School Choice in the Republic of Ireland

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Full text

School Choice in the Republic of Ireland
An Unqualified Commitment to Parental Choice
Robert A. Fox, Ph.D.
Nina K. Buchanan, Ph.D.
University of Hawai’i Charter School Resource Center
April 2008
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ABSTRACT
Ireland’s commitment to school choice is expressed in both
school admission policies and the ease with which groups
can establish new publicly-funded schools. Parents may
choose between religion-based traditional ‘national primary
schools,’ Irish language immersion gaelscoilenna, or multi-
denominational ‘Educate Together’ schools. We describe
attitudes and practices substantially more supportive of
school choice than those found in America and cite current
Irish laws and policy documents on which these practices
are established. We present direct quotations and
summaries from extensive interviews conducted with
parents, that demonstrate an almost universal support for
school choice even among groups who might have been
expected to feel threatened by it.
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Introduction
In the U.S., recent debate about school choice has focused on its purported
influence on student performance (Hoxby, 2004; Nelson, Rosenberg, & Van Metter,
2004). Little attention appears to be paid to the phenomenon of school choice as an
inherent virtue perhaps because it represents such a departure from American mainstream
educational operation. We contrast this to the Republic of Ireland, where school choice is
widely supported by the public and presented as an explicit human right in the Irish
national constitution.
The educational system in the United States has evolved into a system of State
Education Agencies (SEAs) and school districts or Local Education Agencies (LEAs).
Arguably, this is the result of the Founders’ deep distrust of centralized government
enshrined in Amendment X of the U.S. Constitution, which states:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved
to the States respectively, or to the people [italics added].
In response to this, while the language may vary slightly from state to state, it is in
state constitutions that we find language specifically calling for the state to provide some
sort of free, universal public education. New York’s, for instance, says “The legislature
shall provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free common schools,
wherein all of the children of this state may be educated” (New York Department of
State, 2007). While it is true that the number of school districts has, in the 70 years from
1937 to 1997, declined from 119,001 to 14,841 (Public Purpose, 2007), the district, rather
than either the federal government or the individual school, remains the most common
unit from which education is delivered in the U.S.. While it does not, a priori, follow
that district educational delivery must equate to district educational control (Friedman,
1955), most school districts, supported by state law, assert the right to compel citizens
living within so-called geographical ‘catchment areas’ to send their children to specified
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schools unless: (1) they are granted a waiver; (2) they choose to home-school their
children; (3) the district chooses to provide school alternatives; (4) the parents opt into
the private school system; or (5) they move. Parental school choice is neither the norm
in the U.S. nor is it universally accepted as a good thing.
Current efforts in the U.S. to provide educational alternatives from which parents
can exercise their right to choose are cloaked in litigation, limitation, confrontation, and
aggravation. School choice in the U.S., when it is available at all, is achieved only with
the greatest of difficulty (Russo, 2004). We describe, herein, a study of an educational
system based on fundamentally different premises in an effort more fully to understand
the U.S. system.
The Irish System of Educational Delivery and Parental Choice
In contrast to the legal system described above on which American educational
delivery is based, citizens in the Republic of Ireland can point to Article 42 of their
Constitution, which says, in part:
3a.The State shall not oblige parents in violation of their
conscience and lawful preference to send their children to
schools established by the State, or to any particular type of
school designated by the State.
3b.The State shall, however, as guardian of the common
good, require in view of actual conditions that the children
receive a certain minimum education, moral [italics added],
intellectual and social.
The Republic of Ireland interprets this language to permit any parent to select the
school to which his child goes, essentially subject only to the availability of space (an
admittedly significant caveat about which we will have more to say later in this paper).
While many, but not all, Irish schools identify ‘catchment areas’ to which they consider
themselves responsible for the provision of schooling, parents living in such areas are
not, as in the United States, assigned by the state to such schools. In addition, parents
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who are unable to find suitable neighborhood schools that meet their needs for a specific
religious denomination, co-educational or single gender, English language or Irish
language, sectarian, non-sectarian or multi-denominational, may exercise their right to
choose by petitioning to form a new school (Commission on School Accommodation
Steering Group, 2008). The essential spirits of each of these various school choices is
widely referred to as the school’s ‘ethos.’
To the reader not familiar with the current Irish educational system, perhaps the
most salient features are (1) the involvement of religious denominations in a public
education system, (2) the centralized and national nature of school funding, curriculum,
teacher certification and school assessment, (3) the unique role of the ‘Patron’ in Irish
education and (4) the establishment of local Boards of Management analogous to the
American charter school movement’s Local School Boards (LSB). An understanding and
appreciation of the attitudes and ethos which we identified as the result of our interviews
requires some understanding of the philosophical environment in which they were
created.
The origins of Ireland’s denomination-based public school system are found in
the middle years of the nineteenth century. Ireland in the nineteenth century was
characterized by competition between the Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland for
dominance in the various cultural components that made up the society. In 1831, while
serving as Chief Secretary of Ireland, Lord Edward Stanley, 14th Earl of Darby,
introduced the Irish Education Act, which, with the approval of the Catholic Church
which was arguably not in the ascendant at the time, sought to establish
multidenominational schools throughout the country (Bloy, n.d.). The quality of
education established in response to the Act came into question almost immediately. The
Royal Commission of Inquiry into Primary Education 1868-70, the Powis Commission,
was highly critical of the state of education in Ireland and listed 129 conclusions and
recommendations for its modification and improvement (Coolahan, 2000). Two results
of these recommendations were the adoption of a results-based scheme of national
financial support for teachers and education, which was not abolished until 1899 and,
more germane to this paper, a retreat from multidenominational education.
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The organizational and legal structures of today’s Irish education system are
largely described in the Education Act of 1998. It provides for a ‘quality of education
appropriate to meeting the needs and abilities of’ children,’ and seeks to ‘promote
equality of access,’ to ‘promote best practices in teaching methods,’ etc. Some of its
features are likely to appeal to American advocates of choice. These include:
Promoting “the right of parents to send their children to a school of the
parents’ choice…” (article 6[e])
Promoting “effective liaison and consultation between schools and centres for
education, patrons, teachers, parents, the communities served by schools…”
(article 6[g])
“Enhance[ing] transparency in the making of decisions in the education
system both locally and nationally.” (article 6[m])
Unlike America’s decentralized education system, in Ireland it is the function of
the Minister of Education to determine national education policy, provide funding for
each recognized school, monitor and assess the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of all
schools in the system, and lease land and buildings to any person or body of persons for
the purpose of establishing a school. Ireland’s Department of Education and Science
(DES) directly pays the salaries of all the country’s public school teachers, reviews and
approves applications for the establishment of new National Primary Schools, funds
schools through per-pupil ‘capitation’ and special purpose grants, contributes to the costs
of school facilities, certifies all Irish public school teachers, establishes a national
curriculum and conducts periodic school inspections.
The DES carries out its responsibility to monitor school quality largely in two
ways: supervision of probationary teachers and infrequent ‘whole school visits.’
Teachers graduating from the limited number of certified Teachers’ Colleges enter into a
one year probationary period beginning with their first hire. Each probationary teacher is
placed under the supervision of a member of the DES Inspectorate, who is responsible at
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the end of the first year, for determining whether the new teacher is ready for full
certification. In some cases, a second year of probation is recommended. Apart from
those occupying positions assigned to the school only temporarily, fully certified teachers
may, for the most part, assume that their positions are secure with the equivalent of
American ‘tenure.’
The phenomenon of Whole School Visits from a district member of the DES
Inspectorate assigned to each school is receiving increased attention. The process, which
is not new, elicits a fair amount of anxiety within schools but appears rarely to result in
negative consequences. These days, an increasing interest in school accountability and,
to a degree, uniformity, has resulted in expanded discussion of this subject both in the
public media and within the profession. Nonetheless, the promise of more accountability
is offset by current funding and staffing levels that suggest a frequency of once every
nine years for such visits. One might expect increased pressure on the individual schools
as this conversation continues.
Every public primary school in Ireland, as a pre-requisite for national recognition,
must be established under the authority of one of a limited number of pre-approved
individuals or organizations called ‘patrons.’ The name arguably evolved from the roles
of local Bishops under whose ‘patronage’ schools were established but has been
expanded to include a variety of religions and ethoi. In 1975 a system of Boards of
Management was established for national schools. Each Board of Management serves as
a Local School Board with the “duty to manage the school on behalf of the patron and for
the benefit of the students and their parents.” Notable among the duties of the Board of
Management is the duty to “uphold, and be accountable to the patron for so upholding the
characteristic spirit of the school as determined by the cultural, educational, moral,
religious, social, linguistic and spiritual values and traditions which inform and are
characteristics of the objects and conduct of the school [italics added]” (DES, 2008b, p3).
The Board of Management, while responsible to the Patron, has primary responsibility
for the oversight and management of individual schools.
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Irish educational documents are replete with references to moral, religious and
spiritual values. The ‘characteristic spirit’ or ‘ethos’ of the school, as described above, is
much a part of each school as its name or location. Even in cases where schools were
established to get away from specific religious instruction, this inclusion of ‘ethos’ into
the instructional life of the school remains pervasive.
Traditionally ethos related to the denominational patronage under which the
school operated. Chapter IX RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION, of the National School
Rules (Irish Stationery Office, n.d.) begins by saying:
Of all the parts of a school curriculum Religious Instruction is by far the
most important, as its subject-matter, God’s honour and service, includes
the proper use of all man’s faculties and affords the most powerful
inducements to their proper use. p. 38)
In the case, then, of schools operated under the Patronage of Bishops (Catholic,
Church or Ireland, or equivalents in other religions), school ethos is closely associated
with religion. But the recent emergence of gaelscoileanna, dedicated to the delivery of all
instruction in the Irish language, expands the definition of school ethos to include a
commitment to indigenous language and culture. Further, since 1984, the Educate
Together organization has operated schools dedicated to a multi-denominational ethos but
may be said to have expanded the concept of ethos beyond denominational lines, rather
than having rejected it, altogether. For the time, typically one half hour per day,
assigned to religious instruction by the National School Rules, Educate Together, in
2004, developed a multi-denomination curriculum called ‘Learn Together’ which
includes four strands: Moral and Spiritual Development; Equality and Justice; Belief
Systems; and Ethics and the Environment (Educate Together, 2004). So the ethos of
traditional schools relates to their religious identity, the ethos of gaelscoileanna relates to
their commitment to the language and culture, and the ethos of Educate Together schools
relates to their commitment to multi-denominational, child-centered education embodied
in the Learning Together curriculum. We note further that this is not a one-dimensional
spectrum. For the 2007/2008 year, applications for new schools have been received from
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a variety of patrons, including six different Catholic Bishops, Foras Patruncahta na
Scoileanna Lan-Ghailge Teo, Educate Together, One Church of Island Bishop, The
Society of Friends, and several other groups. Of these, nine will have Catholic ethos, five
will be multi-denominational, two will be ‘inter-denominational,’ several are not
specified, 15 will be in the English medium and 6 will have an Irish language ethos.
Methodology
This paper is based on a qualitative study of a broad range of attitudes concerning
school choice in the Republic of Ireland and of government policies and documents
which actualize these attitudes. We confine this paper to that portion of the study which
resulted from our school-site discussions with parents and with a back-up examination of
national school policies through interviews with Irish national education officials and
examination of documents.
The DES maintains a national data bank of all 3,300 primary schools which
includes school size, religious affiliation, language of instruction and the patron. We
used the DES school data profiles to select nine coeducational primary schools
distributed in three clusters in Dublin, Cork and Limerick. In each city, we chose a
traditional national primary school (more than 95% of which are Catholic), an Irish-
language immersion gaelscoil, and a multi-denominational, alternative Educate Together
project school which were close enough to each other so that transportation convenience
could be expected to have been removed from the parental selection equation. Since the
average American charter school has 300 students (CER 2008) and is coeducational, DES
school data profiles led us to limit our study to primary schools which met these criteria.
We visited each school in the sample twice; once for several hours to meet the
Principal and teachers so that we could introduce the study and a second whole-day visit
to observe and conduct interviews. At the first meeting, we described the study,
distributed sample copies of the questions which we would be asking of parent, teachers,
Boards of Management, and principal teachers . The second visit consisted primarily of
interviews, although we observed several class activities at the invitation of the Principal
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Teacher. Each interview lasted approximately one hour and was recorded. Table 1
summarizes the participants in our school interviews.
Table 1. Number of Interview Participants by Type of Primary School
Participants Total Gaelscoileanna Traditional Educate Together
Principals 16 5 5 6
Teachers 27 11 7 9
Parents 27 6 11 10
BOM 12 4 4 4
TOTAL 82 26 27 29
We interviewed a total of 82 parents, teachers, members of Boards of
Management and Principal Teachers (see Table 1, above). In some cases, individuals
presented dual roles, such as teachers with students in their school, with the result that
this sample represents 68 different individuals. Written lists of questions, different for
each role group, were submitted in advance so that respondents would have time to
consider their answers before coming to the interview. For the purposes of this paper,
we confine ourselves to citing responses from parents. For the description of the
procedure for starting a new school, we cite public documents.
In addition to school visits and on-site interviews, we met with officials from the
DES the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), the New Schools
Advisory Council (NSAC), the Catholic Primary School Management Association
(CPSMA) (which represents Catholic Bishops), the Irish National Teachers Organization
(INTO) (the primary teachers’ union), Gaelscoileanna (an organization devoted to the
preservation of Irish as a language), and An Foras Pátrúnachta na Scoileanna
LánGhaeilge Teo (which is a recognized ‘patronage’ body legally entitled to sponsor the
creation of Irish immersion schools). These groups provided many of the documents on
the basis of which we describe the Irish system. The key operational documents include
the Rules for National Schools under the Department of Education (DES, no date),
Recognition of New Primary Schools Criteria (DES, 2002), and the Education Act of
1998 (ISB, 2007), which, in turn, reflects Article 42 of the Constitution of Ireland. We
also used documents privately supplied to us by the NSAC, which included information
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on the numbers of applications over the last several years, the details and ‘characteristic
spirit’ of each applicant, and the outcome of each application. The admission procedures,
which each school is required to publish, were reviewed including parent right to places
on multiple schools and even the right to apply for admission as soon as their child is
born.
Both researchers listened to recordings of the interviews and individually
identified themes. The theme lists were compared and, where similar themes existed on
each list, were combined. Themes which appeared on only one list were discussed and
added or omitted by agreement. This paper discusses parental school choice, the criteria
on which parents base satisfaction with that choice, and the extent to which commitment
to school choice is reflected in the process of new school approval.
Results
We begin by describing responses to our questions about why parents chose the
particular school with which they were associated. We found school choice to be widely
exercised by parents, who were informed for the most part by issues of school
environment and ethos. The fundamental idea that they did, in fact, have a choice was
taken for granted. We present most of our results in the form of brief quotations clustered
according to the common threads which emerged.
A word of caution might be justified, here. As Americans, accustomed to daily
negative public discourse about school quality and government intrusion, we might be
expected to view Ireland’s education system through ‘rose-colored glasses.’ We do
acknowledge that Ireland’s system is not perfect. Free school choice at the primary level
can be accompanied by disappointment when desired seats are already filled and by
frustration when parents encounter the other side of choice in secondary schools:
rejection by school after school after school. In a similar vein, the discussion below
concerning the ease with which new schools can be established speaks to the absence of
bureaucratic interference in curriculum development but doesn’t discuss the frustrations
of finding suitable accommodations in those areas of exploding real estate prices and
active development which are the very ones most in need of new schools.
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Parental School Choice
The first quotation below is a lengthy one which we present to give the reader a
sense of the ‘flavor’ of the thoughtful responses we received from these Irish parents.
Within this first quote, we see many of the features which we will describe below: school
size, co-education, neighborhood convenience, the importance of early attention to school
selection and the question of Irish language immersion.
We got them on the list…pretty much he was a year old. We
needed to get him on the list that early…The other options in the
parish [used in this context to indicate a geographical area] are
boys-only and girls-only…and I just feel that a group of boys…I
actually don’t know how the teacher controls them. We looked at
two boys-only schools…first of all we kind of felt that it was good
for a child’s overall development that they are mixed with boys
and girls. We looked at a school that was private and it would be
very multi-denominational but it would have been mixed and the
class sizes are small. That, basically, was where we ended up
(until a spot opened up here). I suppose that the deciding factor
between the two, then, for us was, everybody I spoke to who had
children older told me don’t pass your local school unless you
really need to from the point of view of…they said there is so
much to be said for local friends, being in the community, they’re
all going to be in the local clubs together; football or hurling or
gaelic football, rugby.
Suddenly you are faced with choice. So that was it for us, really.
I speak Irish. I like Irish. My brother is a fluent Irish speaker.
He’s sending his children to a gaelscoil. But the problem with
gaelscoils, all these schools and everything, is when you get to
secondary. There is one way down in another town, but there is
no continuity. So they kind of come to a dead end. They’ve
learned all their stuff in Irish up to sixth class and there is no
where for them to continue.
Parent A of a child at a traditional Catholic parish school
In an important way, this parent was quite typical. Her comments suggested that
her considerations focused on the kind of school (traditional, gaelscoil, project school)
and its social conditions and ethos, rather than reports of instructional effectiveness.
Additional brief sample responses which follow illustrate this phenomenon. In not one
single instance did parents speak to the academic reputation of schools in their
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neighborhoods as a factor in making their initial choice. School ethos, friendliness, and
convenience were most often mentioned. It is notable that none of the parents who chose
traditional Catholic schools spoke directly to the religious nature of the school. Parents
who chose the alternatives represented by gaelscoileanna or project schools tended to be
more vocal in their commitment to the language immersion nature or multi-
denominational nature of the schools which motivated their choice, but as with parents at
traditional schools, attributed their choices to school climate or ethos, rather than
instructional measures.
Parents of children at a traditional Catholic parish school spoke about:
Convenience
Traditional Primary School Parent 1
I’m very happy with the school, you know. It’s very handy.
We only live down the road. So, you know, it’s very
convenient as well.
Convenience and School Climate
Traditional Primary School Parent 2
…when we moved up here it was more convenient to
change school for them and I found this very nice and easy
to speak to people here so, when it was time for (my son)
to come, I came to a meeting here and then I found that it
was very friendly…you can deal very well with this school.
You can approach teachers, principal, anything.
Traditional Primary School Parent 3
When we moved here, I was going to leave him in his
school in (another town) but my mother-in-law said that I
would be better off putting him in the school closest; that
he would make friends and that I would make friends in
the area…I’m glad I did because I did make great friends.
Class Size
Traditional Primary School Parent 4
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My daughter wasn’t meant to come here at all. We had a
different school in mind. My Dad worked here so I said I
would just put her in here for the year and my daughter is
very shy and she was in a class of twelve. But when she
was meant to go to the other school, she was meant to go
from a class of twelve to a class of twenty-nine.
At a gaelscoil, parental responses reflected their decision to choose a school with
an ethos of language immersion:
Gaelscoil Parent 1
For me, personally, it was to learn another language, our
native language as well.…it is our native language and it
is a shame that you don’t know it. I’m glad that my child
will grow up knowing how to speak Irish.
Gaelscoil Parent 2
I had almost identical reasons…having that second
language as part of growing up. I wasn’t giving it at home
because there wasn’t enough of an atmosphere for it to
happen all the time, whereas in school, where you are
immersed in it.
Gaelscoil Parent 3
You’re not actually being taught Irish; you’re immersed in
Irish. So you have two languages. And the evidence is
there to show that children who grow up with two
languages will take on other languages far easier.
The newest phenomenon in Irish education is the Project School, which, like the
gaelscoileanna, was founded to offer an alternative choice to parents who reject the
denominational nature of the traditional National Primary School but aren’t attracted to
Irish immersion. The Educate Together schools are among the fastest growing segment
of Irish education. In 2008, more than 15 new Educate Together schools have been
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proposed (ETEN, 2008). Some parents who selected more traditional schools for their
children characterized the Educate Together movement as ‘artsy’ or bohemian; an image
acknowledged by most Educate Together parents.
The parents who choose Educate Together schools, like those in the other two
groups, cited the ethos, rather than academics, as their reason for their choice:.
Educate Together School Parent 1
My son went to (another school) for the first two years and
it was a lovely school and it was local but it was a
Catholic school and we don’t practice any religion. I had
collected nephews and nieces at (this Educate Together
school) and I was always very impressed with the school.
It seemed really, really friendly and small. Small is very
important, I think.
Educate Together School Parent 2
Actually, we liked as well that it was multi-denomination
so that they’d get to mix with other people.
Educate Together School Parent 3
…people are fascinated about it because they’ve heard
good things about it but I think that some people, because
it’s not the same as all other schools, that they see it as
sort of an arty place to go and they’re a little bit afraid of
not going with the regular school, I think.
Educate Together School Parent 4
For me it was a no-brainer because it would have to be
somewhere that would dovetail with the ethos. It would
have to be co-ed and as multi-denominational as possible.
Parental Satisfaction
As the responses above suggest, objective measures of instructional quality did
not seem to play much role in initial school selection. In an effort to probe this issue
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further, we asked parents to talk about what, now that their children were at the school,
made them most happy or satisfied with that choice. Here, some parents raised academic
issues, such as school support, that would be familiar to many Americans:
Parent 1
For the children it’s the resources that they have…the
Reading Resources. If your child is falling behind, they
take your child out and the child gets extra reading and
maths support. The resources here are brilliant, so you
know your child is not falling behind.
Parent 2
For one of mine, now, he’s brilliant at maths. He’s flying
ahead of the rest of the class. So rather than him getting
bored, you know, there are four children who are flying
ahead so, rather than them getting bored, they go out with
the resource teacher.
Parent 3
The class size is a big issue…small classes which is quite
good. You can’t pay for that. No one in the world could
pay for a class of twelve. All classes nearly have a
classroom assistant. Each child is seen as an
individual…it has better resources than some of the
private schools in the area.
But, despite the increased awareness of instructional support that seemed to
evolve after the choice was made, the single most common response to our questions to
parents about how they know that their child is at a ‘good’ school was “He/she is happy.”
Educate Together Parent 1
In my experience, anyway, it’s been fantastic. It’s very
friendly. The children have a great relationship with the
teacher. My kids have been happy since day one. They
love school. They miss it, you know, in the summertime.
Educate Together Parent 2
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The pupil’s time was valued as well. Everybody’s time is
valued. There’s never a ‘no.’
Educate Together Parent 3
Our kids look happy.
All of the parents we interviewed were aware of their responsibility to select an
appropriate school for their child/children. Depending upon the geographic area, number
of schools and available places at the school, parents knew that they needed to get their
child’s name on a list as soon as possible. For some that meant as soon as their child was
born and a birth certificate issued.
Educate Together School Parent
We moved into the area…I knew nobody. When they said,
have you put your child down for school, I said,
“WHAT!!” I mean he’s only ten months old. I did not
realize that that’s the system.
Once parents made their choice, all expressed satisfaction about their experiences
with the school ethos and academic curriculum. Despite the fact that parents were given
one formal conference with the teacher, one written report at the end of the school year
and no test scores, parents were happy with their chosen school.
Starting New National Primary Schools
In addition to school-based interviews, we met with officials from the DES, the
National Teachers Union, the New Schools Advisory Committee, the Catholic Church,
and a number of patronage organizations. During this process, we were provided with an
extensive body of written materials describing formal and informal practices relating to
the creation of new schools.
An almost universal commitment to the concept of parental choice remains
nothing more than concept if the educational establishment cannot provide
accommodations for that choice. The years since Ireland’s 1973 entry into the European
Common Market have been characterized as the ‘Celtic Tiger’ (McWilliams, 2006). This
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term refers to the phenomenal increase in average income, the exploding real estate boom
and, key to this discussion, the construction of thousands of apartments in new
‘residential estates’ (Reinhoudt, 2007, Redman, 2006) within which neither developers
nor Local Councils have made much provision for the construction of new schools.
While Local Councils in Ireland retain the authority to issue zoning approval for new
schools, the fact that the national, rather than local, governments are responsible for
education has resulted in dramatic shortages of schools in the most highly populated
suburbs of Ireland’s largest cities, particularly to the west and north of Dublin (see, for
instance, RTE, 2007).
The provision of new school places in Ireland convolves two fundamentally
different concerns; the construction of new school buildings and classrooms and the
approval of new schools to occupy those structures. The former is the responsibility of
the national DES and the latter is reserved for the individual Bishoprics, Gaelscoileanna
and Educate Together committees which are the entities to which school patronage are
almost exclusively limited. Despite a DES commitment to deliver over 15,000 new pupil
places in 2007 (Wyse, 2006), the deficit continues.
As a practical matter, therefore, to a growing degree, parental choice means the
opportunity to participate in the establishment of new schools with ethoi consistent with
their beliefs. How hard or easy does the DES make it for groups (Bishops, Educate
Together, local committees, Gaelscoileanna) which seek to establish new schools to
obtain the approvals which are required?
The Minister of Education has established a New Schools Advisory Committee
(NSAC), staffed by the DES. Although members are appointed by the Minister, they are
not employees of the DES and they function independently. Both the application process
and the results would tend to indicate that the NSAC places few impediments in the way
of applicants. The process begins each June with newspaper advertisements soliciting
applications for new primary schools. Potential applicants have about three months
simply to submit a ‘formal notification of intent to apply for recognition’ and then have
four additional months to submit a formal application. The proportion of applications
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from the three categories we have described is in a state of flux. Educate Together has
begun a deliberate effort to expand its involvement, with 15-25 new applications
anticipated in each of the next several years. The need for new schools to accommodate
dramatic population movement within Ireland seems to have resulted in a renewed effort
on the part of local bishops in affected neighborhoods. Applications for gaelscoileanna
appear both from bishops who support Catholic gaelscoileanna and from An Foras
Patrunachta na Scoileanna LanGhaeilge Teo, which supports gaelscoileanna of any ethos.
It should be noted that there are no caps on the number of new schools which can be
proposed or accepted. Once they have identified themselves and the ethos or ‘essential
spirit’ which they seek to express, applications are required to address
1. The proposed school meets a need that is not already being met.
2. The local community has been consulted.
3. The applicant is a registered Patron and will appoint a Board of
Management.
4. The new school promises to comply with the Rules for National Schools,
the official Primary School Curriculum and to hire certified teachers.
5. The proposed school has a minimum initial enrolment of 17 junior infants
who will be at least four years old and a projected enrolment of 51 after
three years.
6. There is a suitable place in which to locate the school.
Those familiar with U.S. charter school enabling legislation will find many of
these items familiar. However, one gets a hint at the non-obstructionist nature of the
rules from the requirement of only 17 new pupils. The most important feature of
Ireland’s new school procedures is not apparent until one looks more closely at the
wording of item # 4. It provides that applicants promise to comply with Rules, deliver
the standard curriculum and hire certified teachers. American applicants for school
charters generally address these issues with extensive presentations of the details of their
curricula, the internal business, governance, admission, faculty recruitment, and student
discipline policies in applications running fifty, one hundred, or several hundred pages.
In Ireland, applicants are only required to affirm their commitment to national norms; a
submission that takes considerably less than a page.
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The benevolence of this process is seen when one refers to the results. In 2003-
2005, NSAC received 26 notifications of intention to apply (16 from Educate Together, 5
Catholic, 2 Gaelscoileanna, and 3 from groups not yet certified as Patrons). Of the eleven
applications that were eventually received, ten were recommended for approval and all
those were approved. In September 2006, of 19 notifications of intention, 8 eventually
submitted complete applications and all eight were recommended. For 2007/2008,
notifications for the establishment of 21 schools have been received. (Sr. E.Randall,
personal communication, 30 March 2007). Thirteen were accepted; eight Catholic
schools (six English and two gaelscoileanna), four multi-denominational (one Educate
Together and three gaelscoileanna) and one operated by the Religious Society of Friends
(DES, 2007). For 2008/2009, Educate Together alone has proposed fifteen new schools;
seven in the Dublin area (ETEN, 2008).
In summary, the responses provided a clear picture of universal acceptance of the
right of a parent to choose their child’s school and the nature of the thought process that
went into the choice. Many parents reported beginning the selection/application process
when their children were still babies. Parents who sent their children to traditional
Catholic national primary schools did so largely because of the convenience which results
from such schools being the largest part of the Irish educational landscape. The
importance of local community in contributing to the circle of friends, both for the
children and the parents, was also cited often. Parents who opt into gaelscoileanna or
Educate Together schools state that the special nature of these schools overrides the
concerns described above. Parents who chose gaelscoileanna, while often not fluent in
the Irish language, themselves, spoke either about the commitment to the Irish culture
represented by Irish immersion education or about their belief that dual language
education improves student learning. Parents who chose Educate Together schools
invariable spoke about their multi-denominational nature.
Apart from some technical exceptions, neither the DES nor the New Schools
Advisory Council operates schools, themselves. Therefore, the need for additional
schools which either provide alternate ethoi or seats in newly developed housing estates
must be met by new schools externally proposed. A review of the documents associated
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with new school formation reveals that the New Schools Advisory Council actively
solicits applications for new schools from those who, in attempting to exercise their right
to choose, are unable to find schools suitable to them. Of the thirteen new schools most
recently approved, only six (less than half) are traditional Catholic, English medium
schools. Interestingly, current conversation within the teacher preparation community
focuses more on expanding the standard teacher college curriculum from three years to
four than it does to develop programs aimed at rapidly increasing the teacher pool.
Conclusions
In the United States, the debate about school choice has tended to focus on the
playing field of educational effectiveness. In a dispute that will be years in the resolving,
American educators on both sides of the argument (see, for instance, National Alliance
for Public Charter Schools, 2007) appear to have taken for granted that the criteria
against which contending educational delivery systems will (or should) be judged are
educational effectiveness and efficient use of educational resources. In the Republic of
Ireland, school choice appears to be ingrained in the national ethos and is unquestioningly
accepted by both parents and educational administrators. Although teachers, principals
and members of Board of Management are not specifically quoted in this paper, our study
showed no differences in attitude and opinion between parents and these groups.
The result of this acceptance of the parent’s right to choose has been the creation
of three parallel systems of schooling: traditional denominational national primary
schools, Irish language immersion gaelscoileanna, and Educate Together multi-
denominational schools. They are all nationally funded, follow the same national
curriculum, and are staffed by nationally certified teachers but they differ in ethos or
‘essential spirit.’ The generally accepted view in Ireland is that this national funding,
curriculum and teacher certification results in schools of essentially equal quality. On the
whole, the three systems are seen as differing in delivery methods; not quality. The
education provided by each of the three systems is seen as essentially equal. Our study
reveals that parents, in exercising their right to choose, place greatest emphasis on
selecting convenient schools with small class sizes that also conform to the ethos that best
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suits their family values and beliefs. In no instance did a parent report information about
educational performance as a consideration in their choice until specifically asked about
academic achievement. This raises questions about the inevitability of the criteria
Americans tend to apply to their school systems.
When asked how they knew that their choice had been a good one and what they
liked about their children’s school, some parents began to cite instructional details (extra
help for children with difficulties, pull out programs for gifted and talented children) but
an equal number confined their evaluation to the extent to which their children seemed
happy and content in the school. It appears to us that, having been granted a degree of
freedom largely unknown in the United States, Irish parents are content to exercise that
freedom at the point of choosing their children’s school and then to let ‘the professionals’
whom they’ve chosen to perform their functions unimpeded. Parents were favorably
inclined towards schools which made parent-teacher discussions easy and which made
parents feel welcome in the schools, but this did not seem to translate into the expectation
that, except for a universally-accepted obligation to check their children’s homework,
they would be included intimately in their children’s education.
In cases where local school conditions inhibit a parent’s ability to find a school
which she considers suitable for her child, the Department of Education and Science has
developed a process whereby groups can petition for the establishment of new, state-
funded schools. This process might best be characterized as extremely user-friendly.
The result is that energy that might have been expended by people on complaining about,
or challenging, the system is currently being directed towards creating schools of their
own.
To be sure, insights which might accrue from examination of another country’s
educational system must be moderated by an understanding of the differences in their
political, historical, religious and ethical context. But the values of such efforts include
both exposure to different ways of doing things and an increased insight into our own
values. The United States may benefit from examining the fundamentally different
philosophies which motivate the Irish system. The inherent value to the culture from a
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school system which minimizes the dissonance between the public and its government
deserves further study from policy makers as well as educational researchers. Arguably,
considerable negative energy currently expended in the United States in debating the
educational status quo and possible alternatives might be more productively spent in
positively examining alternatives which seem to work in other countries. In some cases,
alternate solutions might be productively modified to fit the American ethos. In others,
perhaps the American ethos, itself, would benefit from greater introspection. The
concept that an ethos of personal freedom might play a role equal to that of instructional
effectiveness is largely a philosophical one; but it is one which deserves much greater
discussion
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