This article was published in 2007. David Gelernter, a brilliant computer scientist at Yale with strong conservative views, asked why we could not have a world without public schools.
Imagine every school run by private entrepreneurs, private managers, religious groups, whoever, whatever.
Or every student with a voucher.
Why have public education at all?
Sometimes it seems that this is the true goal of faux reformers today: a world of privatized schools, perhaps with a few public schools remaining as repositories for the students that no one wants. Sort of like New Orleans today.
I read this article when it appeared in 2007 and remember being astonished by its audacity. It basically suggests that democratic control of education is a failure, and that the private sector is superior.
Of course, this was before the collapse of the economy in 2008, caused entirely by deregulated private banks and greedy individuals. It takes a vigorous public sector to rein in the predatory greed of some institutions and individuals. Not every private institution is greedy or predatory, but why should we trust our children to the whim and competence of the private sector?
We now see private equity investors looking at the schools as opportunities to make money. This is alarming, because whatever profit they extract is money taken away from the education of children. And we know that they will aim to cut costs by increasing class sizes or using technology to reduce the number of teachers.
It bears mentioning that every nation with a high-performing education system has a strong public school system.
Public institutions are committed to equity. Private institutions seek excellence, but they operate in a market that is guaranteed to produce winners and losers, not equity. If markets produced equity, no one would ever lose money in the stock market and the market would only go up, never down.
Our challenge is to pursue the changes that strengthen our public schools and nurture both equity and excellence.
As it happens, we have ample evidence that neither charters nor vouchers have produced either equity or excellence.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Public schools are about so much more than just education. In different classes a student may very well be with others who aren’t from his circle. I have seen the unlikely friendships built. If we pick and choose who comes and who goes, what kind of education are we offering our students?
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One with origins of bovine excrement!
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“Private institutions seek excellence,. . . ” No, maybe if you put “supposedly” before seek excellence. Private, for profit institutions are in it for one thing and one thing only making money. Now if they happen to provide a decent education that might keep the “customers” coming back but these types of folks are masters at deceptive marketing and advertising techniques that not only continually border on the illegal but in essence are unethical and immoral due to said deception and half truths.
You know “let the buyer beware”. Is that the motto you want to govern in regards to your child’s constitutional rights of being able to enjoy “a general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people. . .”?
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What if charter schools were required to be nonprofit private institutions like NYU or Yale? Would that make an important difference?
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Charter schools should not be chains. That introduces corporate mentality and cost-cutting approach.
Charters should enroll the kids at the bottom, not those at the top.
No charter should be for-profit, nor should charters be allowed to outsource management to a for-profit.
That adds an extra layer of cost.
Funds appropriated for public education should be spent for education, not shareholders’ profit.
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Sounds like an argument to change the conditions of the charter.
In my discussion with LG, I proposed to use the only charter school I have ever set foot in as an example when we needed to talk about how charter schools function. It is the Community Roots Charter School in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York. It seems to satisfy all of your criteria. Is it a good charter school?
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TE,
Will have to respond late as I have to go help be a weigh in judge at a local “boat club” catfishing tourney (just a small neighborly kind of thing) and then go make pickles. Will be back later!
Duane
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Duane-
Go weigh catfish. My youngest son spends many an afternoon fishing for catfish in the river near our house. His only regret is that chicken livers 1) are such good bait and 2) get really nasty after being out in the 100+ degree heat for a couple of hours. He usually catches at least one channel cat an afternoon.
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More good news on the fishing front. My son caught his first blue catfish today, along with 2 channel cats.
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Good on your son. What river are you all on/near?
This “tournament” had 15 boats, all locals from Southern Warren County, MO held on the Missouri River. It was a “jug” fishing tournament from 6 am to noon, they have a rod and reel one earlier in the year. Biggest caught was a 9.6 blue. They were disappointed that no bigger one was caught but fun was had by all including the guy who forgot the to put the plug in and sunk his boat.
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The Kaw
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In fourth grade we teach very basic economic concepts. I have always taught my students to remember that any business exists for one and only one reason; to make a profit. Don’t expect moral decisions from business unless doing the right thing happens to be profitable. Well said Duane.
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That is very true that businesses seek profits, but it was the fundamental insight of A Smith that the market could serve to channel and limit what a business can do. The farmer is a profit maximizing business (ignoring massive farm subsidies for the moment), yet in seeking the profit, the farmer feeds me and likely feeds you.
Businesses depend on people behaving morally all the time. Businesses could not function without people and other businesses keeping promises, for example.
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TE,
Yes, individuals can and do act ethically and morally, but the bottom line, to use a business term-ha ha, is to make a profit. Now to do so it generally is in the businessman/woman’s interest to act honestly and ethically for without doing so the business will quickly go under.
The business sector and the public school sector have fundamentally different purposes. Now should the public schools strive to be as efficient and effective as possible with the public’s monies? Yes, of course. And the check on that is the fact that a district’s finances are open for inspection by anyone. Can’t say the same for the business sector where “keeping the books” is a highly guarded and private affair. Try to look at the books for the for profit charters and see how far you get even though they use our tax monies.
Profit seeking activity is not the end all be all in the realm of all of human activities. (Not that you have said that directly but it seems implied in your many posts.)
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Duane
I don’t think any economist believes profit is a goal, much less the goal.
The goal is to do the best we can with the knowledge and resources we have. For some of the things that we desire, food for example, the market mechanism seems to do a reasonably good job. A huge variety of food is plentifully produced. We do not need to look at the books of the farmer because it is in the interest of the farmers to minimize the resources they use to produce the food in order to make a higher profit. Minimizing resource use is a good thing because a resource saved can be used to produce something else that we desire. We have problems on the consumption side, as many households can not claim enough food to live even a minimally acceptable life. We can (and sometimes do) address that by increasing these household’s claim on the food.
For other things we desire, say the enforcement of law, the market is clearly a poor way to organize it. The question here is if education is more like food or is it more like police protection?
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Good private schools can more easily provide a good education because they are selective. Pull that rug out from under them and what you would get is all of the added difficulties of a public school (special ed., increased disciplne issues, etc.) without the means of dealing with them. Many private schools have relaxed their admission requirements in response to the poor economy in recent years, and are experiencing this. Ask a teacher who works in such a place.
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There’s a lot to study if you link corporate education policies and the financial crash. I find this interesting: the stock market crashes at the start of the 21st century. The USA has a low interest rate, which means that bonds aren’t paying either. The investors turned to the housing market and within eight years both the housing market and the global economy have ground to a halt. Today, stocks, bonds, and property are all struggling. The banks are still trying to clean up their balance sheets, so they’re holding on to their money rather than lending it out to help the economy grow.
Where can a new bubble — I mean growth — come from?
Rupert Murdoch declares that ed is a $500 billion industry. Obama is suddenly meeting with CEOs at every education conference. Tom Friedman is pushing for investors to look at education, just as he was praising Ireland’s deregulated economy in “The World is Flat.”
What surprises me is that Americans so easily swallow the glory of the deregulated market.
John Lanchester’s “IOU” (“Whoops” outside of the USA) is a good primer on the collapse. I found the sixth chapter, “Funny Smells,” especially relevant to what we’re seeing in education.
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Perhaps IT technology could be another source of growth. Apple is the most profitable company in the United States right now. Or companies may well look abroad for opportunities. While growth is slowing in China, it is still growing at 3 to 4 times the rate as the US. Extreme poverty is dropping quickly there, and the middle class is growing very fast as well. There are many possible customers there.
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Actually the technology industry is busy trying to up the education market. The virtual school is the most audacious of these experiments, but we are behind the times if we are not using students personal devices for educational purposes: Texting 101. Blogging seems to be the new craze; teacher websites are outdated (and not updated).
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BYOD is interesting. I experimented with it last spring, will do some more this fall.
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TE,
What is BYOD?
Thanks!
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BYOD is bring your own device. My university has a standardized on a brand of “clickers” as a student feedback device. I am using a system that is more of a service. Students can use any device that connects to the internet (computer, Ipod Touch, etc) or any texting cell phone to give me feedback, but they have to bring their own technology to the class.
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