The Role of the Private Sector in Education

The WSJ reported that "The US government doled out $502 million for a dozen wind and solar energy projects." The big winner was Iberdrola, a Spanish wind giant. Coming in second was Horizon, a subsidiary of a Portuguese firm. Third place went to a UK-owned firm. These grants will likely result in an energy efficient infrastructure, but two things strike me as interesting, 1) the big winners were all foreign owned, an indication of where public incentives have encouraged private investment over the last decade, and 2) all the grant recipients were for-profit companies, an opportunity that the US Department of Education doesn't share with its $100 billion stimulus.

The education sector bias (and related legal prohibitions) against investment by private companies is remarkable in contrast to other public delivery systems. Innovations in health care, energy production and transmission, and transportation are often the product of private investment in government requested, sponsored, or incentivized projects. We don't mind if textbook publishers update versions, but hackles go up when private operators propose school management. Most of this is just disguised job protection; the rest is historical bias.

Yesterday I visited Atlanta Preparatory Academy, a new school run by Mosaica, a private charter school operator. After only a month of access to an old school building, the place was updated, orderly, and clean. On day two of a new school, it was clear that a common instruction vision and curriculum framework were a guiding force. Classrooms were colorful and organized and featured products of the rich art and history curriculum. A talented principal (trained by New Leaders for New Schools) introduced me to an amazing teaching staff, some of whom had transferred from a Washington, D.C. Mosaica school. The instructional day was an hour longer than local schools, with 12 extra days of school each year.

You'd see the same at a National Heritage Academy, a privately operated network of 70 public charter schools. Mosaica and NHA are offering a service that is clearly superior to near by public schools and doing it for less money. They usually have to provide their own facility with no public funding. Yet they are prohibited from holding charters directly in most states. They find or construct a non-profit corporation which seeks a charter and then contracts with them for school management services. They run the risk of being kicked out of a school that they invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to open.

The $650 million Invest in Innovation Fund (i3) will soon be doled out primarily to school districts -- folks with very little ability to invest in, manage, or scale innovation. Unlike the Department of Energy, public-private partnerships are prohibited. If the US Department of Education was able to invest half of i3 in private ventures, it would be multiplied several times over by private investment (10x in some cases), it would fund scalable enterprises with the potential for national impact, and the innovation would be sustained by a business model.

The barriers and prohibitions erected against for-profit companies in education weaken American competitiveness. Many of the interesting schools and learning tools are being developed internationally -- all with private investment.

This isn't a hypothetical argument for me. I spent the last year raising money, starting companies, and hiring staff (during the worst recession in 60 years). Worse than the recession are barriers to entry that inhibit the tools and schools that will mark the next generation of personalized learning.

We send our kids to privately run hospitals, we travel over privately constructed roads, and we buy power from private companies. Private sector investment and innovation should play a more important role in American education. Private companies have built-in incentives for speed, quality and scale. Visit Atlanta Prep or an NHA school if you want to see private capital providing a great service for less.

Follow Tom Vander Ark on Twitter: www.twitter.com/tvanderark

Comments

[lizditz]

Tom vander Ark, there already IS a private sector in k-12 education -- tuition-charging schools (private or independent schools). They come in several varieties -- not-for-profit, secular schools, not-for-profit, schools sponsored by or having a religious influence, for-profit, secular schools, and for-profit, sponsored by or having a religious influence.

There are some famous independent 9-12 schools -- off the top of my head, I'm thinking of Phillips Exeter, Phillips Andover, Spence, Choate/Rosemary Hall, Harvard-Westlake, (your list will be different).

Why haven't schools of this caliber become for-profit institutions? Why haven't schools of this caliber replicated themselves in each state of the union?

Why are there so few for-profit proprietary chains of schools (I can think of just a few, such as Stratford and Challenger).

Is it "innovation" that public education really needs, or more better-trained teachers?

[Endersdragon]

Once again I feel I must post...Was that a liberal just saying one size fits all education isn't best. That is amazing. Being on the autism spectrum I saw the shortfalls first hand. Being bullied and belittled by teachers, bullied and assulted by classmates, and denied anything I might need to get ahead from administators. Granted, there are some good public schools for kids like me, but there are far more bad ones. Look at the Alex Barton case, then go read Luke Jackson (realizing he ended up being forced into dropping out and getting his GED (or whatever they call it in Britian) and see that its not exactly uncommon. There are many private schools designed to help us, and even a few charter schools, but they are constantly being fought by the left and teachers unions and God forbid a voucher get us there. We might find a place to be happy... but its being fought. I just don't get it. Let these kids go where they want, no matter how poor they are. That is all I ask.

P.S. I can also speak from the gifted perspective and say that is crappy too, probably others too. I was ready to learn algebra and probably geometry by 4/5th grade, and I got to learn long division... which I learned first in the summer between 1st and 2nd grade. I hate math anymore.

[bobwalters]

For some reason, my earlier comment on this piece was deleted, presumably by the HP censors. I'll try again:
This piece is a typical right-wing propaganda piece, offered up as reform advocacy, but masking an agenda to privatize and control pubic education. JustAnotherJoe points out the similarity of this to the Ken Lay/Enron song and dance; selekta notes the solution is FULL FUNDING of public education.

There is no justification for turning public education over to private, for-profit corporations any more than there is for healthcare to be controlled by private, for-profit corporations. The right-wingers have been working toward just such control for at lease 50 years, and probably as long as there has been public education. The intrusion of corporate interests into textbook content, curriculum development and school funding has NOT yielded any measurable positive benefits for society, and privatization via so-called "charter schools" won't either, any more than corporate ownership of media and communication sources, and the right-wing funding of crackpot talk radio/Faux News. Characterizing charter schools run by for-profit "entrepreneurs" as "better" or "more educationally innovative" is NOT supported by research, despite the propaganda to the contrary, and the insidious intrusion of oligarchic corporate interests into public education is greatly to be eschewed.

[Endersdragon]

Once again, tell Alex Barton how great public schools are, then go tell Spectrum Charter or the like how they are hurting those kids. :)

[selekta]

You know, I'm really getting tired of reading that the solution to fixing our public schools is privitization. How about this idea? FULLY FUND OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS! Why is it that the overwhelming majority of public schools that serve our economically disadvanteged communities are so underfunded; they lack basic items like textbooks, paper, pencils, etc? The desks in the classroom my wife teaches in are older than she is! There is no music, no P.E. and no art classes for these kids. It is now the responsiblity of the teacher to integrate these subjects into their reading, arithmetic, and science lesson plans, since these schools have no financial resources to bring in a faculty member that teaches subjects like PE, or art. Contrast that reality with the public school located in a middle to upper class zip code. In these schools there is PE, there are art classes, and music instructors come in a few days a week. The facilities are clean, modern, and generally lack nothing.
In your article about these charter schools you mention things like: " the place was updated, orderly, and clean. On day two of a new school, it was clear that a common instruction vision and curriculum framework were a guiding force. Classrooms were colorful and organized..." well, thats nice and all, but the majority of public school teachers go way out of their way (usually at thier own expense) to make unpleasant classrooms warm, and inviting places for their students.

[Endersdragon]

Funding can only take us so far, check my above post (assuming it gets through) to check out some problems with it. Basically, one size fits all education isn't for everyone. I liken it to a general practioner. Good for most of the things that ail you, and will be all most ever need, but to some they do absolutely know good. Being twice exceptional I have seen how bad schools are for both disabled and gifted. Seperate schools are needed in some places, even if they are somewhat privatized.

[jackwaddington]

Deregulation is a nice spin if you only attach it to corporations. How about total deregulation of everything. I think the corporations would hate that. They want you and I to be regulated but spin that regulating them is ... unfair!!!!

[JustAnotherJoe]

Haven't you heard of the new Bill Maher rule? Not everything we do in this country has to turn a profit. Oh, and yes, by all means , hold up privatized health care as a model of efficiency and innovation, and not as a mechanism for a select few to get filthy stinking rich.

I'm curious about the services these for-profit charter schools provide. What percent of the population they serve qualifies under federal guidelines for special programs? Mandatory, yet unfunded federal requirements to educate any student that basically shows up at the front door of a public school account for a disporportionate expense of a public education. How do these charter school account for the large cost of educating special program students? Are the charter schools exempt from these guidleines, do they not admit students with special needs, or do they admit a smaller proportion of students with special needs than the public schools in their area serve?

I assume you're sincere in your efforts to reform education, Mr. Vander Ark, but you're singing the same song that Ken Lay sang in Texas when he argued that deregulated, privatized utilities would force prices down. We all know how that turned out.