EduShyster interviewed David Kirp following the publication of his article in the New York Times about why teaching is not a business. EduShyster noticed that some “reformers” were incensed by Kirp’s views, especially his criticism of the virtues of competition and his skepticism about choice and charter schools.
Among his interesting answers to her questions:
“With respect to choice, the studies coming out of Milwaukee, which has the longest-running voucher program in the country, don’t suggest that that city has been well served by choice. As for charters, they’ll be the subject of my next piece for the Times. I’m looking for examples of charter schools that actually do what Al Shanker wanted them to do, which is collaborate rather than compete. I’d love to write about good charters and am looking for examples, so if you or your readers know of these, by all means send them along. My view, by the way, is that the best of the charters are as good as the best traditional public schools, while the worst are worse than the worst public schools. But no one has figured out how to bring really great schools to scale without the structure of a school system. Does that sound like a declaration of war? I don’t think so.”
When asked about his view that teaching is not a business, he said:
“I actually think there are important lessons for school folks in looking at a business model that works, hence my shout out to Ed Deming. But that model isn’t creative decimation. If you look at businesses that have been successful over time, you’ll find there’s much less emphasis on booting out the bad guys then there is retraining. Proctor and Gamble hasn’t remained a very successful company because it keeps tossing out its leadership every three months.
EduShyster: “A lot of this seems to come back to the question of how you drive change. You seem to think that trust is a more effective driver than, say, a boot to the neck.
Kirp: “If you peel back the nature of this disagreement, it has to do with people’s fundamental views about human nature. If you believe that everyone is by nature a slacker and needs to be whipped into shape, then you come out on one side of the conversation. If you believe that, by and large people want to do the right thing and should be supported in doing that, then you come out on the other side. That’s a very old debate.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
From Alan Jones:
This is the central problem (tragedy) with treating education as a production/manufacturing industry instead of a coping organization (what organizational theorists call education). The goal of a production industry is to reduce variation in processes in order to manufacture a product that customers are certain will perform according to expectations/specifications. In a coping organization you are confronted with uncertain inputs, uncertain processes, and uncertain outcomes. Added to the inability to control inputs, processes, and outcomes, what parents are looking for in schools are instructional programs that increase variation in outcomes—further develop the unique abilities, talents, and interests of their children. For this reason, as Deming attempted to point out, but which our school leadership and political class still don’t understand, is that managing a production industry and managing a school require entirely different set of intellectual and organizational tools. Not understanding the fundamental differences between manufacturing and educating is the reason that all the intellectual and organizational tools—merit base, standards, standardized testing, curriculum alignment—that the Duncan’s, Rhee’s, are implementing will fail, and in fact will result in the dysfunctional outcomes Deming describes in his books—cheating, drop outs, early exiting of teachers, etc. I would add, that the set of intellectual and organizational tools that school leaders require to lead a coping organization—schools—are not taught at all in administrative certification programs.
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The irony is the modern conservative movement with all its flag waving, bible thumping, give me liberty rhetoric has created a country where employees cannot speak and live in fear, people are hurt and discarded, and no matter how hard you work, everyone receives the same substandard wages – a Republican twist on communism.
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Cut throat competition is not the cure-all of education, the deformers have made it a curse.
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Education as a “coping organization” has, historically, attempted to rationalize and ‘cope’, so to speak, with the very forces that have generated the term “coping organization, especially unpredictable inputs, constantly mutating processes and shifting demographics, Public schools ‘coping’ mechanisms in themselves are unpredictable, rationalized. The one challenge that public schools have heretofore not have to confront large scale privatization attempts that utilize a business model that incorporates and pedagogic components that directly attack the viability of public education. Essential, the business model, in the form of charter schools, vouchers, ets, seeks to supplant public schools as the dominant paradigm of education. If it was only a question, or task of incorporating successful, elements of charter schools into a public school context, or supporting charter schools that are congruent with Al Shanker’s model, then there would be a conflict over core values or educational models. But this is not the case. What public schools must confront is a privatization system that has inexhaustible sources of money and tools to shape public policy, which not only over turn public schools but to institute schools that cross the traditional constitutional restrictions on the public funding of religious institutions. If Kirp’s analysis captured objective reality, then his prognosis and suggestions would make sense. I write this as a special educator who has long supported Kirp’s work on due process and classification.
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I live in Cincinnati, world headquarters for P&G. There is something more to notice than this observation:
“Proctor and Gamble hasn’t remained a very successful company because it keeps tossing out its leadership every three months.”
True, P&G has a history of promoting from within. The wheel does not have to be reinvented every time there is a change in leadership.
But P&G routinely does a triage on its underperforming product lines, and many of the people who are in charge of them.
In August of this year, the CEO of P&G announced the company would cut 70 to 80 “core strategic” brands, and reorganize management of other brands into about a dozen business units under “four focused industry sectors,” creating a much simpler management and operational structure.
The CEO said “There’s a lot of evidence in a number of our business categories that the shopper and consumer really doesn’t want more assortment and more choice, they want more value.
And P&G wants more tax breaks than the last count several years ago of $3.2 billion, about in the middle of the pack of the largest U.S. corporations that we subsidize for doing business and making a profit.
Education is not a business. It is a public service, a public responsibility, and civic virtue to the extent that it prepares students to be active participants in determining how the larger society is governed and the values it honors.
The current triage in education seeks to close “underperforming schools,” fire “underperforming” teachers and principals, and blame students who are “underperforming” for not having enough grit, not having the right stuff, and not fixing the economy.
Unlike brands that can be vanished from the marketplace, our “underperforming” students do not go away.
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Laura Chapman hits the target again. Education is NOT a business. Education is a human service for the public benefit. Prof. Kirp is a brilliant scholar and a gifted debater in this new school war. Pls forgive me if I disagree with his way of defending public education. This is not a war of ideas about what children need, or what is the condition of our children in society, or what ways of teaching and learning best develop creative adults well-prepared to take responsibility for themselves and the dilemmas of this complex culture.
The Billionaire Boys Club is making war on the public sector to loot and transfer its great resources to their own interests in the private sector. That is the heart of this latest school war–not about teaching, learning, curriculum, topics, not even about “standards.” All the tactics and programs imposed by the govt/corp alliance against public school kids is about money and power. This is why the “reformers” must deny that poverty plays a primary role in the metrics of achievement, because to agree that poverty is the first and largest problem of American schools and society is to require more investments in the needs of kids and families, more regard and resources for the public sector, more empowering teachers from the bottom up to make schooling finally a place for the arts and science of democracy.
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Kirp concludes that this debate about how to run schools come down to “…people’s fundamental views about human nature.” I think people’s fundamental views about the desire to learn also plays a role.
Those who believe that students need to be motivated to learn set up a “new structure” that either gives them incentives (e.g. explicit compensation or guaranteed enrollment in college upon graduation) or punitive disincentives (e.g. a fear-based “no excuses” structure and/or a grading system whereby failure is highly probable). Those who believe the desire to learn is inherent want to create a “new structure” that mitigates against the reality that students aren’t learning what schools teach because of the world they are growing up in.
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