Randall Reveals Relationship Between Public School and Privatization

Randall recognizes alternatives to public school resulting from privatization.

MSE faculty member Dr. Vance Randall specializes in issues related to school choice, contributing significantly to understanding both within the McKay School classrooms and community and in the national arena. He has been recently named as associate editor to the Journal of School Choice. His article “Privatization and Fear: Public Schools, Private Schools and the Third Sector” currently appears in the journal Education Policy.

Although many people do not fully understand the differences in the three categories of “public school,” “private school,” and the rather ambiguous “other,” these distinctions have been influential in recent Utah politics, as school vouchers and the effects of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind program have become prominent.

As a doctoral student, Randall came upon a report of an incident in Iowa in 1965 between an unapproved Amish school and the state concerning a student’s right to attend the school of his choice. Randall began his career emphasis on school choice in response to the questions the situation posed to society. He currently looks at the relationships between public and private schools and the developing, all-encompassing third category of everything that falls between the two.

“I look at school choice not simply . . . in terms of private providers—private schools and home schooling. We have a lot of school choice in the public sector. We have school choice in the terms of selecting courses, selecting teachers, selecting which private school you want to go to,” he explains.

Randall’s article is foundational in developing an understanding of these issues. He explains the three above categories of schools and their relationship in terms of a trend toward privatization developed through fear of monopoly of one over the others. Privatization presents a threat to the status quo monopoly of public schools, which educate over 85% of all school-aged children. “Privatization,” the article says, "refers to a shift from publicly produced goods and services to private providers or contracting out services.” This means that instead of attending public school, students are being educated in private schools or schools within what Randall refers to as “the third sector.”

The third sector includes options for U.S. education that are not specifically public or private schooling. Private schools enroll roughly 11% of students, and the remaining percentage of those not in public schools receive their education in the third sector, which includes vouchers and charter schools. According to Randall’s article, “The emergence of charter schools, educational management organizations which contract with local districts to run public schools, and various proposals to have education funding follow the child, such as in the case of vouchers, has created a "Third Sector" which provides competition to both traditional public and private school sectors.”

Dr. Randall is well qualified to speak to issues on school choice. His work now continues to answer the 1965 issue he began to explore.

To me the important thing is what is the best education for the child. Some schools work best for some children; other schools work best for others. So let’s not get hung up on the particular learning system of education—lets find out what is going to work best for the children.

26 March 2008