How the heck can we reform public school?

Public school in Denmark and other countries are traditional schools.

In these schools, children sit at their desks, doing what they are told. Little effort is done in terms of getting the students interested in school. And even less is done to customize the subjects and teaching methods so that it fits with the individual child′s unique abilities, interests and future prospects.

Logic, facts and Maria Montessori have time and again proved that this is far from the best way to make children learn. But it is a very easy and cheap way to run a school. Where all that is needed are adults who can teach a certain subject, a classroom – and some kids.

Also, this is the way things has always been done in public school systems, run by politicians who neither have had the skills, courage or imagination to create a radically different and better school for the children of middle and working class parents.

This raises the question, if it is politically possible – now and in the decades to come – to truly reform public schools. Or if it is not just easier, quicker and more effective to build up an alternative model in the private sector.

Many unfortunates – and the few lucky ones

The idea of building up something new and better privately carries with it a serious dilemma. Because the fact of the matter is, that the vast majority of the world′s kids is going to attend public school.

By creating an alternative model privately, you may be able to rescue a small, exclusive minority. But the large silent majority will have no choice but to continue their boring and uninspiring school life in the public sector.

On the other hand, you can also argue that if such a private model proves successful, there is a chance that it will afterwards be copied in public schools. And as such that is true.

The problem is, however, that this is not what we have seen so far. Alternative schools like Steiner and Montessori remain alternative and private, despite of their overwhelming success. And public school systems like the Danish folkeskole (′people school′), well – they remain public and very traditional.

Same group, no overlap

A main reason why private education has never had any significant influence on public education is that the public sector always has been so much bigger.

The big silent majority has always gone to public school, while the exclusive private sector has been reserved to kids with wealthy or alternatively thinking parents. In this way there has been more or less closed doors between the two worlds, which has only been penetrated by the relatively few teachers and students with experience from both of them.

This segregation has meant that private education has never become a force that the public sector needed to reckon with. No matter what, the public sector would get the students that it needed. And there weren′t enough teachers, parents and kids with knowledge from both worlds to make a substantial fuss about the ineffective teaching methods of public school.

Secondly, a large and flawed public school has ensured private schools a stabile inflow of students with parents not happy about the public sector – and with the means to do something about it. In this way, a poorly functioning public neighbor goes a long way in explaining why private schools – in Denmark and all other countries – find it so easily to survive and thrive, year after year.

Public school? That is none of our concern.

Not all private schools are good schools. And not all public schools are mediocre.

Be that as it may, it is indisputable that private schools, generally, offer kids a far better education.  In particular, private schools are better at having an eye out for the individual student. Elevating the weak and challenging the strong. And motivating and creating joy about going to school and about learning.

So when it comes to the best practice of how to run a school, it is obvious that private schools are on to something. And that they would be able to offer public schools a lot of advice about how to create a more productive learning environment.

Considering this, it is all the more noteworthy how absent private school people are in the debate about public school. In Denmark, when problems within the folkeskole hit the media, it is always the same people that voice their opinion: Politicians from the Danish national parliament. Public school principals. Frustrated teachers. And disgruntled parents.

Teachers and principals from private schools, however, do not get involved in this debate. They don′t get interviewed by newspapers or TV. Write pieces to the papers or voice their opinion in any major way. About what they are doing right in their schools. And what they think is done wrong in the Danish folkeskole.

This is true for individual private schools with limited resources. But it is also true for schools like Steiner and Montessori, who don′t try to engage in dialogue with the public sector – but instead just remain in their safe, little bubbles.

This is a big problem for the professional debate about folkeskolen. But it also questions the mentality of private schools. And whether you can expect them to take on their share of social responsibility – in addition to just offering quality education to the kids with an advantageous socio-economic background.

Solution 1: Public school students – in private schools

There are two ways to solve the problem with a highly segregated education market. The first method involves creating a private education model that is specifically targeted towards the ordinary kids that today are students in public schools.

As long as quality education is reserved for kids with wealthy, alternative or better-informed parents, private schools will continue to have the limited market share that they have today. But if you target the average student, with through and through average parents, you can drive a wedge down through an otherwise very compartmentalized education market.

Such a strategy is not easy to implement, since you cannot have the same high school fees that private schools usually do. So on the financing side, there are definitely significant challenges to overcome.

Different ways of financing

One option here is to have more affordable school fees. Fees that most parents can pay – and that still are at such a level that it is possible to run a proper school. Many middle class parents don’t feel that they can afford to pay 200$ or more a month for having a child in private school. But if the amount was 100$ or less, it might be a different story.

Another possibility is to have different school fees, according to how much the parents are earning. In Denmark, this is already done with great success in public sector daycares and kindergartens.

Here, parents who earn less also pay less for having their kids taken care of. And if you are below a certain level, for example if you are unemployed, you don’t have to pay anything.

Also, at Danish public daycares and kindergartens, children from all strata of society are blended, giving kids of carpenters, factory workers and teachers the chance to befriend sons and daughters of engineer, lawyers and entrepreneurs.

If private schools are able to adopt something similar, it will go a long way towards breaking down the socio-economic patterns that is otherwise found in this area.

Finally, in all likelihood, it will be necessary for the government to step in and financially aid this type of ′socially responsible′ private schools.

In Denmark, 70 % of the private schools′ income comes from the government. The last 30 % the private schools need to raise themselves through school fees. To make ends meet financially, the Danish government would have to cover at least some of the gap, when parents don’t pay as much in school fees.

On the other hand, you should keep in mind that private schools also save the government money by taking some of the kids that public schools otherwise would have had to provide education for.

And also, when you take into account that these kids will receive a markedly better education in private schools, you come up with an end result that is clearly to the benefit of the government, the country – and of course the child most of all.

Solution 2: A movement within public school

The other possibility is a popular movement inside the public school. Where teachers, parents and reformist politicians band together and insist on a fundamental reform of the way in which public school is run.

Like with any popular movement, the success or failure of such a movement will depend on the presence of a few, charismatic individuals. On leaders that are able to inspire. And who are willing to put everything on the line to push through the changes that they believe are necessary.

Such individuals could be a minister of education. The chairman of the teachers′ association. The chairman of the principals′ association. Or other centrally positioned people.

If such individuals or groups, with a willingness to look at education with completely fresh eyes, appear in important positions, it will be possible to implement an extensive and relatively speedy reform of public school. If not, it probably will not be possible.

So what will happen?

What the future brings, no one knows. But if the history about education tells us anything, it is that progress happens – but happens slowly.

Teachers in Denmark and other Western countries don’t hit pupils anymore. And if we omit the disastrous political course of the last decade, which is now slowly being rolled back, we have a Danish folkeskole, which has steadily improved, since mandatory schooling was introduced for all kids in 1814.

Even politicians learn, and public school in Denmark and other countries will gradually get better. But it will happen in tiny steps, within the next many decades to come.

This is both good news and bad news. Good news because the mediocre, inefficient public school at some point will be history. And bad news because many current and future generations still will have no choice but to be dragged through the uniform, mass production system of public school.

Of course we can hope that somebody will invent a private school which will target ordinary students. Or that out of the blue a Che Guevara will appear in the department of education or among the teachers or the principals. But all things being equal, this is not very realistic.

With these things in mind, we have little choice but to fall back on our personal responsibility for the time being. On what you and I and we can do to create a better school for our kids – no matter whether it is private, public or something in between.

So fight for your kids and the kids of others. Be difficult and complain if you feel that children are not being seen, helped and challenged. Voice your opinion on the school intranet, in the media and on Facebook. Start up a new private school in the closed-down village public school together with other passionate parents. And, if you are a teacher or a principal, have the courage to experiment and go new ways in the classroom.

History is much too easy to predict, if we don′t do anything ourselves.

So do something.

Copyright ? Jens Lindberg Jensen 2019. All rights reserved.

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