[Opinion] What Was Overlooked in the Lawsuit to Cancel Autonomous Private High Schools

Song Ki-chang, Professor, Department of Education, Sookmyung Women's University

In the 2019 evaluation of autonomous private high schools, when the autonomous private high schools operated by the school corporations Paejae Hakdang and Iljusehwahakwon scored below 70 points, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education Superintendent determined that these schools could not achieve the purpose of their autonomous private high school designation and issued cancellation orders. The two school corporations filed lawsuits against the superintendent to cancel the designation cancellation orders, and the Seoul Administrative Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs last month. However, the superintendent appealed this decision this week.

The court viewed that the evaluation was conducted retroactively based on indicators that were changed or newly established in the 2019 evaluation plan, such as the education office’s discretionary indicators and the deduction indicators for audit and pointed-out cases. Furthermore, it was judged that this violated the legislative intent of the prior announcement system for disposition criteria and the request for fair examination, constituting an abuse and deviation of discretion.

In other words, the education office’s discretionary indicators were △ less predictable compared to the 2014 evaluation criteria, △ had low relevance to the purpose of autonomous private high school designation, so they could not be considered reasonable changes to the evaluation criteria, and △ the deduction of 12 points for audit and pointed-out cases imposed unforeseen disadvantages.

The process of canceling the autonomous private high school designation by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education Superintendent, who represents local educational autonomy, was very sloppy. While evaluating the autonomous private high schools’ operational performance from 2015 to 2019, imposing new evaluation indicators in 2019 and increasing the deduction for audit and pointed-out cases from 5 points to 12 points made it easier to cancel the designation. It is fundamental in institutional evaluation to inform the evaluation indicators before the evaluation period. It can only be interpreted that the conclusion to abolish autonomous private high schools was made first and then justified through the evaluation.

The conditions for autonomous private high school designation are twofold: autonomous operation and a certain level of corporate contribution. Whether the corporate contribution standard is met is a very important designation condition. Nevertheless, among the autonomous private high school evaluation indicators, the fulfillment of the corporate contribution remittance plan was only worth 3 points, and the allocation for financial and facility conditions decreased from 20 points in 2014 to 15 points in 2019, failing to properly reflect one pillar of the autonomous private high school designation purpose. However, the court overlooked this.

The purpose of the autonomous private high school system was to guarantee the autonomy of private schools and expand diversity in high school education, while converting private education expenses into public education expenses to increase public education funding. The logic was that if students entering autonomous private high schools, who pay tuition three times that of public high schools, could enter university without private education expenses, private education expenses would be replaced by autonomous private high school tuition, which is public education expense, and the resources that the state or education office would support for autonomous private high schools could instead be allocated to public high schools. By increasing support for public high schools by the amount of autonomous private high school tuition, it was expected to convert private education expenses into public education expenses.

As educational resources increased and public school finances no longer faced difficulties, the financial rationale for introducing the autonomous private high school system disappeared, and instead, autonomous private high schools were labeled as elite schools and blamed for the decline of general high schools. Converting 38 autonomous private high schools into general high schools would require about 270 billion KRW in additional annual funding. Adding the cost of converting 37 private special-purpose high schools into general high schools brings the total to about 500 billion KRW annually. Ultimately, investment in general high schools is expected to decrease by that amount. Although the public education expenses borne by students attending autonomous private high schools were not insignificant, the benefits disappeared while only the drawbacks were highlighted. It is hoped that the appellate court will seriously consider the fact that the financial contributions of autonomous private high schools were not properly evaluated.

Song Ki-chang, Professor, Department of Education, Sookmyung Women’s University

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