We previously read an article claiming that for-profit entrepreneurs are necessary to reform American schools. The article began, in its original version, with a vulgar and gratuitous insult directed at Anthony Cody.
Here are two great responses. The first is by Anthony Cody.
The other is by Audrey Watters.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Both responses are excellent ripostes to an even worse than usual piece of propaganda. What I find so interesting is how people who have no background in computing or pharmaceuticals, or some other field of high technology, so easily assume that the products of such technologies are the result of free markets and the profit motive; the fruits of Ayn Rand’s utopian world run by John Gault.
Having studied chemistry in college and graduate school, and worked as a patent attorney for many years, I can say for certain that such stories are absolute fantasy. Not only has public money funded many key technologies directly, but I doubt you can find any high technology product that was not in some way dependent on public money.
Among the direct products of public funding are the following:
1. Electronic computers. The first computers were invented during the Second World war to aid in code breaking, munitions trajectory estimations, and other complex calculations. IBM, Apple, Microsoft would not be what the are today without the massive public efforts made by the US and Britain in the 1940s.
2. Chemistry. The modern chemical industry, especially the modern pharmaceutical industry, was built on the work funded by the German government during the First World War. Germany’s efforts to work around the British Navy’s blockade of German ports led to the discovery of chemicals that were the forerunners of today’s cancer drugs. During the Second World War, the effort to mass produce penicillin was a major secret research project that rivaled the Manhattan Project.
3. Nuclear Power. Speaking of the Manhattan Project, the entire nuclear power industry and its related technologies, including nuclear medicine, would not exist without public funding through the Defense Department and the Department of Energy.
4. The Internet. When will people learn that the Internet was developed as a means for maintaining communications links during a nuclear attack. Yes, more of our public defense dollars at work.
Indirectly, the vast majority of Ph.D.s in chemistry, physics, and biology are funded by public grants from such government organizations as the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense. So, even in companies that can boast of taking no federal moneys, if they require research Ph.D.s the chances are they are reaping the benefits of public funding. Also, many start-ups take SBIR grants and other federal program benefits as well as federal grant money for research that will eventually lead to a product.
Comments from jackasses like this author only demonstrate how the free market cant that we’ve suffered for decades now is the product of lies and ignorance. It’s a shame that such tripe continues to be propagated by many news organizations.
Too bad the free market for news can’t seem to winnow out these fools and liars.
Not to mention the long, long years of theoretical labor on which so many of our modern industries are based.
Just ask Alan Turing how the world rewards its industry-creators.
Comments from jackasses like this author
OK, technology comes from DoD efforts. And DoD dollars are spent to fund …. for-profit defense contractors. No one argued that for-profits were isolated from government spending.
But government spending and subsidy is not part of the free market.
But subsidies and Pigovian taxes are sometimes required to increase the efficiency of market outcomes.
‘Kay then, they’re not free markets. Quit making our point for us Eric and teachingeconomist.
I am not really sure what your point is.
I’m hearing you guys try to continue to defend Segal’s myth of a free market that is going to fix education. It’s not free. Government is involved at many levels in all industries. Why when government is involved in one of the few places it actually has some business being in (education) is it the enemy of progress?
There are some basic prerequisites from non-education fields (law, economics, technology, quality) for strategic planning–anticipating disruptive technologies. Where’s that discussion? We seem to be derailed by the notion that if government is part of a market (even for toilet paper?) then the market isn’t free or transparent.
“Segal’s myth of a free market that is going to fix education”
Where does he say that? He says the free market can bring high quality digital tools to teachers. He suggests a boycott of K12.
Tio mix metaphors, friends don’t let friends become roadkill. Please change out of the milkbone underwear.
The free market is great at creating digital tools. The schools will buy them when they have funds to do so.
What the free market should not do is run schools, as it will seek to make them cheaper not better.
The cheap schools then get inflicted on children of the poor, and that’s bad for our society.
Frankly, Eric, I am having trouble understanding what you are being so belligerent about.
I know my confusions stems from the fact that the article by Tom Segal argues that the market is great at creating digital tools. I guess you agree with his position now.
Many have misread it as being about for profit companies owning or managing schools. He never says anything of the sort, concentrating his comments on the idea of selling things too schools, not running them.
There’s 2 pieces of legal high ground
1. The mission of public education (per state constitution ed clauses)
2. The intellectual property to achieve that mission
The way to counter Pearson is for teachers to maintain control of the intellectual property. Yet we have Montgomery County Public Schools Curriculum 2.0 now being marketed as Pearson Forward.
I’d like to see educators shaping markets to serve children. The first step is accepting the fact that “markets happen.”
You have a concern about privatization. I have a concern that educators will miss opportunities to shape markets and big players will corner intellectual property and then be able to charge what the market will bear. So I see Segal as an ally of teachers when he speaks of transparent markets. We need language to help educators understand the potential for disruptive innovation. “kick ass” wasn’t it. Maybe “markets happen” can help teachers better guide their profession through challenging times.
Strategic threats are much worse when they are invisible. Making them visible involves bridging a language gap.
The metaphoric “carpet bombing” that hurts real kids is not countered by rhetorical carpet bombing of markets. We need precision engagement of bad actors. There’s no belligerence on my part–just adamantly attempting to convey a sense of dread I perceive in a profession being out-strategized by bad actors.
Imagine a future where Pearson is already acquiring by the time NEA Today notices something is working.
As for commercial nuclear power plants, they only continue to exist because the federal government insures them; private insurers refuse to.
So much for all those rugged individualists and their mythic struggle in the Free Market of their ideological fantasies. In reality, it’s about who can best capture government through campaign contributions, and harness the benefits for private interests.
Heads, they win; tails, we lose.
Today the local newspaper came out with a list of all the test scores for the city schools. Since I am well acquainted with almost every neighborhood, I know that there is a very high correlation between wealth and test scores. Even in affluent areas, the school that has more professional parents has higher test scores than in the affluent neighborhood with fewer highly educated parents.
The same correlation works in reverse. In my old school district, the school with the poorest children has the lowest test scores. The next poorest has the next to the lowest and so forth.
We have had this information for over fifty years (“It’s all family” concluded James Coleman). When will we do something about it?
At the core of free markets is the ability to choose. There are two fundamental problems with choice when it comes to education.
1. Choice costs money. Whereas in your town you probably have five times the “grocery story capacity” and five times the “dress shop capacity” probably you have around one times the public school facility capacity. Expanding our public school system to have parody with choices available comparable to other products would cost trillions (yes, with a ‘t’) of dollars. This is proposed in the context of today’s prevailing sentiment, which is to cut public schools to the bone.
2. Choice is inherently dishonest in a democratically controlled system. With choice people can go to the voting booth, vote to place additional burdens on schools, and then exempt themselves from the downsides of their own vote by using choice. This creates a “have your cake and eat it to” scenario which disconnects voters from any trade-offs of their decision at the voting booth.
Every single great invention created by the market was created by an ENTIRELY free market. The government was not forced to buy everybody iPhones or even “an equivalent smart phone”. They are forced to provide public education.
In the context of public education, there is always free government money available, and the “customer” (the one paying) is not students or parents, but rather the government. Every entrepreneur knows the corrupting influence of government money. It completely changes the business from a product-building organization to a pull-peddling organization.
Geographically based school systems do create excess capacity as well. There may only be a handful of students ready to take a BC calculus class in each high school building. Offering the class in each building would allow for many more students than actually enroll. Not offering the class would not allow those students to reach their full academic potential.
They create excess capacity, yes, but not of the magnitude needed by the sort of choice craved by selfish segregating suburban parents. These people want a **whole new school**, and short of sharing arrangements (which consistently prove disastrous for both sides) that means a duplicate campus.
Think about it. The privatizers say they want schools to be like grocery stores where parents just pick where they want to go. Would Safeway be able to share the same physical store as Whole Foods? Could you put a Walmart inside of a Costco? Vice-versa?
Of course this would be ridiculous, and it would be light years from anything a true free market would produce. The free market for grocery stores (and most other things like it) has produced a facilities infrastructure many times what is physically needed. Nobody wants to pay this bill for schools–the cost would be astronomical.
Because of this, the “choice” movement is not really about choice, it’s about replacement.
I disagree with you about grocery store capacity. Any store that has excess capacity will also have higher than necessary costs. If the cost of the products is the only consideration for the shopper, we should see only one store in a town. We see multiple stores in a town because people are also concerned with transportation costs: you are willing to shop at a store with higher prices if it is more convenient. The exact number of grocery stores in the town is the result of the interplay between the returns to scale of a large grocery store, the value of land in the town, and the transportation costs of going from one point to another in the town.
Oh, and I should add that I suspect that the school district would choose not to offer a class if only a couple of students in each building were capable of taking the class. That was certainly my son’s experience.
TE, our town, like most towns our size has five grocery stores even though the community could easily be served with just one. The reason there is five is because people want choice, and in THIS case are willing to pay for it.
We had a similar revelation when there was an attempt to introduce “choice” to electricity here in California: just let everybody pick the power plant they want. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? The problem is that we don’t have spare power plants sitting around, so it only took 1% of the population to choose one power plant over another before there were blackouts. Choice inherently involves multiples of overcapacity and thus is, in aggregate, far more expensive than no choice or less choice.
What people value in grocery stores is proximity, not choice. If folks wanted to do lots of comparison shopping, you would expect the grocery stores to be located next to each other to make that process easier. Are the grocery stores in your town located on adjacent properties?
Parents don’t “choose” the schools; the schools choose THEM.
Parents pick the school by picking the location where they live. A friend of mine decided she did not want to send her child to the high school that her apartment was zoned for, so she rented another place in the other high school’s district.
Choice is only meaningful with full disclosure. Our competitors do not disclose all the details of what they offer. They do not have an interest in educating all children. Public dollars and projects fuel private innovation. This has been shown time and again. I have learned about this in graduate studies in Economics and History. I am glad to see others bringing out these things. I thought that perhaps I was loosing my mind and not properly remembering what I have learned. Thank you everyone, you have helped me regain a bit of confidence in my sanity.
Would not some specialization in schools be appropriate and more efficient?
Perhaps a bit more efficient, but NOT more appropriate. It could easily lead to even more segregation by economics, race and disability than already exists in the system.
I do think there is a tension between providing each student the opportunity to achieve everything they are capable of achieving and the desire to treat everyone equally. I do think about the costs we are imposing on the students who would benefit from the more challenging environment, but are denied the opportunity.
I assume that you are opposed to limited admission magnet schools because they are inappropriate.
Please explain to me why “efficient” is something we should value in education? So that students learn early how to be good little “efficient” worker bees for their future corporate masters?
We don’t want to waste resources. Would it be better to have the four students in a district come together and learn calc BC in a single class or have the district provide a class in each of the four high schools those students attend? If we have them come together, only one teacher is required to teach BC calculus and the other three can go off and teach other students.
This might be true in large urban areas, but not where I live. If my school drops my relatively small AP Chemistry class, my students would have to travel at least 100 miles to find another one. I know that online classes are an option, but some of our students tried that and found that it isn’t much of an option.
Rural education has its own problems. In my state there are geographically large school districts with fewer than 100 students in the district.
Please explain to me why “efficient” is something we should value in education?
Six states have constitutional mandates to fund a “thorough and efficient system” of public schools. (That’s the funding that keeps paychecks from bouncing…)
Interesting…Mexico’s teachers too.
On Both Sides of the Border, Teachers Fight Corporatization
Teachers blockaded government offices and private companies, closed major intersections, and “liberated” the toll booths on the privately owned highway to Mexico City. They also attempted to shut down the airport….
The Oaxaca teachers are making no new wage demands. They insist, however, that the Oaxaca state government install computers in all elementary schools and pay the schools’ electric bills. According to union spokespeople utility bills are currently paid by parents.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/12077-on-both-sides-of-the-border-teachers-fight-corporatization
First, this is not the level of rhetoric I hear when I sit down with smart people trying to save public education from self destruction. I’m disheartened.
Public ed handles supply chain management poorly–consider Ken Kay’s ability to sell to policymakers and districts–and becoming an NEA partner!
Even more disheartening is the inability to process Segal’s essay. Is this a lapse in critical thinking or a lack of knowledge about globalized high tech? (In fairness, the folks that could provide a compelling tale have no incentive to share, so ignorance is nearly certain.)
Here’s some reading:
“I Pencil” [wikipedia notes: “I, Pencil” is written in the first person from the point of view of a pencil. The pencil details the complexity of its own creation, listing its components (cedar, lacquer, graphite, ferrule, factice, pumice, wax, glue) and the numerous people involved, down to the sweeper in the factory and the lighthouse keeper guiding the shipment into port.]
Second reading: http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/08/17/why-amazon-cant-make-a-kindle-in-the-usa/
Now explain the capital investments necessary to allow grains of sand to become the infrastructure you are now using to read this message. Oops, not nearly ready for that yet!
So let’s consider the public education doomsday clock, as it ticks toward midnight. Will you take the time to write a letter to President Obama, asking why he’s behaving like an evil, teacher-hating Republican, or will you ensure candidates will help modernize classrooms? What is best for students?
So where you normally hang out is with smart people and these smart people throw around rhetoric and here the people aren’t as smart and their rhetoric is not up to your standards?
If you are so disappointed then move on and start your own blog for your crowd.
Call it: Rhetoric for smarter people.
See ya Eric!
… where you normally hang out is with smart people…
Nope. The invitations are rare. Yesterday I had a very cordial discussion with a retired teacher about the future of our school district. Kids will have fewer opportunities. There’s no help on the horizon.
… start your own blog for your crowd…
How about “people who vote tax money for public schools despite rude treatment?” On second thought, that might do more harm than good. Why don’t we collectively agree to actually bridge differences and earn each others respect? Maybe by working together for kids.
I work together daily with others for kids. I have been doing it for close to thirty years. What have you been doing? Be careful yourself in reference to rude treatment. We should practice what we preach.
Eric I have a LOT of knowledge of globalized high tech. It’s been my career for 20+ years.
Your comment here is gibberish and makes no cogent point.
With each post he gets wackier and less coherent…I don’t even understand what he is trying to say. It seems like it is the letter writing campaign that set him off. Very odd.
Segal wants to provide tools for teachers through a transparent market. He’s attacked because capitalism is synonymous (in some minds) with private equity funded charter schools. None of the “refutations” speak to his key points. If Bill Gates is the problem, be smarter than Bill Gates. When folks seek to share what Bill Gates doesn’t know (and can benefit public education) please consider listening and asking constructive questions.
Your comment here is gibberish
Did the Cody piece actually respond to the points Segal hoped to make? They’re talking past each other!
I have a LOT of knowledge of globalized high tech
Great. Please help prepare our schoolchildren for their future. What professional development can you recommend for upcoming inservice days?
Segal vs Cody 2.0:
Cody: “Segal has conflated two different sorts of markets. … a far greater concern is the marketization of schools themselves. … ‘virtual schools’ are cases in point. … K12 Inc. worked through non-profits and ALEC to advance legislation that mandated the use of virtual education providers. When it serves them, they are willing to use any levers of power they can access.”
Segal didn’t conflate–his topic was high quality digital tools for learning. He suggested a boycott of K12. The readers of Segal certainly conflated.
Well, let’s turn over our schools as quickly as possible so these people can get their products in kid’s hands. I would not want to stand in the way of capitalism by concerning myself with something as mundane as what’s in the best interest of students.
Schools are a compromise between the best interests of children, parents, and the best interests of the adults involved in the school system.
So, how do corporations get a seat at the table?
I think they have always had one as textbook providers, equipment vendors, etc..
My argument is WHY should they feel they have the right to set educational policy?
Our elected officials set educational policy.
Here’s an ugly thought:
Could RttT fund an inflated market share for “first with the worst” which allows bad actors to build formidable intellectual property portfolios and raise cost of market entry for the would-be winners in undistorted markets?
Warning: RttT: The great crippler of emerging markets?
Not when they’re bought and paid for by ALEC, they don’t.
I suppose that is true no matter who buys and pays for them.
If ALEC is the only organization with a sufficient grasp of high school civics to draft model legislation for legislators, perhaps they should call the shots.
OTOH: “I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”
It is not about having a grasp of high school civics, but having millions of dollars from corporate sponsors.
If I had an organization funded by the same groups–or rather, groups with a different agenda but the same amount of money,–my group would do a better job than ALEC.
But the corporations don’t fund groups or think tanks that support public education.
If ALEC’s money is jeopardizing public education, that begs to be a high school civics lesson. The case would need to be put forward with a neutral point of view to be acceptable in a public school classroom.
So I’m advocating (HEW Sec) David Mathews perspective: Reclaiming Public Education requires Reclaiming Our Democracy.
Maybe hearings are in order: “What did Arne know, and when did he know it?”
<b<Cashing In Mister Chips …
The current wave of corporate raiders will do nothing but harm to the public school system for one simple reason — they have absolutely no interest in, no respect for, and no understanding of the fundamentals that define the enterprise. It will be like every other going concern we have seen destroyed over the years by takeover artists who don’t see anything in it but a commodity to be liquidated.