What does it mean when someone says that education should be ‘run like a business?’ It might mean one of two things, one easily caricatured and mistaken, but one easily misunderstood yet profound.
In the first case, to run a school district like a business is merely to run it with some sense of accounting, with a ledger. There’s nothing wrong with accountability, but to be like a business is not what advocates of accountability usually mean, and the view is often mischaracterized and distorted. Defenders of existing practices will say that education and business are different, that small children deserve more than being part of a profit-and-loss atmosphere, etc.
After all, one could rightly contend that there have always been businesses, but many of those have been in shabby economies or unjust places, where there was no understanding of free markets, and where successful businessmen were just cronies of the king, aristocracy, or autocrat. That’s not, of course, well-earned success: it’s state-backed favoritism.
Teachers and principals — ‘educators’ — will say that it requires a great deal of specialized training, certification, and that a business-like approach is recklessly ignorant of the subtleties of learning.
When one argues against this first-level business approach, one is often right.
That’s not, however, what a so-called business-approach means, and often advocates of a different approach are unfairly pigeon-holed into this first category.
It’s really a matter of choice, of free selection between alternatives, that reformers want. It’s not the mere business, it’s the arrangements of greater free selection that underlie markets that reformers advocate. There are any number of similar, but not identical, terms for aspects and consequences of choice: markets, spontaneous order, or emergent phenomena. The idea, though, is simple: more opportunities for parental and student choice.
I’ll give two examples. I have mentioned the first before: why would we ever be so foolish as teach our children using only one computer operating system (Microsoft’s Windows), when all the prosperous world moves toward other, better options? Why can we not find and use a vendor who would offer — at a good price — what capable students across America use? There’s irony in all this. Reformers are ridiculed as being too literal in a business approach, but the technological choices that our district has made are, themselves, bad business choices that shortchange learning. (For my earlier posts on the topic, see “The IT Dead End in Our Schools,” and “The Technology Plan for the Whitewater Schools.” For my general positions, see “On Public Education.”)
Here’s a second example. We should offer — far more than we do — teacher selection from among known choices. (Use of eccentric, unknown teachers as months-long substitutes disadvantages students with choosing from those who have no reputation within the district and often cannot find permanent jobs.) Teacher selection — especially in challenging academic courses — is a good way to give talented students the teachers they deserve to learn well and be prepared for advanced college placement. When a district uses substitutes in serious academic subjects, it in effect tells its most talented students that their preparation is secondary to cost-savings.
That’s not a commitment to academic excellence and achievement — it’s more likely the idea of an administrator without serious study in a substantive field. “Education” or “educational administration” is not a substantive field, however occasionally useful it might be; mathematics, American history, English literature, physics, biology, and the study of art and music: those are examples of substantive fields.
If we needed more money for better teachers, the first place to start would have been to reduce significantly the salary for our District Administrator. Many of our talented high school students evidence greater ability, insight, and value to our community. It’s foolish to spend money on someone who shows so little talent, so little to recommend, when our own talented, insightful students are shortchanged. They have promising careers and offer better value to Wisconsin than a mediocre, unimpressive administrator.
That’s why, when reformers advocate changes, they advocate on the basis of more choice, because we are convinced free choice produces better, more useful, and enjoyable results.