The idea that a private for-profit group should compete
with the public schools in educating children and that it
should do so at a profit moved a step closer to reality
over the summer. Whatever monopoly teachers,
administrators, and school boards hold over publicly
supported education seems destined to be questioned, if not
changed outright. Surprisingly, the support for that
questioning came not just from the proponents for choice
and/or vouchers but from such people and places as the
board of education in Baltimore and the president of Yale
University.
Benno Schmidt's announcement that he was leaving the
presidency of Yale to become the chief executive officer of
a chain of private for-profit schools being planed by
entrepreneur Christopher Whittle sparked more reaction in
the press than any similar story of a college president
moving to the corporate world. While Whittle may have been
trying to buy credibility for the Edison Project, the
question of why Schmidt, a highly respected scholar, would
take on a speculative job in K-12 education had many people
looking for a deeper meaning. Whittle's plan to build a
chain of private schools with anticipated revenues of $10
billion by the year 2010 is attracting people like Schmidt
and others to the Edison Project design team.
All of this seems to indicate that 1) there is hope for
money to be made, 2) there is an expectation that public
opinion will accept the idea of privatization of some of
public education, and 3) there is some indication that
political forces (President Bush, et al.) may succeed in
breaking the public education monopoly. For people like
Whittle, establishing a market niche before any competitors
even have a foothold could be an astute business move.
Meanwhile, the board of education in Baltimore entered into
an agreement that will allow Education Alternatives, Inc.,
of Minneapolis to operate nine of Baltimore's 158 public
schools. John Golle, chairman and chief executive officer
of the private for-profit firm, said that it will receive
the same sum (approximately $5,415 per student) that the
city now spends to educate each student. However,
Education Alternatives plans to spend the money differently
and to use the accounting firm of KPMG Peat Marwick to
recommend efficiencies in the non instructional side of the
budget.
Golle will be able to bypass the school district's
procurement process, but, as the opening of the school year
approached, he had not reached cost-cutting agreements with
the unionized custodial or food-service employees.
Although teachers can transfer out of the contract schools
if they wish, by early July only 15 of 300 teachers had
requested transfers. Education Alternatives currently
operates one elementary school (South Pointe) in Miami and
had a contract last year to manage the schools in Duluth.
That contract was not renewed.
REACTION TO PRIVATIZATION
Writing for the New York Times, Albert Shanker of the
American Federation of Teachers referred to the potential
of turning an education endeavor into a profit-making
venture as the "threat of an educational industrial
complex." While steps have been taken and promises made by
those hoping to capture market attention, educators have
been calling for rules to level the playing field on both
sides. Educators have also raised such issues as local and
state accountability, equal educational opportunity for all
students, and separation of church and state.
Is is vastly appealing to attack Whittle and others for
their profit motives, and much of the popular press took
this line throughout the summer. Some observers seem to
reason that any profit to an entrepreneur or investor
represents money taken away from students and parents.
This money could be used to strengthen equal educational
opportunities for the poor or to add new programs, they
reason. Pushing this criticism to its limit, however, only
tends to spotlight those things that cannot be explained
away. Don't publishers and all of those selling equipment
and supplies to the schools make a profit? Can one make a
real distinction between these items and the process of
delivering instructions?
The fear that students will be given an inferior education
- taught by uncaring teachers in substandard facilities and
using poor (no nonexistent) instructional materials in the
name of showing a profit - is somewhat difficult to
justify. These conditions, some would say, already exist
in a few public schools, and Whittle and others say that
these are the conditions that need to be fixed.
The recent cascade study spotlighting where the money goes
in schooling - by Bruce Cooper and Robert Sarrel of Fordham
University, picked up by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and
now used in several large school districts may shed useful
light on the question of profit versus quality. Tracking
the dollars, even when there is not a category labeled
"profit", may be an important way of bringing about
improved instruction through improved efficiency. If
Whittle's new patterns of efficiency through the use of
technology will save dollars for a profit - making venture,
why can't these ideas be used to save dollars wasted in the
present system?
SUPPORT FOR CHOICE AND VOUCHERS
Meanwhile, across the country choice and voucher proponents
are either touting gains or pushing efforts to make their
ideas an election year issue. Some of the activity
includes the following:
* California's Choice in Education League collected more
than enough signatures but was ruled off the November
ballot because state officials wanted a 10% cushion of
extra signatures. Backers say they will get a full
public/private voucher proposal on the ballot for the
spring of 1993.
* Voucher proponents in Colorado have tried several time
to put the issue on the ballot. By late July it looked as
though they would have the signatures needed to get a full
private/parochial/home schooling voucher plan on the
November ballot.
* Last March the state supreme court in Wisconsin upheld
the Milwaukee plan allowing low-income parents to send
their children to private schools. This effort was limited
by the legislature to Milwaukee, but the court ruling might
signal an expansion of the program.
* The Institute for Justice - a group based in Washington,
D.C. - has filed a lawsuit on behalf of low-income parents
and children in Los Angels and Chicago school districts.
The suit asks the courts to order Illinois and California
to transfer the amount of the state per-pupil expenditure
from the school districts to the parents. It further
charges that the quality of education is so poor in the two
cities that it violates federal equal educational
opportunity laws and state constitutional provisions for
education. ĘThe group has also threatened to files suits in
other large cities.
* The impact on the states of President Bush's G.I. Bill
for Children (if it gets introduced and passed) could be
significant. While the media hype has focused on granting
parents a $1,00 voucher per child, the fine print in the
proposal originally called for $500 million in grants to
state and local governments in 50 cities across the
country. These could then distribute the much ballyhooed
$1,000 vouchers to parents. This probably means that all
states that wish to participate would have to enact
enabling choice legislation, and this would certainly
trigger a debate in the states where no choice legislation
now exists.
THE FUTURE OF PRIVATIZATION
Somehow it's always easier to believe in a new idea that
involves only a minor change in our present world. Turning
classroom instructional activities over to a private
for-profit group will probably continue to be viewed - at
least in the short term - as a major change in our public
school system, however. The opinion of the public and of
educators could be the deciding factor in the acceptance or
rejection of the idea.
When it becomes evident that the current system cannot - or
will not - fix existing problems, the acceptant may come
quietly, even from the ranks of educators. The Baltimore
contract with Education Alternatives might be an example of
this situation.
If all things remain constant, we might be able to predict
the results of privatization. But every additional
Baltimore changes the debate and alters long-term
possibilities. Anticipated momentum for privatization may
also come from such events as the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce's cascade studies, the New American Schools
Development Corporation's funded (and unfunded) projects,
the Edison Project, and the charter school movement. From
a political standpoint, the events of the next two months
will tell us whether we are ready as a nation to support
state and federal efforts to offer choices, to provider
vouchers, and to privatize education - or whether we still
believe in a publicly funded, publicly operated school
system.Reprinted with permission of Phi Delta Kappa, Inc.