Charter-Schools
: schools under contract
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If
the question of the state education in the United States
raises a great number of questions, there is however
a new phenomenon, typically American, which concerns
today the whole country, and it's the question of "
Charter-Schools ", which now represents one of the most
positive and significant reform of the North-American
educational system.
Created under the initiative of parents, teachers or
community members, these schools are characterized as
much as by a teaching system which is their own as by
a great autonomy.
Indeed, being entirely financed by public monies, and
consequently completely free, they are not obliged to
follow an official program, nor even particular procedures
as regards to the recruitment of teachers who are hired
according to a co-opting system and are not necessarily
stemming from the traditional system of education.
Presented most of the time as "alternative" schools,
Charter-Schools, arouse an unpreceded enthusiasm within
the whole American population (these schools were one
of the only points of agreement between both candidates
for the White House, during the last presidential elections
and Bill Clinton himself, opted in their favour).
The first of these schools was opened in 1991 in the
State of Minnesota and 10 years later there are no less
than hundreds of Charter-Schools in the whole.
The
procedure of opening is comparatively simple, because
it is only subjected to the conclusion of a renewable
contract (established generally for an average term
of 5 years, but which can vary), stipulating that the
school must not be directed towards religion or that
it does not proceed to any kind of selection regarding
students admittance. Besides, there is an obligation
of producing good results and of having a correct level
of education. In the opposite case, there is a risk
of practising license removal.
Apart from these main constraints, the Federal State
rather tends to support the setting up of these new
structures, which command a new form of teaching (even
if there is a specific legislation to each State which
limites their number and subjects them to supplementary
controls).
Moreover, teacher trade unions remain relatively hostile
to the development of such schools, in particular because
professors are paid less than in the public service.
But there is a risk, because these "Charter-Schools
" can be opened under private groups' initiative, which
would thus apply their policies and condition an increasing
number of students since their youth.
Today, and even if it is still too early to judge the
real success of this project, the results are rather
positive that negative in particular because they allow
a better integration of students being in a acamedic
failure situation ( teaching is for the majority of
these schools individualized), and because of a greater
motivation on behalf of the teachers who have also a
greater freedom as for their ways of practising their
professions (classes restricted in a number, access
to the new technologies…). But however, these schools
make it possible to start again the debate on the reform
of public education in the United States, which becomes
thus a problem that concernes the whole American society,
since it has, through the setting up of these new structures,
a wide field of intervention; indeed, parents can from
now on follow closely their children'education. Finally,
and even if they cannot be considered as the unic solution
concerning the public education's future, it has at
least the merit to bring a concrete answer.
