A Tale of Two School Systems: Funding in the United States and Italy
Nappi, Chiara R.
In December 1993 a law known as Finanziaria 1993 was approved by the Italian legislature. A minor article of this law, article 4, introduced a revolution in the Italian educational system, since...
...They are now pushing the idea that the school should be a place where it feels good to be, not just a place to be taught and tested...
...However, the general perception is that autonomy is the necessary route toward modernization, and that changes, even if only ideological, cannot take place in a "vertical" structure, necessarily characterized by rigidity and inertia...
...The teachers unions, which originally welcomed article 4, are definitely opposed to any interpretation of it that would lead to vouchers...
...Actually, the problem with U.S...
...Probably it was not an accident that this law was proposed in 1993 during the height of north Italian separatism, exemplified by the emergence of new political parties (such as the Northern League) that aspire to regional autonomy...
...And it is not too different from the "mild" model of autonomy that the Italians seem to be leaning toward, a model where the central government pays, mandates, and assesses outcomes, while individual schools or districts adapt the state directives to local needs and tap available local resources...
...Indeed, the New Jersey Department of Education is now trying to promote regionalization and consolidation of districts with the declared purpose of merging services, reducing administration, and controlling costs...
...More recently, Japanese educators "simply could not understand how groups of laymen could successfully be governing schools...
...If this plan should actually succeed in equalizing expenditure across different socioeconomic groupings, it would also go a long way in the direction of regionalization...
...While previously a statewide average of 60 percent of school money was raised from property taxes, now 70 percent comes from state taxes...
...Philadelphia city schools spend on average $3,000 less per student than districts in the suburbs...
...One recommendation was to nullify school board elections unless the voter turnout is at least 20 percent of the registered voters...
...Nevertheless, article 4 took the country by surprise...
...Is the school only for learning, or should it also care about the social and emotional welfare of the students...
...A minor article of this law, article 4, introduced a revolution in the Italian educational system, since it required that each single school should be allowed "financial, organizational and educational autonomy...
...In spite of the Republican theme of "downsize and decentralize," more state control seems to be the trend of the future in education...
...111n the meantime, the very format of local school governance in the United States is being questioned...
...So it appears that the Italian and U.S...
...It ended the long history of an educational vision inherited from Napoleon and strengthened during the Risorgimento, which ensured the triumph of centralized and statist views...
...While such a system made sense a couple of centuries ago, it does not make much sense today...
...At the state level, it is certainly progressing...
...In the Chicago area, some districts spend twice as much as others per student ($12,000 against $6,000...
...It is also a model of school governance not too remote from the one that can be found in some Scandinavian countries...
...The Debate in Italy The American tradition of local control has always perplexed foreign observers...
...In fact, the United States is currently coping with the high cost of such an educational structure...
...From the debate on local autonomy, which started in Italy with the 1993 law, it is clear that Italians have no desire for education to be financed at the local level...
...Along the same lines, the state of Illinois recently authorized Chicago's mayor to dismiss the elected Board of Education and appoint his own, after the Chicago schools had for years grappled with financial crises, low test scores, and high dropout rates...
...SPRING • 1996 • 63 Two School Systems The Issues in the United States The American school system is currently under scrutiny, no less than the Italian...
...Autonomy has somehow become a synonym for change, and therefore it appeals to many, although everyone seems to have a different idea of what its implementation should look like...
...Finally, in recent years, site-based management of schools has become a very popular model...
...The trend visible in the American system is that curriculum standards, school taxes, and employees' salaries might eventually be dealt with at the state level...
...High standards of education are, for any country, the condition for economic stability and prosperity...
...Many management tasks can be accomplished much more efficiently by regional educational agencies...
...Moreover, thanks to state financial support, local schools need not be preoccupied by financial matters as are their U.S...
...The argument is that centralization and bureaucracy cause inefficiency and immobility, and make it impossible to harvest either the teachers' energy and enthusiasm or the local resources of the community...
...How can one expect outcomes to be the same...
...How good are the Italian schools...
...Over two centuries the basic structure of American education, based on local financing of education and therefore local autonomy, has not changed in any substantial manner...
...In 1853, a Dutch observer wrote that the system left him "bewildered...
...On the other side, an increasing majority of people are afraid that autonomy might lead to the destruction of a school system that, with all its limitations and failures, still seems to work better than most—for instance, better than the U.S...
...Local negotiations with employees' unions are extremely disruptive to the school community and very disadvantageous to taxpayers...
...According to the usual procedure, the Ministry of Education had nine months, up to September 1994, to come up with the decreti attuativi, the equivalent of what in this country would be called the administrative code, to flesh out the content and meaning of the law and the details of its implementation...
...However, the consequences of this law might be far more revolutionary than any intervention suggested by these hopes for change...
...Although article 4 is dead, the idea of autonomy is not...
...The surprising thing was that those who proposed this "wild" version of autonomy did not seem to realize that in order to run schools the American way, with most of the decision making and administrative tasks performed at the local level, one "manager" alone would not do...
...Last year, under pressure to come up with a more equitable funding formula as well as to control property taxes, the state of Michigan started shifting public school funding from property to state sales taxes...
...In 1993, two national reports put school boards in the spotlight, and outlined various possible approaches toward improvement...
...Indeed, state and national governments are already playing a stronger role than ever before in public education, as exemplified by the impetus toward national and state standards...
...q 66 • DISSENT...
...The world our students will enter is characterized by social and economic change, technological innovation, and global market competition...
...Together with the shift from property to state taxes, the shift from district control to school self-control quite possibly might challenge the survival of both school boards and district boundaries...
...A Convergence on the Horizon...
...With time, when the rural communities evolved into towns, professional administrators were hired to run the schools, but the citizens' committees, now turned into school boards, continued to be responsible for the budget, personnel hiring and contract negotiations, the curriculum, and so on...
...This raises the issue of educational equity...
...But the details of the implementation of the educational objectives must be left to the local schools, which will encourage parents' and teachers' involvement and harvest available local resources...
...In New Jersey, for example, there are six hundred independent school districts, an arrangement that is widely agreed to be the cause of the high educational costs in the state, the highest in the country...
...Although only two cases of district consolidation have yet occurred in Michigan, it is likely that more will follow in the near future...
...For instance, in 1990 less affluent districts in New Jersey spent on education only 70 percent as much as more affluent districts...
...The current administration has proposed its own "Comprehensive plan for Educational Improvement and Financing" whose purpose is to attain equity among all school districts in New Jersey...
...When in the 1700s the colonists were settling in the American territories, they founded their own schools, often of a specific religious denomination...
...They believe that it is the responsibility of the central government to pay for it out of income taxes, as it currently does...
...Whatever the rationale, the brief statement of article 4 challenged the traditional hierarchical and centralist assumptions of the Italian system in favor of an approach based on local autonomy...
...Are they preparing the students for the challenges of a global market economy...
...Italian high school students are active players in this debate...
...systems, coming from two completely different historical backgrounds and under completely orthogonal pressures, might actually be in the process of converging toward similar models of educational structure...
...Another example of the willingness of other levels of government to intervene in the delivery of education is offered by the takeover of failing school systems by states and municipalities...
...The premise of local control— that is, local financing of schools—is even more perplexing to foreigners...
...There is also a desire to participate in the definition of what the the mission of schools should be in general and in the specific decisionmaking process in each school...
...Maybe the introduction of such an article in a "financial" law was predicated on economic considerations, such as the presumed economic benefits of reducing the centralized bureaucracy of the Italian school system...
...At the time it was approved, its implications were not clear to anybody, not even to the legislators...
...They argue that, in fact, it has never been able to deal with internal differences either...
...The most effective way to ensure educational equity is to change the funding formula from local taxes to state taxes...
...If the basic task of the state is to dictate learning outcomes and ensure that they have been met, why should there be a difference in financing between private and public schools?A democratic state has the duty to guarantee that education is equitably delivered and meets appropriate standards, but there is no reason why it could not delegate specific tasks to other organizations...
...State School Board Associations are attempting to rethink the role of local boards, and some states (for instance, Ohio and Massachusetts) have revisited their statutes on school boards' responsibilities...
...Certainly one of the most striking features of state-local relations in recent years has been the increasing trend toward state control and state mandates, visible not only among traditionally high-control states such as California and Florida, but also among longtime supporters of local control such as Virginia and Connecticut...
...American parents have always been much more involved in school affairs than parents in other countries...
...Burke) that requires the state to intervene in closing the financial gap between poor and rich districts...
...Background As in many other countries, in Italy the central government establishes a course of study and a 60 • DISSENT Two School Systems detailed set of outcomes at each grade level,provides school funding, and negotiates teachers' salaries and benefits at the national level...
...counterparts...
...Since then, educational experts have tried to justify its introduction as a response to the quest for educational autonomy and freedom of experimentation begun by teachers in the seventies, or as a reaction to more recent demands for reform advanced by students, or simply as an answer to the generic perception that the Italian school system is in need of some kind of modernization...
...The idea of vouchers, certainly also borrowed from the United States, is an absolute novelty in Italy and probably in Europe...
...The students themselves have opposed the "wild" interpretation of autonomy for fear that it will lead to economic and educational disparities among schools...
...There is no doubt that the basic inspiration of article 4 was the U.S...
...The prevailing notion that two school districts a few miles apart might have significantly different curricula is obviously outdated in these days of high mobility among the school population and high levels of communication...
...The schools were administered by the citizens themselves, who were responsible for raising funds, writing the curriculum, choosing books, hiring teachers, building and maintaining facilities...
...The unquestioned philosophy in Italy so far has been that education is a national responsibility and the state must control it and pay for it...
...Unlike what happens in the United States, private schools in Italy traditionally have received students who did not succeed in public schools...
...They get the same salary wherever they teach...
...In particular, this is true for the teachers' unions, which are increasingly successful in bringing their candidates onto the school board and in coming thereby to control both sides of the negotiating table...
...SPRING • 1996 • 65 Two School Systems This is a model of school governance that would incorporate the already existing "sitebased councils" in U.S...
...On the basis of these arguments, the advocates of privatization have suggested that every student in Italy should be eligible to receive state vouchers to spend in the school of his or her choice...
...schools...
...In any case, the issue of vouchers has been a complication in the discourse on autonomy that the makers of Finanziaria 1993 probably did not anticipate, and has moved the debate to a completely different track...
...they do fundraising for the school, serve on committees, and run for the school board...
...At the end of each school cycle they all take the same state exam...
...system has very different historical origins from the European one...
...Personnel recruitment is done at the regional level, and teachers are assigned to whatever school has an opening when their turn in the waiting list comes up...
...it would be necessary to have in place a complete administrative structure, with expensive duplication in each school district, which would make the Italian system much more expensive than it is now...
...But if the "state mandate, state pay" amendment is actually implemented, the state might have to start picking up a significant piece of school expenditures, which might put into question the wisdom of the current funding formula...
...In some sense, their attitude can be interpreted as an indication that they trusted the system...
...These concerns do not appear so much to challenge the basic structure of Italian schools, but rather their philosophy and ideology...
...they often include single-issue candidates who care only about their personal agenda...
...Private and Catholic schools, of course, are pushing this idea very forcefully...
...Since the Founding Fathers said nothing about education in the U.S...
...The concept of autonomy, however, has opened in Italy a series of issues very familiar in the United States—the use of vouchers, for example...
...Of course, racial issues often complicate matters...
...The "diversity" argument is making its way into the Italian debate...
...What is unique about the American system is the magnitude of issues and the burden of responsibilities faced by school board members: school budget, school construction and maintainance, negotiations, personnel, and curriculum— all responsibilities that in other countries are dispersed among various levels of government...
...In the meantime, those European countries that have statist arrangements similar to the Italian one (France, Greece, Spain, and so on) are closely watching the Italian debate...
...They knew that their children were going to be taught a clearly defined, rigorous, and systematic curriculum, the same in each school all over the country...
...The financial formula proposed by the Florio administration a few years back did not meet much approval...
...They knew exactly what their children were learning each year in each class...
...The law did indeed expire in September 1994, and as of today, more than a year and a half after its introduction, the question of what local autonomy should mean is still hotly debated in the country...
...The students can enroll in the school of their choice, even if this school is located in a town different from the one they live and pay property taxes in...
...Italian school districts will continue to be regionalized, as they currently are, and share a multiplicity of management and administrative tasks...
...The U.S...
...The extremely low voter turnout makes it possible for special interest groups to fill the board with their candidates...
...SPRING • 1996 • 61 Two School Systems Local control is the aspect of theAmerican school system that most puzzles the Fulbright scholars who come every year from abroad to teach in the United States...
...The initial interpretation of article 4 in terms of "financial, educational and organizational autonomy" of the individual schools has been revised: it is the duty and the prerogative of the state to establish the desired learning outcomes, provide systematic and rigorous assessments to ensure that such objectives are being met, and to license and hire qualified personnel...
...In New Jersey, even the cur64 • DISSENT Two School Systems rent Republican administration is pushing the introduction of standards as a basic step in the statewide effort to improve education, and meet the equity goals required by the Supreme Court order...
...In New Jersey, after more than ten years of lobbying by school districts, in November 1995 voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment requiring the state to pay for the school programs that it mandates...
...One idea is to control, via a system of penalties and incentives, the expenses of the rich districts, so as to reduce the gap in expenditures...
...Catholic schools contend that the Italian school system is too rigid to deal with the differences introduced by the extracommunitari, the legal and illegal immigrants from Africa...
...However, until very recently no state has taken responsibility for financing public schools (in affluent districts, up to 95 percent of the school money comes from local property taxes), so the tradition of local autonomy has survived...
...New Jersey is still wrestling with a Supreme Court order (the 1990 decision in Abbott vs...
...Since the sixties, they have been more involved than their American counterparts with social and educational issues...
...They have acted as a safety net for potential dropouts...
...So these schools see themselves as delivering a personalized education that fits the special student, rather than the standardized product of the public schools...
...A disadvantage of local funding is that it creates disparities among rich and poor districts...
...After a decade of monitoring the troubled Newark system, the state of New Jersey recently dismantled the local board and administration and took responsibility for running the seventy-six schools in the district...
...The tendency seems to be toward relieving school boards of their management and administrative duties and stressing instead their policy-making role in interpreting state regulations and mandates and in exercising their homerule prerogatives...
...Alot of questions, however, have been raised in recent years...
...As it is, local boards are left with no time to oversee the smooth running of schools: curriculum implementation and teaching methods' effectiveness, student achievement, and the overall quality of the educational program...
...Today, more than 95,000 citizens govern 15,000 school boards across the country...
...Although at the moment the Republicans, opposed to anything that smells like a federal mandate, are trying to stall even the voluntary standards proposed by the various national organizations of professionals and educators, there is no doubt that the standards movement will continue...
...But 62 • DISSENT Two School Systems many people fear that this feel-good philosophy will only lead to a further watering down of educational standards, as has happened in the United States in the last few decades...
...They would control a small budget to purchase school supplies and cover minor building maintainance...
...It is fully compatible with the fledgling charter schools movement, in which local schools obtain a "charter" to operate independently of the local school system...
...This guarantees a certain educational equity across the country...
...In particular, a common curriculum is thought necessary to ensure a common national culture as well as a measure of educational equity for all students, regardless of the specific school they attend...
...The other side contends that often private schools in Italy tend to be parking lots and diploma factories rather than deliverers of any kind of education...
...system, whose trademark is local autonomy...
...Constitution, the responsibility of providing schooling fell upon the individual states, and it is indeed affirmed in their constitutions...
...Some version of this is not so out of reach as it might seem...
...They would be policy-making bodies that would interpret the state mandates and tailor them to the local realities...
...and they are constantly disrupted by internal fights...
...Without the approval of an administrative code within that date, the law would automatically expire...
...Many school districts are strangled by the requirements imposed by the state, and object to unfunded mandates especially when denied any flexibility in implementing them...
...In the United States, they are involved in the classroom as room parents...
...Local school governments would have the responsibility to monitor the quality of the educational program in the schools and the performance of students and staff...
...Indeed, the first interpretation of autonomy in the Italian press and public opinion was the idea of a principal or "manager" in each school who would have the authority to hire, tenure, and fire teachers, negotiate salaries, decide the curriculum, raise money and so on, under the direction of some not-well-identified citizen/parent policymaking body—a recognizable rendering of the U.S...
...All teachers are state employees and must pass the same state exam in their field of expertise before getting tenure in any school in the country...
...For one of the main obstacles to regionalization is the economic disparity among neighboring districts, and one of the strongest motivations for local autonomy is the claim that an affluent community should be free to spend as much money on education as it sees fit...
...They would be the only beneficiaries of the vouchers, since students in Italy can already gain access to any public school of their choice...
...Is this model of school governance any longer what is often described as the last bulwark of democracy...
...Moreover, in order to hold down costs, individual districts would consolidate into larger entities for the purpose of sharing services, resources, and personnel...
...In New Jersey, again, in an attempt to define a "thorough and efficient" education, the Department of Education is returning to more traditional definitions of the primary mission of schools as enhancement of student academic achievement and closely related educational services...
...school boards is even worse: local boards are highly politicized...
...It is time to reconcile the national needs with the tradition of local authority...
...They claim that the Italian schools are more intent on judging students than on supporting them in the learning process...
...In Italy, traditionally, parents have participated much less in their children's education...
...They point out that the United States is currently trying to move toward more rigorous standards at the national, state, and local levels...
...They would operate within the curriculum and regulations set at the state level...
...What they seem to be yearning for is more participation by all stakeholders— parents, students, and teachers—in running the schools...
...The debate in Italy is between "wild" and "mild" autonomy, and probably it will be the latter that prevails...
...A more open and participatory structure would involve all users and be more sensitive to local needs and preferences...
...It helps that private schools in Italy are less expensive than in the United States...
Vol. 43 • April 1996 • No. 2
