nce among the nation's public schools is their subordination to public authority. ... The school's most fundamental problems are rooted in the institutions of democratic control by which they are governed". Chubb and Moe deny the historic purposes of public schools when they reject the idea that educational policy should be directed by a common vision or purpose. They assert, "It should be apparent that schools have no immutable or transcendent purpose. ... What they are supposed to be doing depends on who controls them and what these controllers want them to do". The Thompson proposal for Wisconsin's schools embraces this belief system it is a denial of the fundamental role of public education in affirming the public good. A second issue which remains unexamined in the rush to the marketplace concerns the claims offered in defense of private school choice. Choice is offered as a "lesson learned" rather than a proposition to be examined. Advocates of private school choice have ignored its history. Despite the claims made for a market-based school restructuring strategy, the history of choice does not support the claims of its proponents. A Declaration of Crisis Willingness to abandon strong support for public schools and to turn to marketplace solutions is driven by a crisis rhetoric. This rhetoric, which suggests that public education is failing, is not only misleading, it is dangerous because it may erode public confidence in the very institutions on which our capacity for a democratic response depends. Criticism of public education has continued unabated since the publication of A Nation At Risk in 1983. Stimulated in large part by new international economic realities, by a domestic economy based on traditional production models, and by changing domestic demographics, the critics have sought solutions to these challenging problems by turning to schools and educators. The data cited by critics of public schools were accepted at face v...
