Peter Greene patiently dissects a paper by Michael McShane of the conservative American Enterprise Institute advocating a free market of competition in education. It is all Bout supply and demand, McShane believes, but Greene says that it is “an exercise in unicorn farming.”
To choose wisely among many schools, parents need full and deep information, the theory goes, but Greene says what they get instead is marketing. How did big corporations succeed? By advertising and marketing.
He writes:
“McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Standard Oil, Bank of America– none of these corporations have dominated their marketplace by spreading information about their products and services. There is no market sector in which customers are moved primarily by information. Succeeding in the marketplace often involves carefully controlling and withholding the information that customers receive. In fact (and this should trouble the boys at AEI), often the real information that is available is available only because government regulation and intervention require it (think nutritional info at fast food places).
“No charter school will ever say, “Let’s get a complete, thorough informational package out there so that families can make the best decision from with the umpteen schools in this market.” What the charter will always say, like any good business, is, “How can we best present ourselves to convince the greatest number of families to choose us?”
Greene takes issue with the supply-side of McShane’s equation:
“McShane frames this as the problem of turning a monopoly into a free market, so he’s wrong right out of the gate– public education is not now, nor has it ever been, a monopoly. And even if we agree that public schools are a taxpayer-operated monopoly, no monopoly break-up has ever involved making the old monopoly operator provide all the financing of the new “competition.” When Microsoft was being threatened with a spanking for being a monopoly, nobody ever suggested that a fitting punishment would be for Microsoft to pay the bills for Apple, Corel, and every other software maker in the marketplace. But somehow the “breakup” of the taxpayer-funded “monopoly” of public schools involves having the taxpayers pay the bills for every school that wants to “compete” with public education.”
Reformers use international test scores as the reason to demolish public education by introducing a free market. Why does it never occur to them that every one of the high-performing nations has a high-quality, equitable public school system. Not one has a free market of privately managed schools. Not one has annual tests as we do. We could learn from them if we tried.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
These “competition in education” papers are pathetic. Competition is what you do with outsiders. With insiders you collaborate. So, would you have your children compete in schools to see who gets dinner today? Sound ludicrous? That’s because it is. We compete with China. We collaborate between and among one another here. Applying the rules of business or any other competitive model to education is just plain stupid.
“Perfect information”
“Perfect information”
Is economic bunk
Assumed by nutty patient
In fantasizing funk
“even if we agree that public schools are a taxpayer-operated monopoly, no monopoly break-up has ever involved making the old monopoly operator provide all the financing of the new “competition.”
Woohoo!! Best line EVER for dispelling the false claim that public schools are a monopoly that has to be broken up!
In addition of the canard of public schools as a “monopoly,” there’s the turn of phrase that they are “government schools.” This is commonly said among Tea Party followers.
But that is wrong, too. They’re not “government schools;” they are community schools.
Tea Partiers should replace their “Don’t tread on me!” flags with “Less government (uh… just not MY government)”.
Our district once had community schools, but not any more. Whenever we question changes, standards, tests, practices, etc. in our town, we are told they need to ask, and then wait to hear back from the “state” or the “federal” government. A super, high performing town, with super highly paid PhD’s give lip service to reflecting the community.
We are being told what our kids need, and when we protest, we are told they have to wait to hear back from the government. Maybe this is only CT, but it is true.
Some free market, anyway. Charter school rejects application. Car dealer won’t sell you a BMW because you aren’t wearing the right clothes/speak badly/have children. Cell phone company won’t sign you up because it doesn’t think that you will make full use of the phone. Baker won’t sell you a loaf because you might eat it. What else?
The part that bothers me the most is the bipartisan consensus on privatizing public schools. What that does is immunize politicians from any risk for putting in such a really radical experiment, because it literally does not matter which “flavor” voters choose, they get exactly the same policy on K-12.
There should be some downside risk for political actors and leaders in their quest to privatize public schools, and there isn’t. They’ve insulated themselves by joining ranks.
It’s like a weird twist on “moral hazard”, where they take excessive risk not because someone else will bear the burden of that risk, but because NO political leader will.
Socialized risk, privatized rewards. It is enough to make Adam Smith blush.
In a way it doesn’t matter which Party anyway. Democrats control something like 18 states out of 50. They’re all but irrelevant on existing public schools at this point. 90% of it is state law.
In this case, choosing a school will be like buying a mattress. You only know what the store or clerk is telling you. You have no idea why this mattress costs $1,000 or this one $300, or if the cheaper mattress is actually better than the expensive one. And then there is the mystery of what is in the mattress, or what kind of a mattress you should have for a good night’s rest.
When a family member/parent chooses a charter school, that is “consume” it, they know nothing about it other than brand name. And brand name has nothing to do with the actual quality of the product. It is all hype.
Excellent example. And the mattress stores and manufacturers structure this “competitive” market to discourage comparison – that’s why it’s so hard. A Simmons model in one store cannot, by design, be compared with comparable in another store because they don’t distribute co parables.
So far, we’ve seen identical behavior among charter schools. Thus, in reality, most private schools compete on prestige and/or an option not provided in public school (e.g. The French school or a specific religious base). They do not compete on quality except by using prestige to imply quality (x went to Ivy League, etc…).
No valid competition – at least as envisioned by the competition enthusiasts.
“the mystery of what is in the mattress’
Yeah, like bed bugs in the case of many charters.
Educators scratch their heads over anti-public education supporters because we view them in terms of our role as ethical and moral advocates for our students. However, it is critical we recognize that the goal of free-market proponents is NOT an improved educational system, public or private, nor a more highly-educated populace. Free-markets exist to increase investor profit. Which is why so many are jumping on the anti-public education bandwagon. There’s money to be made off the backs of those children! Groan…
Exactly. Supporter of public education need to point this out at every opportunity. Many of the reformers and their supporters are motivated by greed. Michael Milken and the online charter school K12 is a perfect example.
Great point. Corporations answer to investors not consumers. The old adage that the customer is always right goes out the window when it runs counter to corporate profits. In my district at current funding levels, it will cost a little over $106,000.00 to educate 1 child K-12. To that corporate board, that is a pretty good profit center. Reliable, steady income for the next 13 years. That is how they will make their decisions. Profit/Loss statements. THAT is not in the best interest of our kids.
The “free market” notion is the tooth fairy of economics — It doesn’t exist!
Ah, but you must have faith!
I’m sure the same people who believe in “free market” education for all believe in “free market” health insurance for all. And the free market works equally well for both. As long as you are easy to educate or young and healthy, you get lots of “choice”. But when you aren’t, the health insurance companies and “free market” schools find ways to make sure you are NOT their customer.
I think there are even more market forces that discourage competition as an effective tool in education.
Fundamentally, for a competitive market to work, consumers need low barriers to choosing a different option – to vote with their money.
But we parents know that switching schools is very high cost for our children. Further, we know that it may be far more important for our child’s growth to be among a consistent group of neighborhood friends than to chase after a theoretically “best” academic experience.
For this reason, I do not think free market theory applies to schools – at all – except for a small market of perhaps 10% to 15% of parents who prefer the chase and the choice to the other values. (This is classic marketing – markets are split into segments according to the values of those consumers.)
Private schools have existed forever. But they serve only a portion of the market who can afford them. Even religious schools serve only a portion of the market who can afford them.
But it’s not surprise that AEI loves to escape reality with the theory of competition… They just lack the hard headed market experience to understand why the theory is all wrong for education. (There are excellent places where a free market is quite effective – just not in the education. After all, free market competition has pretty thoroughly screwed up higher education. Maybe they just want to bring all the higher Ed dysfunction down to K12?)
Wonderful start from Peter Greene and excellent follow ups. One reason why this blog is part of my continuing education and also an affirmation that I have not been totally wacko…in fact less wacko than economists who think that “social problems are caused by insufficient capital” –a phrase from self-proclaimed gurus who are advising foundations on how to seek profits while doing “good.”
Laura, we count on your brilliant comments.
Yes, every day!
Schools are location-dependent and, ideally, community-dependent. Schools are not mobile products like shampoo or smart phones. The ability to choose is affected by how many schools are within my ability to transport my kids. In lower income neighborhoods there isn’t any meaningful breadth of choice that a “choice system” promises.
There is also the idea of choice begets no choice. Why is it that certain of our charter operators in Chicagoland do not need to re-apply with the state for any new campus that they open while newer entities must re-apply for each new location? This smacks of political favoritism and will inevitably lead to mergers; we all know how well those work out for the “consumer”!
Another long post… sorry…
PETER GREENE: “No charter school will ever say, “Let’s get a complete, thorough informational package out there so that families can make the best decision from with the umpteen schools in this market.” What the charter will always say, like any good business, is, “How can we best present ourselves to convince the greatest number of families to choose us?”
————————————-
And honesty and fair play goes right out the window in the process… replaced by a ruthless, relentless drive to engage whatever sleazy tactics weaken and crush the competition, and/or give a false impression of charters’ “superiority.” Some of the charter groups spend double, or triple on marketing their schools than they do on teachers’ salaries. (And don’t even get me started on charter officials’ bloated salaries.) The public schools’ teachers are too just damn busy teaching to counteract this, having neither the time, nor the money to do so.
One aspect of charter “creaming” that does not often get discussed, but should, is what I call …
“The George Steinbrenner Strategy” …
… to building a charter’s high-achieving student body. For those not in-the-know, New York Yankees’ owner Steinbrenner would win World Series by targeting the best players, then spending and doing whatever is necessary in the process to get them to wear those iconic pinstripe uniforms
We hear a lot about charters that screen out kids at the front door—special ed., English Language Learners, disruptive, bad behavior kids, homeless kids, foster care kids, etc. .
We also hear bout charters forcing out or kicking out (‘counseling out”, to quote Eva M.) those same undesirables who manage to make it past the front door.
However, I rarely hear about the charter schools’ sophisticated “poaching” of the naturally gifted and/or highest-achieving children, effectively luring them away from the public school system. Recently, this phenomenon keeps coming up when I talk to teachers, 4th and 5th grade especially. Of course, keep in mind that this is the same system whose teachers were, in large part, responsible for developing, educating, and nurturing those children to the point that they’re now such prized candidates for said charers’ poaching.
I’ve spoken with countless GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) teachers and Magnet School Teachers in the traditional public system in Los Angeles, and learned that their students/parents are constantly being targeted by the charter chains for “poaching.” The parents get bombarded with phone calls, emails, unsolicited home visits etc. from persistent recruiters from the various charter operators in L.A.U.S.D. Some pro-charter forces working within in the LAUSD district offices must have given the charters the relevant info about these students—address, home, emails, along with other key info… test scores, report card grades, etc.—without, of course, bothering to obtain anyone’s consent.
It’s “school choice” alright. It’s charters “choosing” which students will best promote the expansion of their chain, and again, the children become mere commodities instead of human beings with the inherent dignity that goes along with being human beings.
Parents are initially patient with these shills, “No, that’s okay. We’re happy with Ms. So-and-so and with our school. Thanks, but no thanks.”
Then when that’s doesn’t work, the hard sell gets ramped up and up and up… eventually to the point that the charter recruiters engage in some of the most ridiculous lies and phony scare tactics. They sometimes engage what John Oliver—in his takedown of for-profit colleges sales tactics—describes as “hitting pain points.” They brazenly attempt to scare and manipulate the parents into moving their children to privately managed charters:
Go to: 07:30 – 08:37 at
Similar to the tactics Oliver condemns in the video, these head-hunters blather:
“If your child stays at that school, he has a 1% chance of ever going to college. If he comes to Acme Charter School, he’ll have a 99%. Don’t you want your child to go to college? We’re talking about your child’s future here.”
They refer to all public schools as “failure factories,” or “dropout factories”, then pass out complimentary DVD’s of ‘WAITING FOR SUPERMAN for the parents to then watch and learn “the truth.” (Thanks, Davis Guggenheim!) All of this ignores the obvious fact that “Acme Charter” has only been in business a few years, and as it only serves elementary and middle schools, they have yet to even have alumni that are of an age to apply to college.
At this point, the parents are furious, “How the-hell did these people get our freakin’ contact info? Why won’t they leave us alone?” One even described them like recruiters for a cult or a Jehovah’s Witness, or something… they never take “no” for an answer, even when told, “Could you please stop contacting us?”
Needless to say, the charters engage in NO similar such outreach to special ed., English Language Learners, disruptive, bad behavior kids, homeless kids, foster care kids, etc.
Later, when and if the data supports it, they then get to brag, “Hey, look at our scores. We’re putting the nearby public schools to shame!” This again, leads to more kids moving over to the charters.
This also begs the question:
“How did these kids ever flourish in these ‘failure factories’—high grades, test scores, etc.—to the point where they would be so coveted by the charters for poaching?”
Well, yes, there are various factors: the kids may be naturally gifted; the parents may be more involved in their kids’ education and help with homework, etc.; or the parents may have attained a higher degree of education than those not targeted for poaching—a key indicator of future success of a child.
All of that aside, however, you have to give a lion’s share of the credit to all the unionized teachers (from K-5, or from PreK-5) who taught these children, and who have been working with them from Day One. Credit must also be given to those administrators, aides, coordinators, counselors, etc. at those schools.
However, none of that gets acknowledged by the charters, of course. Instead, you again have the charters, due to luring the best kids away, exclaiming, “Look how we’re putting the public schools to shame! Our students are the greatest!!” Really, since when did they become “your students”?
QUICK DIGRESSION on DVD’s of “WAITING FOR SUPERMAN” being given to parents to get them to choose charters over public schools—-
WFS director Davis Guggenheim really screwed over the folks at Lorena Street Elementary when he was making WAITING FOR SUPERMAN. I spoke to teachers there about the movie. These teachers, in turn, had spoken to the administrators to get the story of what really went with regards to the movie.
Apparently, Davis picked out third grader Daisy, an adorable Latina subject with a sweet soft voice to be his subject. Here’s a portion of the finished film… that’s Davis Guggenheim’s voice on the soundtrack, and all of the statistics he’s quoting are bogus and/or taken out of contex. And again, unlike the charters, Stevenson and Roosevelt have to keep and teach everyone… and class sizes are sky high:
Anyway, before filming began, Davis approached the Lorena Street administrators, saying, “We hear your school is the greatest, an educational oasis in the ghetto… blah-blah-blah… Can we film here so we can share your success with the world?”
Assuming the best intentions, they naively agreed, whereupon Davis went against his original promise and, in the finished cut of the film, portrayed the school as low-achieving hell-hole that Daisy needed desperately to escape for charter school salvation. There’s that one shot where she’s running in a race in P.E. and he uses high speed slow motion, to metaphorically show Daisy struggling against … oh … the horrible public school to which she has been condemned.
Oh.. the humanity…
Here’s a thought experiment or, if you will, a medical analogy:
Could you imagine a scenario where a for-profit oncology (cancer treatment) practice competing with non-for-profit oncology practices is engaging in the same tactics—where the the latter is forced to let in, keep and treat, all patients, no matter how sick… and the former is free to admit or kick out patients as they please?
The for-profit oncology practice then illegally obtains the contact info of the healthiest and least cancer-stricken current patients being treated at the non-for-profit practices—the ones easiest-to-cure—then hires expensive recruiters charged with getting those prized patients to leave the non-profit oncology practice over to their practice?
“You need to leave that practice now, or you’re going to die. That place is a death factory. If you stay there, you have a 1% of not dying, but if you come over to us, you have a 99% of being cured. Leave now, before it’s too late!”
Then, when things play out predictably, the for-profit oncology practice then proclaim, “Look at how healthy our patients are! We’ve cracked the code (Arne Duncan said that to some charter)! We’re putting those other oncology practices to shame!”
The thing about this, is that—even with this advantage—for the most part, the charter schools are not really putting the public schools to shame. A minorit yof them are, at best similar, and at worst, considerably less successful than their public school counterparts.
I agree completely with your analogy. Certain charter school chains — especially the ones with millions of dollars in donations from billionaires trying to privatize education — are exactly like Cancer Treatment Centers of America — the “for-profit” cancer center whose miraculous cure rates make Sloan-Kettering and MD Anderson look like “failing hospitals”. Cancer Treatment Centers of America will happily treat your stage 1 cancer if you “choose” them (and have appropriate health insurance) but as soon as your cancer progresses to something where you aren’t easily treatable, they also “encourage” you to go to another hospital where you are a “better fit” (i.e. a hospital like Sloan-Kettering that is willing to treat more advanced cancers). So they appear to be working miracles treating cancer when they are simply only treating cancers that are easily curable by having their doctors follow long-established protocol. But we are supposed to think that their doctors are excellent and the ones at MD Anderson are terrible because the cure rates at MD Anderson aren’t nearly as good.
Can you imagine if Andrew Cuomo and the other politicians were saying that we should give millions in public funding to CTC of America instead of the hospitals who are doing the most expensive part of treating cancer? Can you imagine if the CEO of CTC of America went around the country bragging how much better his doctors were than the doctors at “failing hospitals” like Sloan-Kettering and MD Anderson? Can you imagine the CEO of CTC of America being celebrated at fancy dinners in his honor? Can you imagine the end of MD Anderson and Sloan-Kettering? And yet that is what happens to the charter schools whose success is modeled from the same “best practices” as CTC of America.
^^^http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/06/us-usa-cancer-ctca-idUSBRE9250L820130306
The parallels are incredible.
” … . a hospital like Sloan-Kettering that is willing to treat more advanced cancers… ”
This is not a precise analogy because the public schools aren’t just willing to accept any and ever kid, no matter what challenges he/she brings. They are MANDATED TO. I can’t tell how many times a mother who, say, lives with her kids in a homeless shelter in a school’s attendance area shows up in the office looking to place her children. While the mother is still filling out the forms, the children were escorted to their respective classrooms.
Anybody who shows up has to be taken in, no exceptions.
Marketing is all about a company’s skill and sometimes trickery to entice people to buy their goods or service. The purpose of marketing is to sell you something whether you need it or not. The Small Business Association is overloaded with claims about false advertising. The government rarely gets involved in cases of fraud so consumers of for profit education must know that “the buyer should beware.”
OK, so a free market education system isn’t and won’t work. What will?
Bill,
No high performing nation in the world has a free market system. All have an equitable public system with well prepared teachers, adequate resources, and far less testing than us (no annual testing), also far less income inequality.