A comment on the post about “Zombie Education Policies”:
Having spent years in business, I cringe at blindly applying business models to education. 360 evaluation is a business fad that will join MBOs and matrix management. I tried student evaluations. Students are usually upset over not getting a certain grade on the most recent test, angry over a detention, or at the other extreme, like the teacher and don’t want to say anything negative. I eavesdropped on two of my high school students evaluating their teachers and a “good” teacher had more to do with being lenient, funny, and good looking. It took me years to later appreciate my good teachers – not at the time the most popular. Most parents mean well, but often have only glimpses of the classroom from their child’s perspective. Often the truth is difficult and not always well received. Peers are OK, but not all peers are objective or can separate politics. Administrators may not have spent enough years in a math or language arts classroom – perhaps moving up through phys ed – to understand content and delivery. Third party evaluations are too disconnected and have conflicts of interest.
So a better solution? First, and this principle is also overlooked in business, IF IT AIN’T BROKE, DON’T FIX IT. Not all schools are failing, and then, not all for the same reason. Blanket, scorched earth solutions never work and just replace one set of problems with another. Improving upon what exists takes skill and savvy. Second, if you want to know what makes a good teacher, ask a good teacher. We all know who they are. Mentoring is by far the best system with centuries of success. Make it work. Third, start listening to teachers, not politicians, billionaires, and opportunists. The latter have other interests. Teachers, in contrast to the constant demonizing, are in the classroom everyday and want their students to learn.
The best approach to education is there is no single approach to education. Students are individuals and human. Not data points in a multi-level statistical model. Teachers know this. Will anybody else listen?
“Improving upon what exists takes skill and savvy.”
And Arne, Rhee, Gates etc. do not have the skills and they never will. However, their message is slick…it all lies, but it’s got savvy.
Thank you…this is a brilliant comment. Unfortunately they will not listen to teachers because despite their “great teacher” rhetoric they have nothing but disdain for the profession. The goal is to reduce the labor force and funnel $$$ elsewhere.
Great comment and true!
This is a great post. Thank you.
…not to mention the fact that the business model is by it’s very nature dehumanizing… business is all about a product. Children and teachers are human beings and can’t be forced into a mold. So often, I’ve “heard” (read online) about how teachers are being too “sensitive,” … this from both higher-ups and politicians as well as teachers themselves who have swallowed that bunk. Sensitivity should not be seen as a bad trait… it is what makes many teachers so good at what they do… one needs sensitivity to “read” a class as well as an individual child. Young children especially need someone who is sensitive to them since they often lack the language skills to express their emotions, needs, wants, and thoughts. You have to be a good reader of body language, facial expressions, and have an acute sense of your own reactions to children’s behavior to eke out what is driving learning and behavior in your classroom. This takes highly sensitive people… or at least someone who is willing to listen. The business model takes NONE of these factors into account, and I’d counter to say that the problem isn’t teachers being too sensitive, but legislators and business people are being too CALLOUS! In the business model, there’s no room for being human. So much of being a good teacher is about the relationship between teacher and students… that’s a human characteristic… not a business product.
I would say that a business is all about the customers, not a product. Most businesses these days provide a service and must care about the quality of the service they provide.
In that case, the kids are the customers… so it makes no sense that they are subjected to the garbage they’re subjected to in the business model… how many business models are you aware of that tell their customers that they have to be tested over and over. Kids NEED relationships… they WANT to enjoy learning… they HOPE someone will care about them in the good times and the bad… and so the solution is to exhaust their teachers with mindless data collection and blame the teachers for things over which they have no control? That’s no way to forge relationships and creativity. Not buying it… business models aren’t effective for education.
Students are not really customers in the sense that they can change schools if there is poor service unless the families can afford a private school.
…but if we’re seeing the school system as a business model that is “customer oriented,” WHO is the customer?
I don’t think that we are seeing public education turned into a business model, but changed from a highly regulated monopolistic provider of education to a less regulated system where student choice will allow schools to provide a variety of educational flavors (Montessori, progressive, etc.) and students confronted with poor practices could find a school with better practices.
Define better practices.
Better practices are probably student specific, which is why choice is important. For some students it might be a progressive education. For some, Montessori. Other might want an accelerated pace and a community of like minded scholars.
So it shouldn’t be the schools who choose the students, but the students choose the schools. Is that what you mean?
Should the schools, receiving public tax dollars, be allowed to get rid of students who do not perform to their standards? If so, where should the student go?
I am more tollorant of limited admission public high schools like Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax County Virginia. As Dr. Ravitch has pointed out, having high performing peers creates positive impacts for those high performing students. Those students chosen for the school gain from having high performing peers. I am hesitant to deny them this opportunity, though I understand there is an argument to deny those high performing students because it could benefit less high performing students.
What should we do with students who are not high performing? How do you define high performing?
I presume the students whom are not admitted to TJ go to other schools.
If that were true, McDonald’s wouldn’t serve McNuggets to the public, since what they are actually serving is the chicken scraps the chicken companies toss out. They then bleach and bread the meat, and turn a profit on it, thus essentially turning garbage into food.
Hey, so maybe the free-market reformers got it right? Perhaps they can turn some of our “scrap students” into something profitable or of societal value.
I think what a good willed reformer would say is that allowing students to choose means they don’t have to eat chicken nuggets even though that is what the local school district requires.
I would say our society is the customer. The goal of public schools is to create an educated citizenry.
I think there is a lot of merit in the view that society is the recipient of the benefits of educating its members. I think that society benefits most when the individuals find fulfillment in the paths of their lives, and the individuals are best able to choose those paths.
The Brazilian entrepreneurs taking mobile-focused, pragmatic approach to disrupting education
This is a headline from the Pearson Labs Tumblr Blog. Convince me they intend anything besides “disruption” of education. Please. And then can you explain how that is a service? To anyone?
I think the changes in education we will see over the next decade or two will be as profound as the changes we saw with the printing press.
Aldus Manutius heralded the Italian Renaissance. Are you suggesting we’re going to have another? Think Different!
TE, you are right about profound changes coming in education.
Poor will be taught by computers.
Rich kids will have teachers.
I am sure that the same argument was put forward with the invention of inexpensive books: the wealthy will have teachers, the poor will have to read on their own.
just as that concern was misplaced, I think this concern is misplaced as well. I think both will be taught by a mix of people and machines, with a large amount of machine assisted communication between teachers and students.
Assistive technology has helped me immensely. My first PC– a Mac Plus w/a separate HD!– revolutionized my teaching. I could now do in an hour what other teachers did in an hour and not take 3-4 hours. However, I do not see much of a parallel between that revolution– in service to public education– to what is going on now: assault on public education to serve the Powers That Be (who benefit from an UNeducated citizenry).
I agree they know of what they speak. How refreshing. We need more practical thinking based on how humans really work. That has been well known for a long time as genetically and physically we have not changed much in a very long time. Nothing is new.
Reblogged this on Save Our Schools NZ and commented:
This is an interesting comment on the perils of using business models in education – from Diane Ravitch’s most excellent blog (which you should go and bookmark right now):
“Having spent years in business, I cringe at blindly applying business models to education. 360 evaluation is a business fad that will join MBOs and matrix management. I tried student evaluations. Students are usually upset over not getting a certain grade on the most recent test, angry over a detention, or at the other extreme, like the teacher and don’t want to say anything negative. I eavesdropped on two of my high school students evaluating their teachers and a “good” teacher had more to do with being lenient, funny, and good looking. It took me years to later appreciate my good teachers – not at the time the most popular. Most parents mean well, but often have only glimpses of the classroom from their child’s perspective. Often the truth is difficult and not always well received. Peers are OK, but not all peers are objective or can separate politics. Administrators may not have spent enough years in a math or language arts classroom – perhaps moving up through phys ed – to understand content and delivery. Third party evaluations are too disconnected and have conflicts of interest.
So a better solution? First, and this principle is also overlooked in business, IF IT AIN’T BROKE, DON’T FIX IT. Not all schools are failing, and then, not all for the same reason. Blanket, scorched earth solutions never work and just replace one set of problems with another. Improving upon what exists takes skill and savvy. Second, if you want to know what makes a good teacher, ask a good teacher. We all know who they are. Mentoring is by far the best system with centuries of success. Make it work. Third, start listening to teachers, not politicians, billionaires, and opportunists. The latter have other interests. Teachers, in contrast to the constant demonizing, are in the classroom everyday and want their students to learn.
The best approach to education is there is no single approach to education. Students are individuals and human. Not data points in a multi-level statistical model. Teachers know this. Will anybody else listen?”
“The best approach to education is there is no single approach to education.”
But to be fair there is not just one business model out there either.
Colleges have a slightly different business model than K-12.
Colleges are structured to be student-driven, although seldom thought of in those terms, instead of business-driven.
The courses are, against much push-back from corporations, set up as a best guess of what the students will want, and not what business will need.
Businesses are too slow and usually several years behind the software technology provides, so if it was left up to business, we would always be “fighting the last war” so to speak.
A student trying to orient towards an advantage in the environment he/she sees, is quite a different “business model than the model the business uses making the most out of the environment it has been operating out of for a few years.
Judging by the events of recent years, I would say that business models often don’t even work in the business world.
Bravo! Bravo!
Students are not customers, for they are certainly not ‘always right’. Grade inflation is a very serious problem, particularly in affluent schools, and the customer concept only makes it worse. Try giving a “C” to the rich kid sometime, especially when you have no tenure.
Precisely. Exactly. And this is holding true more and more for higher ed as well as secondary. Oy.
Grade inflation is at least as much of a problem for students who would have received a high grade in a class without the inflation.
Part of the reason for the push to have students take standardized exams is that grades contain less information about student performance than before.
I also wrote about why the business model does not work in education….because of one big concept: COMPETITION!
A competitive business will jettison loss leaders or products that drag on profits…do we do the same to students?
A competitive business determines performance over time (quarterly and annual reports)…. do they use a single metric test?
A competitive business COMPETES with other schools in order to claim ALL the revenue…do we want this attitude or should schools help each other?
Don’t even get me started on the inequitable funding differences between private funding vs. tax dollars.
My full post at http://usedbooksinclass.com/?s=business+model
I think that the products that drag on profits are failed teaching strategies, not the students. I take it that abandoning poor teaching ideas would be an idea that is popular among those that read this blog.
Businesses do not use a single metric as accountants well know. There are many ways of trying to gauge how well a business is being run and its prospects for the future. Regulated businesses are stuck with whatever e regulator thinks is a good metric.
I think you overemphasis competition in business. There is a huge amount of cooperation between firms. I would expect that a Waldorf school would not see itself as trying to attract all the students from a progressive school, for example.
When a judge hears a case, who is the customer? The state whose people the judge is sworn and charged to serve.
When a judge is bribed to throw a case, who is the customer?
The question is — who the devil do our appointed and elected officials serve?
There are many different kinds of business models. The corporate raiders of public education apparently know only the most backward ones.
For example, at the turn of the millennium, many forward-looking thought-leaders in business began looking to the communities of inquiry that have long held sway in academe, education, and research for ideas on how to create so-called “learning organizations”.
The sad fact is that the kinds of business models favored by corporate raiders of public education are just as regressive as the educational tactics their ignorance knows no better than.
So true.
While Business fails in Education, Education is certainly good for Business:
1) Quick Turnaround Teachers are funded by Walton, Dell, Gates….http://www.teachforamerica.org/support-us/donors
2) Corporate-funded CCSS http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/01/idUS157777+01-Feb-2012+BW20120201
3) Backed by corporate-advertising http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM_G4Y7SX3g
4) Opening new corporate marketing channels http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/56868-scholastic-new-technology-programs-aimed-at-the-common-core.html
3) in corporate-funded charter schools http://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/mediacenter/top-five-grantees
4) advocated by corporate-funded “front men” http://www.ctunet.com/blog/memphis-district-to-lose-212-million-to-charter-schools-by-2016
5) so corporations can steal children’s data without parental consent http://educationnewyork.com/files/FERPA-ccsss.pdf
6) So they can create more “personalized products” http://www.classsizematters.org/new-york-state-inbloom-inc-fact-sheet/
7) And them move on to PERPETUATE “corporate-takeover-of-education” policies http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/state_edwatch/2012/01/john_white_appointed_chief_of_louisiana_schools.html?cmp=SOC-SHR-FB
All we need now is for TV shows and Movies to start incorporating the benefits of Common Core into their character’s personalities. Actually, the whole takeover of education is almost like a movie script itself!!
Jamie Vollmer was a businessman who got schooled as to why schools are not businesses. It convinced him and he became an advocate for public schools. I suggest you read the Blueberry Story
Reblogged this on CENTURY21SCHOOLS and commented:
I think this sums it up…when will we learn that schools cannot be run like a business? We educate people we don’t make widgets.
Could a school be run like a private school? Could it be run like a college?
From my view, education gets off track [whether from corporate models or by public school bureaucrats trying for ever more economical models of education] when those running the system look at children as blank slates, commodities of the system to be processed through the system, taught a specific curriculum without regard to their background, their needs, and without giving them the opportunity for two way communication. Children are individuals and they are the ones who are to become “educated.” That process is successful when the students become interested in their own education, develop their own framework of learning and accept the value it will provide them for their future. It is thus essential that the teacher get to know the students, interact with them as individuals, and encourage them till they can experience the joy of some successes like learning to read or solve a problem. The teacher role might be filled by a parent or a schoolteacher, but I don’t believe it will ever be effective to replace the human with a “smart machine.” The trick is to find an instructional model that really works and then not to compromise it’s effectiveness for budgetary reasons.Truth is we already know how to educate, as explained by John Dewey and others. We have never found the public will to do it correctly largely because of funding constraints. It is incumbent on society to develop the proper model for public education, and find creative ways to fund it. Budget may always be a constraint but it should not drive the process of education. Successfully educated children who grow up to be good citizens and contribute to society should determine the process, not the budget.
I certiainly agree that students learn best when they are treated as individuals and take control of their own education. Do you think that the traditional system of geographicly determined addmission to schools helps or hinders this?
In my town it is the private schools that provide a variety of educational approaches for primary and early secondary students. The public schools are forced, by the nature of the system, to strive to be identical to each other. Late secondary students can get some differentiation through choosing classes inside the building, choosing to take some classes virtually, choosing some classes outside the building at the local university, or enrolling in an alternative high school. I don’t know if you consider student and family choice to be part of “corporate reform”, but I think the attempt to match students with the approach to education that suits the students best is a very important part of educational reform.
To a certain extent it can, but remember that private schools and colleges are selective in who they admit; public schools cannot be. Colleges and private schools also reject students whose families cannot afford to pay the tuition. (I know about financial aid — the same logic still applies though.) That rejects many students as well simply on financial terms.
Public schools *must* take in every student in their community by law. That makes them very different from these other types of schools.
Traditional public schools use a geographic admissions system that does result in some uniformity of students, especially in large metropolitan areas. I have no doubt that the students at my university come from much more diverse backgrounds than would be found at the suburban public high schools some of them attended. My university accepts over 90% of applicants, so while there is some selection, admission decisions do not result in a very uniform student population.
Charging students to attend the school does not seem to have an influence on the ability to educate, rather it is the result of the funding model for private schools.
I think the biggest difference between private and public schools is that no student is forced to go to a particular private school. This allows private schools to differentiate themselves from each other. In my town there is a Montessori school, a Waldorf school, and a progressive school. Would you guess that these schools are traditional zoned public schools?
Colleges are businesses. They can choose who they want, and get rid of those who aren’t up to snuff. In addition, they are in a perfect position to run money-making scams that look legit. Now, while I have no way of proving this (it dawned on me one day), here is a good example…and since you are the “teachingeconomist,” perhaps you can appreciate how a university could easily pull this off.
So it’s 1991, maybe 1992, and I’m in a “Macro-economics” class, situated in a huge theater-like room with over 200 students. This course is a basic requirement for several majors, mind you. To keep this example simple, I’ll use round numbers in this example. For the course, you are only assessed on three tests, then the final. Each test is made up of questions whose answers all sound the same…that is, which one is more correct than the next? So long story short… out of, say, 250 people in the course, only 50 pass. That means for those 200 who didn’t, if they want to earn their degree in their respective fields, they have to retake the course. This was a 3 credit hour course, and when I was in school, the course costs was over $300 per credit hour, so this course cost around $1000 per student. And since around 200 students have to re-take this course, this particular class offered from 8 am to 10 am will now make the university an extra $200,000!! Genius! One class, extra $200k for the school next semester!
Colleges and universities could fail large numbers of students, yet they do not fail large numbers of students. It might be interesting to think about what keeps them from doing it.
Because students can choose which college or university to attend, they can a) leave any college or university where this is a practice or more importantly b) choose never to attend an institution like that. This does not mean that students should attend schools that never fail anyone or design courses that anyone can pass with little effort. The reputation of the institution would suffer if the curriculum was divorced from effort and the certification value of the degree would be lower for those attending the institution.
Well, your “kind of” right, teachingeconomist. You claim that a college student can simply “choose” which college or university to attend, but you and I both know that’s not entirely true. If this took place at, say, UNC Charlotte (it didn’t, because I didn’t go there, but that’s not to say it doesn’t happen there because it easily could, as I pointed out.), and I find out about it and decide I’m going to UNC Chapel Hill instead. Easy, right? I could just “choose” to go elsewhere, right? Come on, you know its not as easy as simply deciding to go elsewhere.
The university simply dangles that carrot stick (degree) and you retake the course. Reputations of schools won’t suffer if ignorance prevails.
I certainly agree that it is easier to never go to a school than to transfer from a school, but transferring is becoming increasingly common.
I also agree that reputation is not enough of a deterrent if people do not know the reputation of a school. Luckily, ignorance generally does not prevail, so preserving reputation does deter the sort of actions you are concerned with.
I don’t think there is a true agenda to “fix” amything — the point is to underfund education until it fails and then privatize it & corporations profit.
Strange – healthcare was private, but now termed universal ….. And the push for public education to become private
Yet, what is occuring in education is eerily similar to Obamacare- Doctors were not consulted on Obamacare – profit margin, data driven.
Common Core & Obamacare are 2 of the same
I totally agree. Too bad sanity is not ruling this fact. Educators should be the drivers of what works in education. One size does not fit all. Nugh said
I’m not sure the comment about Physical Education teachers not understanding content or delivery is accurate. A good Physical Education teacher, like a good Math teacher is strong in pedagogical practice and delivery. I can recognize good teaching no matter what the subject. Be careful about placing that bias in an article like this, no need to perpetuate more stereotypes.
There is a basic statistical problem with evaluating teachers using tests and that is the law of large numbers. When n’s of small sizes are used to make statistical judgements the results are not reliable. There is too much random variation.
If, for example, a teacher has one or two very difficult students one year and a wonderful classroom the next the average level of achievement of the class is going to be too heavily influenced by these chance events.
Everyone who has taken an elementary course in statistics should know this but the problem is rarely discussed in the press!!!
Robert I. Rhodes, Ph.D.
hahaha… 1 or 2 difficult students… try 6 or 7!!!!
Εν τοις του πατρος μου
“Business” is a word with a wealth of meanings — a child called to his father’s business may have little truck with the stock currently being exchanged there — but what we are really talking about here are two very different forms of governance, wist ye (1) corporate governance, and wist ye (2) democratic governance.
The purse strings attaching to public purses are very different from the purse strings attaching to private purses, and that is the difference that makes all the difference when it comes to the ideal of a universal, free, and public education.
I love this blog!
If this business model was correct, would they then have teachers running, say, a hospital? Or a dentist running a factory that produces clothing? I think not. What is it that let’s people think that anyone can successfully run a school?