When Systems Don�t Change, Rash Choices Need To Be Made
The Rand Corporation Report by Hill, Pierce & Guthrie 1997 �calls for the creation of a competitive market by contracting out the education system school by school. [...] In essence the plan makes every school a charter school, opening up competition as parents could choose where to send their children�� (Hill et al. 1997: vii-ix) (Retooling the Mind Factory; Education in a Lean State, Alan Sears, 2003, p.236)
If we look to the U.S., Chicago's Mayor Daley is taking control of a lagging educational system, in closing and re-opening new schools: �Hundreds of teachers will be forced to find new jobs or re-apply for their old jobs, and the power of the Chicago Teachers Union could be undermined because two-thirds of the new schools will be run by outside organizations and won't have to follow the union contract..." (http://www.suntimes.com/output/education/cst-nws-skul25.html) [�] his most ambitious education overhaul since seizing control of the Board of Education in 1995..." (Chicago Sun Times, June 25, 2004 (http://www.suntimes.com/output/education/cst-nws-school23.html)
In New York �The recently ended 2003-4 school year was a year of remarkable change in our public-school system. [�] * Dozens of small secondary schools and chartered schools were launched to begin the reform of large, unproductive high schools and to give parents more choices in a system of far too few high-performing schools.� (http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/27503.htm)
�Charter schools combine accountability, tests, and information on one hand, with diversity, competition, pluralism, and choice on the other hand. [...] accountable both to the state for meeting the state standards as prescribed by the state test and to its customers.� (Yolanda k. Kodrzycki, Education in the Twenty-first Century: Meeting the Challenges of a Changing World, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 47th Economic Conference, June 2002, p.293-294)
�These schools employ teachers who are open to reform and change and are willing to experiment with incentives and other reforms that have been resisted in traditional public schools.� (Teacher Quality, Lance T. Izumi & Williamson M. Evers, 2002, p.31)
