Supporting Schools
The Fundamental Role of Public Schools
The following statement is intended to serve as the essential message on the public schools that the National School Boards Association  (NSBA) and NSBA Federation Members can use as the central theme in its efforts to build public confidence in public schools. It is meant to reinforce the idea that public schools, as the backbone of our American way of life, foster our ideals of freedom, shared values, and the integration of peoples, and meet the changing needs of our evolving society through a commitment that every child can succeed and become a contributing member of it.
 Liberty, democracy, domestic tranquility, economic prosperity, and all the other benefits traditionally associated with American society require an educated people. Ensuring the development of that educated populace is the bedrock purpose of public education.
In the current era, America faces immense change. Advances in transportation and communication technology make the whole world seem smaller; global troubles now increasingly beat a path to America's door. Here at home, unprecedented upheavals in social, demographic, and cultural conditions have posed such consequential challenges for public education that we have only just begun to recognize their full significance.
Rarely has any nation anywhere called on its schools first to care for and then to educate the offspring of every segment of society‹all the children of every color, race, and culture in the world; every youngster regardless of sickness or well-being or family economic status; regardless of whether the children are able-bodied or have special needs; children who speak every language heard on earth; children who worship according to every religion known to humankind.
Until well into this waning century, no one seriously expected our system of public education to do more than educate students who all were pretty much alike and whose parents largely constituted America's dominant group. But in just the last four decades, America's vision of equity in education suddenly has come alive. Our society has begun to put in practice the ethic of equality that previously had been promises. The new demands resulting from this transformation have required a period of adjustment, to be sure. But remarkably, the challenges are being met.
The evidence of success in our nation's schools is mounting steadily. And although local schools are changing to accommodate new challenges, no one should mistake the difficulty of adjustment for the absence of achievement. Indeed, the latest research makes the case: Test scores once again are rising; the gaps in achievement among diverse group are closing; parents--even those inclined to doubt the well-being of education at large--usually have positive opinions of their own local schools.
In sum, our public schools are taking on the toughest challenges conceivable, and it is the children who are the winners. This seems surprising only to those who have grown accustomed to accounts misrepresenting the fundamental data about our schools.
Of course, there is ever more to do. No one is more aware of the challenges still unmet than are citizens in individual communities. And they know providing public education sufficient to the challenge is their responsibility, acing through their local school boards.
Together, parents, religious leaders, business executives, legislators, school board members, and professional educators--indeed, committed citizens of every kind--are struggling mightily to give America's youth excellence and equity in public education. Our ultimate success will depend upon the support the public schools are accorded in each community across our nation.
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