United Church of Christ Message on Public Education

              JX Message on Public Education
d^_United Church of Christ
2003
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sources to support stronger and /f)oi'e equitable public schools
Survey Affirms Need for Strong UCC Role
Our Public Schools: Inclusive Mission Brings Us All Together
A Reflection by Jan Resseger, Minister for Public Education and Witness
On a May Iowa morning, I sat in the sunlight pouring through the colored windows into Herrick Chapel at Grinnell College as I listened to one of my daughter's classmates present her Baccalaureate address. Thirty-three years after my own graduation from this college, I had returned to celebrate with my daughter as she graduated. As I began to listen to Ms. Julia Haitiwanger, I did not realize that her speech and the other graduation events would become an important lens through which I would spend the sum¬ mer reflecting on my work as a public schools advocate for the United Church of Christ.
Ms. Haltiwanger exhorted her classmates to change the world, not so much because ofthe horrible injustices that surround us all, but because, "A world so full of important and wonderful things leaves absolutely no room for apathy and no excuse for being jaded." "When we care, when we do the best we can to make things better, we're doing it because ofthe things and people that are important to us. We should all be activists because of all the things we love about our world, the beautiful things that make us glad to be alive."
Ms. Haltiwanger's speech has challenged me. Working as I do in the Justice and Witness Ministries of the UCC, I know that I cannot follow her advice entirely. Working as I do to eliminate economic and racial injustices in public schools in the United States, I am called to put the spotlight on injustice itself, to tear the blinders off the eyes of smug people who deny inequity and prefer to pretend we can manage away social injustice with a quick, simple remedy. As our nation's largest social institution, public schools embody attitudes that desper¬ ately need challenging—attitudes about race and poverty, power and
privilege, and cultural dominance and marginalization. Our unwillingness as citizens to fund public schools in particular locations is especially troubling because it reflects our attitudes, our biases, and frequently a level of bigotry we all prefer to deny.
But what about following Ms. Haltiwanger's advice?   Should we set about working for public education justice on the premise that the schools many have come to disdain as "failing schools" are somehow worthy and beautiful? Could we imagine that we need to preserve our nation's system of public schools because it is one of our greatest blessings—that this vast system will be the key to enabling the vast majority of children to participate in meaningful work, to maintaining and enriching the vitality of our cities, to developing the arts and literature, to building our capacity to manage the environment, to helping us listen and appreci¬ ate the growing cultural diversity in our nation, and to devel¬ oping some consensus across our vast diversity about the tW "^ dreams we share for our children?
UCC Rejects Vouchers
After a stressful and busy spring, I had not taken time until we began our long drive out to Iowa to reflect deeply on the implications ofthe long awaited U.S. Supreme Court de¬ cision in the Zelman Voucher Case, a decision not yet an¬ nounced in May, but anticipated within only a month. The Cleveland voucher program is something I know well. The UCC's denominational offices are here in Cleveland, and I have been watching this program since Rep. Mike Fox proposed the bill to the Ohio Legislature back in 1992. I watched a previous challenge to this program all the way through the state court system in the late nineties, and I've been watching the Zelman case itself move through the federal courts beginning with Judge Solomon Oliver's 1999 finding in federal district court that the program was unconstitutional.
On June 27, 2002 the United States Supreme Court finally released its 5-4 opinion overturning district and appellate decisions, and making it constitutional for public tax dollars to be used for vouchers in private and parochial schools. The Zelman decision signals a major shift injudicial interpretation ofthe Constitution's First Amendment, which has until now prohibited the use of government funding to estab¬ lish or favor particular religions at public expense. In Cleveland, more than 99% of the vouchers have been used at religious schools,' many of which have been requiring children to participate in religious instruction, regardless of their family's faith tradition.
Zelman will also have long term public policy implications for allocation of public dollars for educa¬ tion. While the UCC has always defended the right of parents to choose private or parochial education, the denomination has historically supported public investment in the schools that serve all children on behalf of the community.^ The voucher program in Cleveland redirects money away from Cleveland's public schools. In the 2001-2002 school year alone, the voucher program cost the city's public schools more than $8 million in state Disadvantaged Pupil Impact Aid, the funding created by the Ohio legislature to assist school districts with a large percentage of children in poverty.^ The program serves the few (4,000 voucher students) at the expense ofthe many (77,000 students in the public school system). And the Cleveland district, like many urban districts, has been dramatically underfunded, while facing the challenge of pro¬ viding extra educational and social services for children to counterbalance the effects of poverty and racial discrimination. Child advocate and professor of public policy and education, Bruce Fuller, warns that market-based reform will abandon our society's most vulnerable children: "If we are to elect the proud pursuit of private interests in a revamped education marketplace.... then why would a no-longer-civil society tax itself to support public schools? And once we all win our own private places, like private clubs surrounded by high walls, who will be left to rely on the public spaces?'"'
While proponents of market "choice" extol vouchers for improving public schools through competi¬ tion, critics of vouchers raise serious philosophical questions on top of concerns about spreading scarce
—continues, p. 2
"I believe the worth of every individual as a child of God means that the community shares a responsibility to educate each child..." wrote a pastor from the Indiana- Kentucky Conference, one of over 900 pastors who re¬ sponded to an all denominational United Church of Christ survey on public education. Over 2,500 responses have arrived from all thirty-nine UCC Conferences to identify concerns about public schools, name educational priori¬ ties, and identify what members across all settings ofthe UCC believe to be the appropriate role of the church in response to the needs of public schools in the United States.
The survey was conducted by the UCC's Office of Research Services in conjunction with the Public Educa¬ tion Task Force ofthe national church, as one ofthe man¬ dates of the General Synod 23 Resolution, "Access to Excellent Public Schools: A Child's Civil Right in the 2P' Century." Surveyed in the first phase during the sum¬ mer of 2002 were pastors, public school educators identi¬ fied by their pastors, leaders of social action committees, members   of  Conference staffs, youth leaders, and youths. We have heard back from one fifth of UCC pastors, more than 800 public school educators, and staff from over half of the UCC's Confer¬ ences. A second phase will survey Christian educators, parents and guardians.
This report is a first glance at the results of this am¬ bitious research effort   - a glimpse of major trends in the first 2,500 responses. The data will later be broken down by Conference, region, and demo¬ graphics such as rural-urban- suburban, race, culture, age, and gender While extensive data analysis will follow, the emergence of trends is startling across the three major sections ofthe early results.
What Are Public Education Concerns?
The urgent need for adequate funding for schools ranks as the overwhelming concern (from among twenty- nine items) for every category of respondent — pastors, public school teachers, social action committees, confer¬ ence staffs, youth leaders, and youths, followed by con¬ cern about inequitable distribution of school funding that favors some school districts and leaves others behind. According to a social action committee chair in the Cen¬ tral Atlantic Conference, "I believe Jesus would have sent his kids to public school ...Equitable funding, however, is not considered a U.S. Constitutional guarantee. State- by-state work and intra-county work is needed here."
Among other urgent issues identified is the effect of concentrated family poverty on achievement. Many, es¬ pecially our youths, also worry about institutional con¬ cerns inside the schools themselves: the need to raise expectations, to make classes smaller, and, in the context of a severe teacher shortage, to encourage good candi¬ dates to select teaching as a career The growing impact of standardized testing on schools is a concern for many, particularly for public school teachers.
Education Priorities
The survey presented twenty possible public school priorities—ways schools can benefit students and in sev¬ eral instances thereby shape society as a whole—includ¬ ing promoting responsible citizenship, preparing students for college, making students employable, enriching stu¬ dents' lives, instilling a love of learning, involving stu¬ dents in the arts, ensuring equity and a basic universal level of quality, supporting mutual understanding among students from different backgrounds, promoting basic lit¬ eracy, involving parents and guardians, and creating a positive learning environment. Respondents were asked to rate the items on a scale from "very high priority" to
"not a priority at all."
—continues p. 3