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ALTERNATIVE SCHOOLS IN THE SYSTEM OF LIFELONG EDUCATION IN THE USA
T. N. Bokova
Some alternative schools: voucher, magnet, charter schools as a part of a lifelong learning in the United States at the end of XX- beginning of XXI centuries are discussed. The general characteristics and special features of some alternative schools in the United States are analyzed.
Key words: secondary education in the United States, alternative education, charter school, voucher school, magnet school, lifelong learning in the USA.
The term "alternative education" in the US is typically used in two cases: in the determination of schools for children with disabilities and nontraditional public and private educational approaches available by choice to parents and students. In this article we will refer to the second definition. It is important to note that for the United States it is not a new concept, these programs, ranging from actual schools to programs within schools to single classrooms, began to evolve during the late 1960s and grew from a few isolated innovations in local communities into an educational reform involving millions of students. By the year 2000 it was estimated that over 15 percent of the students enrolled in public education in the United States were attending a public school of choice.
By the mid-to late 1960s, this emphasis on public school uniformity began to change. Beginning with a few highly innovative experimental schools and dropout and continuation programs, alternative schooling emerged as a grassroots revolution, which has grown to include a variety of different types of educational options in the private and public sectors. These include religious and private not-for-profit schools, technological educational options, and thousands of distinctive public alternative, magnet, and charter schools. The concept of alternative schooling, which first emerged as a radical idea on the fringe of public education, evolved to a mainstream approach found in almost every community in the United States and increasingly throughout the world. This mosaic of distinctive educational programs is referred to as public schools of choice.
M.A. Raywid [4] evaluates alternative school as an advanced educational reform which reflects the unconditional withdrawal from the program, organizational and behavioral regulations, hindering the improvement of any school. Moreover, many reforms that are now taking place in traditional schools - reducing high school, the selection of students and teachers, the transformation of the school into the community, empowering employees, active participation of the students, the authentic evaluation - a practice that have been adopted by alternative schools.
Alternative schools represent one of the most significant educational movements ever to occur in the United States. According to a 1999 study from the Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) of Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, between 1993 and 1996 the number of students attending public schools of choice rose from 11 percent to 13 percent. PACE
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projected that the number of students attending a public school of choice would increase another 15 percent by 2000.
Analyzing voucher schools, it should be noted that their main goal was the elimination of all "high-level government" outside. John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe [1] claimed that the only way to cause a fundamental change in education was with the help of school of choice. They wanted to sweep away "the old institutions" and replace them with a new system in which almost all "higher-level authority" outside the school was eliminated. In their new system, the state would set certain minimum requirements (related, for example, to graduation, health and safety, and teacher certification); any group or organization or nonpublic school could apply to the state and receive a charter to run a school. Local districts could continue to run their own schools but would have no authority over schools with state charters. Each state would decide on a formula for scholarships for every child, depending on need, and every student would be free to enroll in any school in the state. Every school would be free to set its own admissions policy, subject to nondiscrimination law, and to expel students who did not follow its rules.
Charter schools arose on the basis of public schools and got a license ("Charter") for provision of educational services and self-management of resources, and in return, they ensured a higher quality of education. The initiative for the establishment of such schools came from the teaching staff, parents, local authorities, universities, businesses and others. Charter schools are responsible to their sponsors- local school board, public education agency, university, or other legal entities - to produce positive academic results and adhere to the charter contract.
Magnet school gave a child the opportunity to get an in-depth education in specific fields of knowledge, such as mathematics or art. The magnet school could enter any child living in the education district but it was necessary to pass hard exams, such as testing to identify the general intellectual level, creativity etc., as well as interviewing or listening.
Career-theme magnet schools, the most widely used type of educational option in public education, have likewise experienced dramatic growth. From 1991 to 1992 school districts across the United States operated 2,400 magnet schools and 3,200 magnet programs involving more than a million students. By 1996 the number of students attending magnet schools had grown to 1.5 million students, with over 120,000 students on waiting lists. In 2001 magnet schools were expected to enroll more than two million students in over 5,000 schools and programs. Charter schools also have experienced rapid growth, following the opening of the nation's first two schools in Minnesota in 1992, to an estimated 2,500 charters as of 2001, serving 1 to 2 percent of all public school students. Two states in particular have experienced significant growth in alternative schooling within public education. In Minnesota, the numbers of students enrolled in some type of alternative schooling has grown from 4,000 students in 1990 to more than 112,000 students in the year 2000. In Arizona, as of 2000, there were 359 charter schools serving about fifty thousand students-about 6 percent of the states' 800,000 students. National statistics regarding school choice often do not include the number of parents choosing non-public options (those choosing private schools,
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home schooling, participating in for-pay, online learning) or who are influenced in selecting their home residence by where their children will go to school.
Since the first alternative public schools were identified and studied in the late 1960s, the underlying definition and characteristics of schools of choice have remained relatively unchanged. They include: (a) Voluntary participation (students, parents, and teachers voluntarily participate in a school of their choice); (b) small school size (schools of choice - alternative, magnet, and charter schools - have sought to humanize and personalize learning by creating small educational options; the average enrollment for a school of choice has remained at approximately 250 students for more than twenty years); (c) caring teachers with high expectations (since teachers voluntarily participate in schools of choice, they become highly invested in the school; this investment translates into a strong motivation for both student achievement and school success); (d) customized curriculum/personalized instruction (schools of choice offer students, parents, and teachers opportunities to participate in a highly focused curriculum with value-added enhancements; students in public schools of choice meet state requirements for high school graduation through participating in a curriculum designed to both motivate student learning and provide experiences that relate to individual needs, interests, and career aspirations); (e) safe learning environment (research has documented a remarkable lack of violence, vandalism, and disruptive behavior in schools of choice; students and families consistently report feeling both physically and emotionally safe to participate and learn) [3].
While these five critical components can be found in alternative, magnet, and charter schools, research during the 2000s further developed these core characteristics into a complex of essential components, which represent the current spectrum of different types of established school models.
References
1. Chubb J., Moe T. Liberating learning, N.Y., 2006.
2. Kallio, B., & Sanders, E. T. W. An alternative school collaboration model. American Secondary Education, 1999, 28(2), 27-36.
3. Kellmayer, J. How to establish an alternative school. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, Inc. 1996.
4. Raywid, M. A. Alternative schools: The state of the art. Educational Leadership, 1994, 52(1), 26-31.
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