Parent Power in Schools
Wicker, Brian
the nation? To the company of people who could suspend consciences and support that war year upon year? We should not be surprised to discover that witness has its legitimate dimension of...
...No body of people is more selfish than the parents' association of a well-provided school...
...To this end it is seeking "to effect a partnership with science and technology," sensitive both to the issues affecting mankind's physical survival, and to opportunities in the crisis for improving the quality of human life in terms of justice, community, and in relation to nature...
...At the least it is like what some of those long-haired "alienated" Commonweal: J...
...0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 THE WORLD COUNCIL FH r THE RI6HT O UESTIONS The Central Committee Meeting of the World Council of Churches (WCC), which recently ended in West Berlin, presented a striking contrast to so many church assemblages where the answers all seem to be to the wrong questions...
...I refer to their plans for what The Times---quoting Mr...
...But alas this still leaves plenty of others to be toppled later...
...It must see to it that amnesty carries no stigma...
...Nobody over here is sorry to see him go, though the usual gestures in favor of his foreign policy achievements have been made in many quarters...
...But there are several snags when the choice is presented in practice...
...It may be, of course, that the clemency board appointed by Mr...
...The readiness of Americans to take on voluntary jobs of this kind is one of the cultural facts which differentiates American life from British...
...People were beginning to get fed up with the Nixon saga: but the British newspapers quickly buried him, politically speaking, almost over a weekend...
...Ford to review the cases of those already convicted or punished will set impressive standards of leniency and generosity, and in the process convey to the program as a whole needed tones of magnanimity...
...It is crucial that the public maintain an interest in the amnesty program and respond to those availing themselves of amnesty with the largeness of spirit withheld by Mr...
...You don't know whether a school was right for your child until it is too late...
...This detail does not redeem the program, but it lends hope that the best will be made out of a less than celebratory set of circumstances...
...The presence on the board of individuals like former Senator Charles Goodell, an early opponent of the war, and Father Theodore Hesburgh, a proponent of unconditional amnesty, is confirmation that the amnesty program is not one-sidedly staffed, however much it may be one-sidedly conceived...
...Ford seems as stuck with his program as the war resisters themselves...
...As expected, voices are being raised for a radical revision of the amnesty program, but it is unlikely that there will be substantive changes in the near future...
...But this either means more taxation, or the spending of the money raised by taxing the wellto-do on the deprived...
...In other words, unless education costs too much...
...Now it is just this fact which will ensure that the Tory party's slogan of "parent power" will simply serve to maintain the middle-class stranglehold of the educational system...
...Parents, Mr...
...The public must reject any suggestion that a guilt is being satisfied...
...All this in the name of "educational democracy" and against the power of officials and pressure groups...
...Schools have a great deal of freedom to "do their own thing," to develop particular courses, to emphasize particular values, etc...
...The only people who can break that selfishness are the "officials" --that is, the people who are paid to look at the whole educational system of a given city or county objectively and to recommend action accordingly...
...It envisions as a necessary aspiration in obedience to Christian conscience, power coming into the hands of those who will have "discarded any form of colonialism forever," but will seek to build a "new world economic order," based on closing the gap between undeveloped and developed nations and in wkich the common people will possess the means of effectively insisting upon social justice and racial and sexual equality...
...John Stevas, the Conservative spokesman on education---called "parent power" in the schools...
...This is one reason why I think the Conservative educational program is a political swindle: that is to say...
...British classstructures ensure this result with unfailing regularity...
...Stevas assures us, will be given the right to be governors of schools: and they will be elected from the whole parental body by secret ballot...
...A general election is firmly predicted for some date in October...
...It may be too much to hope that those returning to the open society will be honored for what many of them in fact were: the conscience of the nation in the dark night of the American soul...
...0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 A TORY PROPOSAL PABENT POWER IN SCHOOLS Now that Nixon and Watergate are out of the way, at least temporarily, perhaps we can get back to business as usual in Britain as well as in America...
...BRIAN WICKER (Brian Wicker is Commonweal's regular correspondent in Britain...
...One is the inevitable proviso: 4 October 1974:4 "unless the cost or the educational needs of pupils" becomes financially unreasonable...
...For the successful child's parents, choice is often a reality: for the rest, i.e., the great majority, it is more often a sham...
...For example, there was never any difficulty in finding people ready to act as secretary, treasurer or what-have-you, of the local group...
...To Americans quite happy with the system as it is, this could sound like a "Communist plot...
...But the most obvious point here is that without a radical redistribution of resources --i.e., money--as between the already well-provided and the deprived areas, genuine "democracy" in education is impossible...
...Teacher-parent associations will possibly be made compulsory...
...It is a much advertised part of Conservative "individualism" to emphasize the rights of parents to choose the schools they prefer...
...I choose it because I suspect that it may look, to unsuspecting readers of Commonweal, like a genuine piece of democracy: something close to all liberally-minded American hearts...
...But there are snags...
...In this partnership, it conceives of itself as no mere "pan-protestantism" but rather as a movement in the direction of a "new theology" which will contain such concepts as will unify Christianity and provide a rallying point for other world religions to create a "third force " for humanity and especially the poor of the earth...
...Neither course is likely to appeal to the instincts or interests of the kind of parents who are certain to rise to preeminence in the Tory school system...
...What is needed in the educational service, as in the health service, is more money, especially in poor areas...
...The problem of parents" power and democratic control and indeed of choice, is a political one that affects all areas and all schools It can't be solved, however, by an electoral gimmick...
...that its job is to bring to bear Christian insight and the dynamic of Christian response to God through action, upon that crisis...
...The first is that as long as there is a selection procedure, allegedly based on intellectual ability but in fact based just as much on attainment (and of course, attainment is much bound up with social class) then the parents of children who do badly in the attainment stakes have much less choice than those of children who succeed...
...These things cannot be objectively set down in a prospectus: they are realities that can only be assessed by experience...
...Naturally his removal from office is welcomed as a triumph of the "democratic process" (except by professional cynics like Malcolm Muggeridge) but his future as a private citizen is not of much consequence to us...
...The WCC faces up to what doubtless is a fact--that humanity is in a state of crisis...
...As an aside, it is perhaps worth remarking that 1974 has so far been a fairly good year as far as toppling rotten governments is concerned: Portugal, Greece and now America...
...It looks as though the "democratic process t' is going to take its course with us within the next couple of months...
...Over here you have to wheedle, persuade, cajole and arm-twist people into such positions...
...Nothing is less likely to bring about a redistribution of resources in favor of those who need it than "parent power...
...Occasionally one hears of absurd anomalies, like the case of two Catholic parents who could only get their child into the secular school they had preferred, by renouncing their faith...
...We should not be surprised to discover that witness has its legitimate dimension of pride...
...And naturally, the articulate and the self-confident (which usually means the relatively wellto-do) tend to get chosen to fill them...
...Secondly, it is in fact very difficult indeed to make an intelligent assessment of the merits of various schools in a given area...
...That does not mean, however, that there is not a role for the public to play...
...Parents will be given the chance to complain if they can't exercise their full choice over which school to send their child to...
...Whether he ought to have been left to rot by himself now, or whether the various criminal proceedings against him should have been pursued to the bitter end, was a question that most commentators here regarded as a matter for Americans only...
...But such cases are very rare...
...For example, the Catholic school system in most places simply mirrors the secular system, at least as far as the relevant factors go...
...Even the information that is available is liable to be out of date because of staff mobility and other factors., I have said nothing about the religious question in all this, largely because it does not usually bear much on the situation I've described...
...Anything short of that is an injustice to the individuals and the crippling of a hope for a healthier American society...
...On the other hand, their consciences can be respected, or at the very minimum extended the benefit of all doubts...
...In view of this it is perhaps worth commenting on one particular item of the Conservative Party's election program that has been publicized in the papers in recent days...
...When I was in Michigan for a year, with my family, in 1968-69, one of the things that most impressed us was the enthusiasm with which Americans, and especially American parents, took part in the activities of parents' associations in schools...
...Ford...
...But another reason has to do with the question of choice...
...a way of giving the illusion of democracy without the substance...
Vol. 101 • October 1974 • No. 1
