School as a business

[Ksandra]

So a coworker and I were talking today about schools (elementary and high school not college). He insisted that schools should be run like any other business. Saying competition between schools (ie come to this school for better education) is healthy and would improve our system. I'm of the opinion that schools should stay outside of being run as a business since the goals should be to do our best to get children ready for being dependant and find jobs when they reach working age. IMO too much competition would mask over what really is needed. We kinda went back and forth and nothing too seriously. But it was kinda interesting because I felt like it was de ja vu since another friend of mine had this same conversation with me maybe a year ago. So now I'm kinda curious one what people feel about this.

Again this is mostly involving elementary and high school. I feel college is a totally different realm since you pay for classes and are not required to go there. As well as college isn't really based on preparing yourself for the "real world", but more like trying to help you get a higher pay out of it.

[Tyche]

Privatized education already does this. Doing this in a public environment would lead to an overpopulated school, which would soon entail a lack of free education to pay salaries at said school.

[Shuemue]

League tables for schools in the UK appear to have done nothing but make exams easier.

[pohibaba]

Of course it would help improve the quality of education our kids would get; competition breeds success. It would also allow us to more easily specialize our schools. Some schools could have an automotive program, some could have a culinary program, some could have a machinery program. These programs certainly wouldn't be as good as something you get at a trade school, but it would still be the equivalent of a few years of experience in the field which would be good enough to get a decent paying job right out of high school. You could even have an employer offer to put up any extra cost a school like this might cost with promise of a job after graduation with a reduced pay for a few years.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

Right now education is nothing but a government run monopoly. I'd be willing to bet that if schools were held accountable through profit/loss they'd shape up in no time.

[Deejay]

League tables for schools in the UK appear to have done nothing but make exams easier.

This.

I attended a top 100 public highschool in USA. Fortunately for me I got to coast through highschool because I knew I'd get accepted to the first Florida school I applied to.

Ranking public education takes focus off of the student, and puts it on the establishment. This is extremely bad because it ultimately hinders the student who worked their ass off at a poorly rated school. It also allows the halfassers (like me) who attended a more prestigious school to get accepted to surrounding colleges first. It's especially unfair for the child when they have no control over what school their parents want or can afford for them to attend.

[fantasticdan]

Not that I agree with the idea to privatize schools in the first place, but the obvious answer to schools inflating their ranking by lowering the bar, is basing the ranking on standardized testing.

[Elesirdur]

I believe the state (and by "state" I mean it in the political science term, applying to a jurisdictional government, not specifically a US state) has a responsibility to offer egalitarian education for the children of all its citizens. A state education system should be founded on the principals of equal education for all students to provide the state and the nation with an educated citizenry. The best way to accomplish this is through the a public school system that seeks to provide equal levels of education in all places. Allowing public schools to compete with each other by drawing individual revenues or employing business tactics goes against the vision of egalitarian and equal education.

Fee-paying schools (private, charter, denominational, etc) are another matter. If the market creates a demand for schooling options outside the social system the state provides, then they are free to pursue such business ventures as they see fit. A state should impose basic academic and curriculum standards on private schools as they do their public ones to ensure that all students are meeting basic qualifications of scholastic abilities.

The problems come in to poor funding of public schools because people don't want to pay taxes. If they want their kids to have an education, be prepared to pay for it; either though taxation or through paying directly for tuition fees at a non-public institution. When public schools are forced to compete for funding from the state, vis-a-vis a "business" model, something is going to suffer.

On the flip side, I do agree with a quasi-business model for public schools in the vein of allowing schools to specialize; science schools, art schools, technical/vocational schools and the like. In British Columbia, schools that are not public fall into two basic categories: denominational schools run by various churches or religious organizations, and private, non-denomination university prep-schools. While there are public schools that do provide focuses on non-scholastic courses (cooking, auto shop, carpentry, and the like), there is really no option for parents or students who are looking for something outside those three basic schooling options. However, that is the norm in Canada, since we don't use a streaming system like the lycee system in France or the art/science/trade/general studies/university high school systems that are in place in so much of Europe and Latin America.

[pohibaba]

Using the term "state" is very apt when discussing the American education system, seeing as they're the only ones who have a Constitutional right to provide schooling.

[Elesirdur]

Using the term "state" is very apt when discussing the American education system, seeing as they're the only ones who have a Constitutional right to provide schooling.

That was not my intention at all, I was intending to make a much more broad-based argument about primary and secondary education in post-modern/industrial nation states. However, it does apply in Canada as well where education is the responsibility of the Provinces, not the Federal government.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

I believe the state (and by "state" I mean it in the political science term, applying to a jurisdictional government, not specifically a US state) has a responsibility to offer egalitarian education for the children of all its citizens. A state education system should be founded on the principals of equal education for all students to provide the state and the nation with an educated citizenry. The best way to accomplish this is through the a public school system that seeks to provide equal levels of education in all places. Allowing public schools to compete with each other by drawing individual revenues or employing business tactics goes against the vision of egalitarian and equal education.

Fee-paying schools (private, charter, denominational, etc) are another matter. If the market creates a demand for schooling options outside the social system the state provides, then they are free to pursue such business ventures as they see fit. A state should impose basic academic and curriculum standards on private schools as they do their public ones to ensure that all students are meeting basic qualifications of scholastic abilities.

The problems come in to poor funding of public schools because people don't want to pay taxes. If they want their kids to have an education, be prepared to pay for it; either though taxation or through paying directly for tuition fees at a non-public institution. When public schools are forced to compete for funding from the state, vis-a-vis a "business" model, something is going to suffer.

On the flip side, I do agree with a quasi-business model for public schools in the vein of allowing schools to specialize; science schools, art schools, technical/vocational schools and the like. In British Columbia, schools that are not public fall into two basic categories: denominational schools run by various churches or religious organizations, and private, non-denomination university prep-schools. While there are public schools that do provide focuses on non-scholastic courses (cooking, auto shop, carpentry, and the like), there is really no option for parents or students who are looking for something outside those three basic schooling options. However, that is the norm in Canada, since we don't use a streaming system like the lycee system in France or the art/science/trade/general studies/university high school systems that are in place in so much of Europe and Latin America.

Vouchers, and may the best school win.

[Atlasion]

I don't think they should be run as a business. If schools are not accountable to the state then they could be teaching absolutly anything. I'm sure even if education was completly privitised then they would still have some form of guidelines on what they can teach. Would also run the risk of not having a standard assessment for qualifications, which would just complicate things.

This would only really work when it comes to higher education, like university. Not with primary/high school.

[Dak Rey]

League tables for schools in the UK appear to have done nothing but make exams easier.

This is not true. Exams are still just as difficult as before, however, students only learn how to pass these exams, whereas in the past, they learnt the subject. Driven by targets and to improve pass rates, about half of the school year is spent revising rather than learning the details of the subject and what makes it worse, is that this is what the pupils want. For example, when I did my Mathematics A-Level, there was an incident in class where the teacher was showing us how one of the formulas we used was derived. Shortly into his explanation, one of the pupils interrupted him and asked him, "Does this have anything to do with us passing the exam?". The teacher responded, "No, you only need to know the final formula, and not where it comes from." This then went to a vote in the class about whether to finish this, or just get straight to the final formula. We went straight to the final formula buy a very large margin. The result of this was, in my opinion, big problem. I passed my exams, and went on to study Physics in university which was when the problem occurred; I needed to use that formula. Not that formula exactly, I needed to take a few steps back through the derivation to change some of the assumed constants, but I had no idea where this all came from. Even when shown the formula, I have no idea what some of the different letters of symbols meant or how they were calculated.

The relevence of this is that introducing a league table based on exam results only leads to a lack of understanding on a subject, and not being taught what you are expected to know. It is also worth pointing out that Imperial College London now has its own exam paper because A-Levels don't show the true ability of students. They only show that the student can regurgitate the same information again and again, instead of actually understanding what they are writing.

tl; dr: Competition and league tables between schools is a bad idea.

[Baha]

America doesn't have highschools specifically for art, business etc specifically?
Here there's both public schools and independent schools. Indepent schools are usually the old catholic schools, with uniforms and all that bullcrap, but some just use a different system of teaching. (Like Waldorf/Steiner) The indepent schools receive governement funding as well, but in return have to meet governement curriculums.

In highschool there's four big branches (in both public and indepent schools).

ASO (Algemeen Secundair, General Education) :
The broad-spectrum HS, mostly just prepares you for university/college. Latin, Sciences, Math, Human Sciences, Economy, Languages, etc.

TSO (Technisch Secundair, Technical Education) :
Prepares you to be useful in the real world right out of HS mostly, but some have opportunities for going to universities or college. (Sports, Mechanics/Electricity, Wood, Small Business, Fashion, Construction)

BSO (Beroeps Secundair, "Job" Education) :
Like the former, but even more hands-on. (Very comparable to the former, but if in TSO someone in construction focuses on technical drawings and more engineering stuff, here it'll be more the actual working with bricks and cement and crap)

KSO (Kunst Secundair, Art Education) :
Is exactly what it says it is, main focus on arts (though of course there's still general knowledge stuff, just not as prominent). (Ballet, Visual Arts, Stage Arts etc)

All four can go on to college or university if they so choose, but the first two prepare you better for it, since you are forced to study a lot more diligently during HS. Anything under the general education is kind of looked down upon by parents, but unrightly so.
Sorry for the rant, but I'm surprised that this diversity is something you would need to change the schoolsystem for.

Anyway, personally I think running a school like a business is a bad idea. Already the ideas that by the end of highschool, a school has to deliver people fit for society, who has learnt a b and c in year 1, d e and f in year 2 etc is incredibly stifling.

Language teachers who are passionate about literature, but get stuck having to teach boring crap because they have to meet a curriculum. Teachers not being able to just throw out a planned lesson to incorporate something that just happened in the news, again, to meet a curriculum. To me it's incredible that after, say, war breaks out in Afghanistan, a history teacher can't say "ok folks, today I'll tell you a bit about Afghanistan and it's turbulent history", but instead has to go on with his planned lesson on the reunification of Italy.
It's already there, and the cutthroat battle for performance and money would just make it worse.

It's really hard to stick a pricetag or even a grade on your education. It's not rare to have had this weird eccentric teacher in highschool, who you didn't really like, only to realise a few years later that that teacher was probably the best one you've ever had.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

America doesn't have high schools specifically devoted to anything, but we do have elective classes that are devoted to certain subjects.

[Beckwin]

Swampy is clueless, lol. America does have high schools which have varying focuses more than just electives. There are computer oriented ones, arts oriented ones, etc. Typically as charter schools though.

Schools don't need to be run like businesses. That ruins the egalitarianism, and as far as competition goes, academics only needs a good implementation of academics to foster the appropriate kind of drive for excellence.

The problems with American primary education are apathetic households (turning out "bad students" even though the kids aren't inherently bad) and lack of support for teachers (too many students, not enough pay, standardized test barrages) and in some instances, bad/apathetic teachers. Disproportionate funding is also a huge problem; suburban schools that rock high property taxes do better across the board (Suburbs in general are a whole other topic though... they cause cities to spend astronomically on roads and have pennies left for education). Turning things private and simply segregating the weaker households and poorer areas isn't going to solve the problem of weak educations being handed out.

Some ideas I have:

-pay and hire more teachers
-switch back to curriculum instead of standards. competency can be established subject-to-subject (pass algebra to get to trig, etc), and earlier on from grade to grade.
-And let teachers have room for specialized curriculum; passionate teaching of unique subject matter makes kids very interested and feel smart for knowing it, and confidence is good all around in education.
-Cut standardized testing way back. Rely more on the curriculum, and instead of having test scores hanging over schools, have a fed/state "mentor teacher" who aside from a single class a day spends their time watching other classes and serving as mentors to the faculty, helping them meet their curriculum, getting through to kids, and making sure the kids are able students in the broad state/national sense.
-more specialization in high school, but make sure there are still options for educational diversity even in a tech/vocational school. Similar to Japan/Germany/France, we could do entrance exams at the end of middle school.
-change grading culture to be more challenging/competitive but without huge consequences overall. It's too easy for the basically smart kids to coast, and mediocre grades have such negative connotations- teachers don't want to give them (and would have to deal with parents who might otherwise show no interest start bitching when Johnny gets a C because he slacks off and is merely competent at a subject).
-Starting around the high school age, gotta start pushing intellectualism (*waits for conservative chorus of "OMG ELITIST"*). Intellectualism is what make academics naturally competitive/driven. Not only that, but intellectualism will stay with a person past high school, whether they go to college or not- hopefully everyone who leaves primary/secondary school has an appreciation for knowledge and learning, in addition to be competent in society, that they can pass on to their kids.

Just some thoughts.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

Swampy is clueless, lol. America does have high schools which have varying focuses more than just electives. There are computer oriented ones, arts oriented ones, etc. Typically as charter schools though.

Not around here we don't. >.>

Schools don't need to be run like businesses. That ruins the egalitarianism.

Not if you use school vouchers.

[Maxxthepenguin]

I don't want a school to be run out of business, leaving a kid's education in the air. I truly think stability is a good thing.

[Beckwin]

School vouchers don't account for differences/deficiencies among schools. Great, ghetto kids get vouchers to go to crappy ghetto schools, problem totally solved. You have to realize that a lot of problems in early education comes from the household. And on top of that, schools that are known as good get their seats filled up and donations coming in and attract quality teachers so they maintain their excellence, meanwhile struggling schools still struggle, yet inevitably kids have to go to them because it's not like a school that gets a bad rating will shut down and immediately get replaced by a great new school.

Where do you live that doesn't have charter schools? Anyway, the problem with specializing schools is our shitty 20th century urban planning complete with terrible public transportation infrastructure. I'd like to see both of those areas improve though.

[Correction]

Right now education is nothing but a government run monopoly. I'd be willing to bet that if schools were held accountable through profit/loss they'd shape up in no time.

Just like hospitals, right?