Alternative schools and the public school system: a study on conflict and accommodation

Abstract

In modern societies, public education plays a very important role in providing for the intellectual development and socialization of new generations. Recently in this country the public school system has come under attack for its inability to perform its functions among some segments of American youth. Much of the recent criticism of public educational institutions derives from an educational philosophy which emphasizes the humanistic nature of learning, and rejects the stress which current educational practices place on substantive content (Kohl, 69; Parker, 70; Eurich, 69). It is argued that over-emphasis in the public schools on measures of achievement, the Mlock-stepn progression of student cohorts, and formal classroom procedures places greater value on student competitiveness and administrative efficiency than on the education of human beings. In such an educational nmachinen a significant number of students are destined to become dropouts. Modes for reforming the public educational system often attempt to do away with the formal teacher-student relationship and the one-way flow of information which is claimed to be typical of the public schoolroom. In their stead these models substitute more egalitarian relationships. Curricula and rewards are based on the satisfaction of individual needs rather than on universalistic criteria of success.