Alternatives to Public Schools

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Alternatives to Public Schools
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Magnet Schools

• Alternative schools within a public school system
  that draw students from across the whole district
• Emerged in the 1970s primarily as a way to
  desegregate
• Milwaukee examples?
• Typically have 3 distinct features
• An enrollment policy that opens the school to
  children beyond a particular geographic
  attendance zone
• A student body that is present by choice that
  meets variable criteria established for inclusion
• A curriculum based on a special theme or
  instructional method

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Vocational-Technical Schools

• Provide an education for students who wish to
  enter the trades or to develop technical skills
  for future employment
• Students may go on to a community college
• Generally three approaches used to integrate
  academic work with technical training
• Encourage vocational instructors to use more
  reading, math, and/or writing in their courses
• Least effective
• Operate as academies aligning the content of both
  academic and vocational to reinforce each other
• Appear to increase enrollment and decrease
  drop-out
• Organize and deliver academic courses on clusters
  of related occupations

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Montessori Schools

• Preschools focus mainly on the development of
  childrens perceptual, motor, intellectual, and
  social skills
• Programs are based on the ideas of Maria
  Montessori (1870-1952), a physician who developed
  preschool teaching methods in the early 1900s
  focused on students maturation levels and
  readiness to learn particular skills
• Teachers use a curriculum that is based on
  materials specifically designed to help children
  discover the physical properties of objects
• Teachers act as observers, assisting indirectly
  by asking questions of providing materials to
  optimize learning
• Can extend beyond preschool
• Often teachers organize their curriculum around a
  particular theme
• http//www.montessori.org

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Waldorf schools

• Oppose a focus on the structured acquisition of
  specific learning skills
• Roots in the spiritual-scientific research of
  Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), Austrian scientist
  and educator
• Steiners philosphy children learn primarily
  through their senses and respond in the most
  active mode of knowing- imitation
• Creative play is viewed as the critical element
  in a childs development
• Premature intellectual demands weaken the powers
  of judgment and practical intelligence
• Ideally teachers remain with the same group of
  students throughout their schooling

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Private/ Independent Schools

• Nonprofit, tax-exempt institutions governed by
  boards of trustees and financed through private
  funds tuitions, endowments, grants
• Religious affiliation or secular
• Must meet state and local health and safety
  rules, and must observe mandatory school
  attendance laws
• Differ from public school in the following
• Public schools are tax supported, private schools
  are not
• Public schools must accept all those who come for
  an education, private schools may set admission
  requirements
• Public schools serve the students in their
  district, private school students are enrolled by
  choice
• Public schools are driven by inclusivity, private
  schools may favor philosophies directed at a
  particular group

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Blurring the lines of difference between public
and private schools

• Vouchers
• State loans of secular textbooks to church
  schools
• State reimbursement of funds for transportation
  to church schools
• Public funding for mandated standardized testing
  and scoring and for diagnostic, therapeutic, and
  remedial services in private and parochial schools

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For-Profit Schools

• Late 1980s and 1990s gained notoriety as
  alternatives to public schools
• Do not claim tax-exempt status because they are
  run by companies to make money
• Underlying idea is that private enterprise can
  deliver better education to children than public
  schools and do so with less money
• Edison Project
• 1995-96 taught approx. 2,000 students in Boston,
  Massachusetts Mount Clemens, Michigan Sherman,
  Texas and Wichita, Kansas. Continues to expand
• Experimented with school schedules to create a
  longer school day and longer year
• Invested heavily in technology
• Education Alternatives, Inc. (EAI)
• Started out too big, couldnt run effectively,
  and lost contracts

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Parochial Schools

• Private schools that are maintained and operated
  by religious organizations
• Fundamentalist Christian schools are growing in
  number more quickly than other private schools in
  large part due to the appeal of their philosophies

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Charter Schools

• Independent public schools supported by state
  funds but exempt from many regulations
• Based on a contract or charter between a group
  of school organizers (parents, teachers, etc) and
  a sponsor (usually a local or state board of
  education)
• Organizers generally have the power to hire and
  fire staff and to budget money as they see fit
• Meant to be innovative to reach out to those not
  being served by the public schools

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Home Schools

• Wisconsin has one of the nations most lenient
  homeschooling laws,requires only that parents
  submit an annual statement that they plan to
  educate their children at home.
• Since 1985 the number of homeschoolers in the
  state has increased by 20 each year