Is No Child Left Behind a long term strategy for privatizing education in the US?
I think a compelling way to illustrate this would be to create a game where you "played" NCLB as a School Principal - but the rules are set in such a way that you will eventually fail. Think Tetris - but with the future of an entire generation on the line.
That is the way the law is written although some people are just starting to figure that out. Last week the New York Times reported that;
"Barring revisions in the law, [California] officials predict that all 6,063 public schools serving poor students will be declared in need of restructuring by 2014, when the law requires universal proficiency in math and reading.
“What are we supposed to do?” Ms. Paramo asked. “Shut down every school?”
Um, yes Ms. Paramo - that certainly appears to be the intention as the law is written. As usual with politicians we need to spend more time watching what they do, not what they say. Follow below the fold for more analysis.
Like so many projects that have noble goals - who doesn't want all children to succeed? - the devil is in the details. Lets hope the thatthe rewrite addresses the glaring problems with the law. There is too much at stake. The NYT again:
"No Child Left Behind...prescribes drastic measures: firing teachers and principals, shutting schools and turning them over to a private firm, a charter operator or the state itself, or a major overhaul in governance."
If that sounds like all stick, no carrot- well that would be correct.
I believe there is a place for private operators to augment the public education system and I think charters have done some very interesting and innovative work. But I don't believe they are the be all and end all for solving educational problems.
I'm always a little sad when I see those "Under New Management" signs in businesses. It seems to reflect a naive assumption that people were not patronizing a business because the owners were evil or incompetent. The vast majority of struggling businesses have structural problems. The location is wrong, the pricing is too high (or low), there are not enough customers in the area to support it, etc etc. It is possible that new management might fix those issues - but it isn't guaranteed and it usually doesn't happen.
As the Times points out states struggle all the time with this same issue when they take over Districts. Privatization has had mixed results where it has been tried. The radical promises made by the authors of the law just don't show up magically when we change management at a school. The students still come to school unprepared to learn, the infrastructure is still decrepit, its hard to recruit and retain top notch teachers, etc. etc.
And the efficiency savings? This is one I really don't get. Take a typical school budget, deduct a 10-20% profit margin for the company taking over the school and what do you have left? Less money to pay teachers. Since 70-80% of school budgets are for salaries you are not going to squeeze a profit out of cutting back on toilet paper. Does anyone really believe that paying teachers LESS or increasing class sizes (fewer teachers) will improve the quality of what happens in schools?
Or will this be one more case of taking a less expensive public good and transforming it into a more expensive private service?
Hello Blackwater Education Services.