For my first masters degree, I had to do a master’s thesis.
I wrote about the importance of a school having a purpose, or what I called “a school-wide working philosophy.” Because I graduated from college certified to teach (i.e,. back in the 20th century), this thesis came ten years after I began my teaching career. I had worked in an enough schools to have seen some stuff.
I was not particular about the purpose. Rather, I was concerned that when different teachers and different programs in a school are aimed at different purposes, they undermine each other. For example, athletics can undermine academic classes when coaches pressure teachers to raise a student’s grade so that they meet grade requirements for eligibility to play. Traveling debate teams can undermine academic classes, too; when any extra-curricular activity pulls students out of class for a road trip of any sort, students miss lessons for their academic classes.
Test scores and deep content lessons are not generally aligned. Core academic lessons and developing an outstanding college applicable are not necessarily aligned. Social development is something else, entirely.
Today, decades later, I still believe in program alignment. I still believe that schools should be clear about their priorities and what they are trying to do for students. I still believe that the hodgepodge of different programs with different allegiances among students and among educators is dangerous.
But I think that today I am more accepting of the existence of multiple goals. This makes the alignment problem even more challenging. This makes leaders’ roles even more important, as they try to build and manage a school or system that supports multiple goals without them undermining each other. The decisions are tougher, not easier, this way. And leaders still need to say “No” sometimes.
Nonetheless, I still believe in an ultimate and overarching goal for our schools. I do not believe that school exist primarily to deliver some benefit(s) to individual students. That is not a good enough reason to require all children to attend or to tax everyone to pay for this enormously expensive endeavor. Rather, schools exist to serve communities.
Therefore, whatever programs or purposes that schools might have, they should be to serve the community. Is students’ social development important? Surely. Preparation for citizenship? What could be more important than that? Preparation for economic contributions? Yes, that is important, too.
This is my lens. I think this is always my lens, the ultimate goal of schools and schooling. The overarching goal. Not merely a justification other try to hang things from, but rather a value with which to judge efforts in and around schooling. How can this school and its program support the communities it serves?
Therefore, schools must be under the control of communities. Strong influence from the local community. Influence from the regional (e.g., state) community. And so long as we are such an interconnected country, influence from the national level, as well. They must be communal affairs, and not perverted into serving private individual interests.
We already have private schools that are designed to serve individual interests. No, they are not good for communities. They are not good for democracy. They are not good for a pluralistic nation, region or community. Therefore, it is even more important that our public schools be preserved and supported. Therefore, it is vital that we protect them from privatizing interests.