to take their children to public schools, while few affluent parents take their children to charter schools and take voucher programs. Therefore, the government should offer more support to the public schools and at the same time, monitor charter schools to ensure that they offer curriculums that meet international standards.
This project will improve my professional perspective and help me appreciate the significance of delegating responsibility and the benefits of initiating variety. This insight is evidenced by the support offered by the government to charter schools and voucher programs. This auxiliary branch of education has posed great competition to the public education sector leading to improvement in the quality of education. Variety in the education sector provides the student with a choice of schools to attend.
This project has changed me a lot as a school leader by improving my leadership techniques. Before the project, I decided and performed all tasks on my own without involving other people. Nevertheless, after doing this project, I have changed my approach to a problem. I delegate most of my responsibilities to other subordinate students and supervise how they carry out the tasks I give them. Also, I have learned to appreciate diversity among the students, and the completion, which exists in a diverse setting as such. However, I ensure the people I contact for help meet the school’s rules and without violating an individual’s right in the pursuit of personal objectives.
Things will be different regarding the way I will interact with fellow students; actually, my interaction with fellow students will change. I will approach a student with due respect to his/her objectives. However, I will try as much as possible to foster a condition that stimulates competition between a student and me, or with another student; I will also try to compromise with a student in any dealing we have. However, I set the standards of work I expect to do with a fellow student during group assignments. Also, I will always let a student extensively make his/her point in a situation of disagreement.
Recommendation and conclusion
The key point of education is to train a child on useful skills s/he requires to succeed in the corporate world. However, most schools do not achieve a hundred percent success in accomplishing this objective. Particularly, public schools have lagged in their efforts to attain this objective. My opinion is that the government is not doing enough to help public schools keep up with the competition in the current education sector. Therefore, I suggest to the government to conduct rigorous research on the challenges faced by public schools, which make them produce poor outcomes.
I recommend the government to allocate more finance to public schools to help them expand the classrooms and staff as an attempt to increase direct teacher-student interaction. Also, the government should give incentives to teachers in public schools to increase their competitiveness. Moreover, public schools should provide incentives such as free transport, and free access to sports facilities in school because public schools provide the ideal setting similar to the diverse world outside the school compound.
Yes, this work has created some dissonance within me in that it fails to explain why the government can support private schools and tutoring companies, which create inequality amongst the students, about the skills they possess after completing school. Is it that the government is unaware of the bias they create in the employment sector in favor of charter schools and voucher program graduates, at the expense of public school graduates? The work gives me the impression that the government is failing to sustain an equal right to education for every American child.
Reference list
Darling-Hammond, L. (2010). The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future. New York: Economic Policy Institute and Teachers College.
Ravitch, D. (2010). The death and life of the great American school system. New York: Basic Books.
Wikispaces. (2011). School privatization in Democratic Society. Web.