Das Kind Mit Dem Bade Ausschütten? U.S. Federal School Reform in Early 21ST Century

Abstract

Grounded in analysis of specific features of the federal school reform  undertaken in the U.S. in early 21st century, this article demonstrates that the U.S. government attempted to reduce  the number of students lagging behind and thus to increase  students’ average performance by means of stimulating them to  transfer from underperforming to better schools, including from  public schools to schools of other types, which offer higher quality of  teaching. The article distinguishes three stages of the reform. On the first stage, in late 20th century, new types of schools emerged in the  U.S.: in addition to pre-existent public, private and religious schools, as well as home schooling, magnet schools  emerged in 1970s, and charter schools emerged in 1990s. On the  second stage, during George W. Bush Administration, U.S.  government assumed the powers to stimulate transfer of students  from underperforming public schools to charter schools, and to  stimulate increase in the number of charter schools. On the third  stage, during Barack Obama Administration and the first year of Donald Trump Administration, U.S. government faced the  impossibility to significantly increase the number of charter schools, to stimulate mass transfer of students from public schools  to charter schools, and to significantly improve average students’  performance over short time. Even if U.S. government assumes the  powers to stimulate transfer of students also to private schools, as  Donald Trump Administration proposed, it will hardly have a positive  effect in the short run. The article concludes that the model of school reform applied in the U.S. cannot solve the puzzle, because it  concentrates available resources around elite schools, while most  students lagging behind concentrate around traditional public schools.