Is Fairness in Public Schools Unfair?A forum co-hosted by Common Good and the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies
May 11, 2004 Click here to download the agenda for the forum.
Click here to download bios for the keynote speaker, moderators, and panelists.
At a unique forum on May 11, 2004, Common Good brought together a powerhouse
group of education scholars and professionals to discuss how school rules and
procedures intended to create fairness work in practice.
Deborah Wadsworth, Senior Advisor to Public Agenda, announced at the forum the
results of a new Public Agenda poll, commissioned by Common Good, which found
that discipline in America's public schools is falling victim to "a culture of
challenge and second guessing." Teachers told Public Agenda about a "tyranny of
the few," armed with the possibility of a lawsuit, undermining their ability to
maintain order in the classroom. (Click here to learn more about Public Agenda's Teaching Interrupted: Do Discipline Policies in Today's Public Schools Foster
the Common Good?)
The centerpiece of the forum was two lively panel discussions, both moderated
by Chester E. Finn, Jr., President of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.
The first panel explored conceptions of fairness in public schools, while the
second panel focused specifically on attaining fairness in school discipline.
Richard Arum, NYU Professor and the author of Judging School Discipline, noted
that legal and procedural challenges to everyday disciplinary decisions have "undermined
the taken for granted assumption of teachers, students and parents that school
discipline is in everybody's best interest."
Arum also challenged zero tolerance policies that further limit discretion, are
often perceived as unfair, and lead to even more legal challenges.
William Damon, Director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence, called for a "non-litigious
mechanism" through which parents and educators can work together on school discipline.
He proposed that parents and students would both sign a charter agreeing to settle
day-to-day disciplinary decisions without involving formal procedures and attorneys.
Common Good is actively working to develop such a mechanism, and Damon believes
that parents are ready to "get on board" with this approach. We need to emphasize,
he said, that "rights are reciprocal to responsibility."
Peter R. Greer, Head of the Montclair Kimberly Academy, gave attendees an insightful
description of how a school can work independent of overly-burdensome regulations
and mandates. Greer operates with freedom in both staffing and discipline. The
latter, he noted, is the "killer" in public schools--it simply takes "too long."
Remembering his experience in public schools, Greer added, "I'm bringing my lawyer
. . . [is] the first thing that's said" in any dispute between parents and educators.
CG Chair Philip K. Howard emphasized in his closing remarks that "fairness in
a joint venture requires balancing the interests of everyone. Someone [in our
public schools] must have the authority to make balancing judgments."
Howard called on the forum attendees, representatives of some of the most important
and influential organizations working to improve our public schools, to work with
Common Good in creating a school that works. The current system is failing at
educating students, and does not promote accountability, because it is run by
a mass of laws rather than by human beings.
We need to "shift from an unknowable mass of laws," Howard said, "to a knowable
accountability system. . . . We need a basic shift in approach. A big shift happened
in the 1960s. We need to shift again, not to go back to those days, but to restore
the authority of educators to do their jobs."
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