|
Public education is a bigger business
than we realize
Lawrence Picus and Jimmy Bryant
Education and Urban Society
The Buying and Selling of
Education in The United States
The federal budget for education is $57.3 billion,21 and the state budgets separate from the federal budget have increased. Serving 15,660 school districts, 50 million students attending over 85,000 public schools, and 26,000 private schools, they also provide grants, loans, and work-study assistance to more than eight million post-secondary students. Congress, state, and private sources have made money available for the new urban schools. The new urban schools are:
* Public charter schools
* Private charter schools
* Home schools
* Religious schools
* Parochial schools
Some institutions like Edison Schools are stock companies. The selling of education is a top priority. Profit is more important than learning. The stockholders must receive a good return on their investments. This is capitalism taking control of education.
The Hoover Institute, The Rand Corporation, Brookings Institute, Cato Institute, The Heritage Foundation, and other think tanks have a deep impact on the educational system in America. For example, Edison has schools in the following states and the District of Columbia (at the time of publication):
* California
* Colorado
* Connecticut
* Delaware
* Florida
* Iowa
* Illinois
* Kansas
* Massachusetts
* Maryland
* Michigan
* Missouri
* North Carolina
* New Jersey
* New York
* Ohio
* Pennsylvania
* Texas
* Wisconsin.
These schools are selling the following concepts:
* School organized for every students success
* A better use of time
* A rich and challenging curriculum
* Teaching methods that motivate
* Assessment that provides accountability
* A professional environment for teachers
* Technology for an information age
* A partnership with families
* Schools tailored to the community.
According to Daniel Tanner, schools are being attacked by right-wing politicians, special-interest groups, elements of corporate sectors, the righteous right, tax conservatives, opportunists, mass media, and commissions churning out national reports on education. (Tanner, 2001, p. 188). It seems A Nation at Risk in 1983 was more of a political than an academic document. The National Commission on Excellence in Education was very carefully planned and executed (Tanner, 2001, p. 188). Researchers and writers from the establishment constructed this document. They were establishment researchers and writers. The mass media assisted in supporting the document once it was released. Tanner states a similar view: I found the focus to be not on educational vision and statesmanship, but on the exercise of power and influence internally and externally in institutional affairs.
Economics sets the mood, the beat, and even the tone of education. These overnight educators and experienced entrepreneurs are well equipped for The Buying and Selling of Education for any price that the market will bear. America 2000 called not only for the creation of the American Achievement Test, but also for the use of national assessments of educational progress. As a result, the Educational Testing Service has a half a billion dollars in annual revenue.The Educational Testing Service will receive the rights to assess the progress of education in America. In capitalism, one important factor is competition. It is supposed to improve the product. In this instance, the rule of capitalism has been violated.
Again, Tanner (2001) points out in an article, Manufacturing Problems and Selling Solutions: The Michigan Business Roundtable released it position paper to the public with advance announcement those corporate jets would be made available to fly the executives and the governor to stage a conservative press conference in the third-grade classrooms across the state. This was another example of The Buying and Selling of Education. The public doesnt have to stretch its imagination to see this was a Hollywood production with lights, cameras, and action and how carefully this was planned and executed.
An associate professor of economics at Harvard University, Dr. Caroline Hoxby, has a strange way, or maybe a primitive way, of selling her ideas about education. For example, in assessing the impact of competition on public schools, she used a statistical technique known an instrument variables in which independent variables-the number of school districts in an area and the number of private schools in a school district-were replaced with other associated variables. To substitute for the number of school districts in a geographic region, she used rivers and streams in an area (Cassidy, 1999).
Another issue is blamed on teachers unions. Dr. Hoxby produced her evidence that students perform slightly worse where teachers unions are strong. Apparently, Dr. Hoxby is not aware that teachers unions assist teachers with the following:
* Good working conditions
* Competitive wages
* Insurance for teachers
* Health benefits
* Dental benefits
* Optical benefits
* Paid leave (Some unions have a sick leave bank to which employees donate one day a year. When teachers are sick, they can draw from this bank.)
* The right to challenge administrators on violations of the contract.
Dr. Hoxby appears to favor charter schools over public schools. She appears to have tailored her facts and conclusions to coincide with her philosophy. She has been associated with a conservative think tank, the Hoover Institute, a think tank associated with Stanford University. She also believes that the teaching profession would improve if it did not depend on incumbent teachers.
John Cassidy, writing in The New Yorker, indicates the following:
The classroom, built for sixty people, contained about double that number, with students sitting and standing in the aisles, but it steadily emptied out as Hoxby started in on the syllabus by handing out three pages of equations and then running through a mathematical model of how people decided to invest in education. (Cassidy, 1999, p. 144).
Dr. Hoxby lost a golden opportunity to have a lasting impact on these outstanding students by trying to show students who are looking for an elective how profound the professor is. Dr. Hoxby is like that Old -Time Religion - she either sends them or brings them. This method is very primitive, and not effective to captivate the intellectuals of this period in time.
2 FY05 Federal Education Budget August 19, 2005 (August 20,
2005).
??
??
??
??
4
|