Sandra Rubin Glass: "Markets & Myths"
Vol. 5 No. 1 Education Policy Analysis Archives
Background
School choice, the prerogative of parents to elect the school their children attend, is the most controversial education policy issue of the 1990s. As many as ten states had formally adopted open enrollment or educational choice provisions by Spring 1991. In the general election of 1992, Colorado voters resoundingly voted down a proposed voucher amendment to the state constitution that would have permitted choice between public and private schools. Several other states currently offer informal open enrollment or choice provisions or are planning legislation that would mandate some form of school choice (Bierlein, Sheane & McCarthy, 1991). The publication in 1990 of Chubb and Moe's Politics, Markets & America's Schools gave pro-choice advocates a rallying point. Chubb and Moe argued that sense of autonomy and freedom from bureaucratic pressure are the most powerful determinants of a school's success in advancing academic learning. They asserted that these conditions are more prevalent in private schools (which "seem to be better performers," p. 24) than in public schools because of "market forces" (p. 37). Although their analysis looked at the relationship of autonomy and student achievement only within public schools (because of what they regarded as limitations of their data sources, namely the High School and Beyond Survey), Chubb and Moe argued that teacher and principal autonomy should be greatly different between public and private sector schools. They advanced no evidence on this question of public and private school differences, but merely speculated about it. Although Chubb and Moe confined their final recommendations to the public sector (acknowledging that privatizing America's schools is an impractical fantasy), their work has become the foundation for many who would extend school choice to encompass both public and private schools. School choice advocates believe that educators in public schools are constrained by bureaucracy from acting to improve the conditions of education. They assert that, in contrast, principals and teachers in private schools enjoy greater autonomy and have more control over significant decisions like teaching methods, curriculum and personnel. Consequently, private schools produce a higher quality educational experience for the students. They view private school educators as responding primarily to the needs of pupils and the directly expressed wishes of parents: in effect, responding to their clients' expressions of market preferences. They view public school educators as locked into a bureaucracy that stifles initiative and effort and insulates employees from public pressures. This view of the difference between public and private education may be greatly oversimplified. Private school teachers may respond to parents, whereas public school teachers may respond to parents acting as a "school board." The difference may be important, or it may be a distinction without an important difference. Moreover, the needs created by children's circumstances may motivate public school teachers as strongly as they motivate teachers in private schools. To the extent to which teachers in private and public schools encounter children with similar needs, they may act similarly. What seems to have occurred in thinking about public and private education is what Freire described as "mythicizing reality": attempting to conceal certain facts which explain the way persons exist in the world (1981, p. 22). That the myths have been successfully transmitted is evidenced by journalistic excesses such as the following: "Study after study has shown that the more schools are freed of outside bureaucratic control, the more likely they are to succeed." (editorial, "The Arizona Republic," November 12, 1991) It may be that the size and complexity of an organization, like a school, determines the degree of autonomy felt by participants rather than whether its governance is private or public. Moreover, in today's complex world, public controls of many and varied types often extend to private institutions, because they participate through loan programs or grants or contracts in governmental programs or fall under the jurisdiction of courts. Chubb and Moe (1990), Coleman and Hoffer (1987), and most others attempting to think about the implications of organization and control for administrator and teacher actions are merely engaging in speculation about that which few have studied directly. The Problem of Teacher and Principal Autonomy
The study reported here did not assume that there are clear and distinct differences between workplace conditions in public and private schools. Rather, it attempted to bring to the surface those conditions which otherwise may be overlooked or neglected, conditions which constrain teacher and principal autonomy in both private and public schools. Another aspect of the problem under investigation here is to detail the differences that may or may not exist between principals' and teachers' sense of autonomy and control in private and public school settings. The need for such an investigation is clear to persons on all sides of the issue of school choice: "Case studies and other more narrowly focused research into schools could help develop an understanding of these relationships that could guide both educators and policymakers in determining the appropriate role of autonomy in school improvement" (Glass & Matthews, 1991, p. 26). To limit the scope of this study, a specific type of private school was selected from the braod range of possibilities. The college preparatory independent school without denominational affiliations was chosen because it operates in an environment more like the legal description of a public school located in an upper-middle class community. The student populations are similar in many social and economic circumstances, both having students whose parents reflect the behaviors of those with the greatest choice of school type.