Full Text: School Days

Steven F. Wilson

Senior fellow, Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government; founder and former CEO of Advantage Schools

George Wood

Principal, Federal Hocking High School, Stewart, Ohio; director, the Forum for Education and Democracy

Resolved: For-profit companies shouldn't run public schools.

Wilson: The irony! Here we are, in the temple of entrepreneurialism, debating a proposal to continue to deny our public schools--our most troubled institution--that greatest of American strengths, private sector innovation. The results are entirely predictable: An inefficient, outdated education system that consumes ever-increasing resources and posts flat or declining academic results. Worse still, in many inner cities, the public schools not only betray our shared ideals. They are our national shame. Systematically, callously, year after year, they fail millions of children, especially the urban poor. How can there be equal opportunity without universal access to a high quality education? Private action in public education should be welcomed, not decried. Let's engage the talents of private sector in reinventing the schools.

Wood: Not so fast, my friend. Let's look at a couple of your suppositions before we go on, beginning with the claim that our public schools are our most troubled institution. Really? Checked out the health care system lately? How about Congress? And before you credit the American private sector with too much innovative power let us not forget Enron and General Motors to name just a couple of instructive examples.

Of course schools could be better; I've spent the past 25 years working inside of them to do just that. With fewer resources than any CEO would accept, my school and thousands like it are doing a terrific job for every kid that walks through the door. We do something the private sector would never dream of doing: with no control over the funds we have, the materials we are given, or the outcomes that are dictated to us, we do our job and enjoy the highest level of trust of any institution in this country (see the 5/22/06 Zogby poll).

Wilson: But you make my point for me, George. Why should you, as the school's leader, accept such circumstances? It's personally noble, yes. But it's lousy public policy. Why should most public school principals have no control over their budgets, materials, or staff? Private managers of public schools, under arrangements that are unfortunately only barely less constrained, are demonstrating the promise of entrepreneurial engagement: A recent study by the Brookings Institution, perhaps the country's most respected think tank, compared the academic growth of students in nine states enrolled in three types of schools: privately managed public charter schools, independent charter schools, and traditional district schools. Students attending schools run by private companies posted the greater achievement gains over the two-year period of the study. And students in district run schools showed the least.

Wood: I am not sure I buy your point about who does the best job. A review of national test scores points out that when you control for income (that is make sure you are comparing children from similar backgrounds), public schools do a better job of educating children ("Charter, Private, Public Schools and Academic Achievement: New Evidence From NAEP Mathematics Data," Christopher Lubienski and Sarah Theule Lubienski, National Center for the Privatization in Education, January 2006). The very study you cite points out that 24.6% of the charter schools are failing by state standards as compared to 21.3% of the regular public schools (p. 31).

But let's get back to the larger question of should schools be turned into for-profit enterprises. If you want to see the big problem with privatization, look at grocery stores in America. Wander around any low-income neighborhood and you will find high prices, substandard products, little choice. Head to the suburbs and you'll find organic foods, specialty stores, plenty of choice. For-profit enterprise is about profit, not good food for everyone. Similarly, with schools, for-profit enterprise will go and invest where the money is to be made--by serving students who are the easiest to teach with the most family resources to supplement the schools. This is not what we need when it comes to education in a democratic nation that claims we are all equals as citizens.

But maybe there is another place where we might agree. Let's assume you are correct that it is the freedoms that private entrepreneurs have that make some schools work well. Rather than just turn the schools over to them, why not use this lesson and reduce the limits on the talents of the public school leaders? This is what we would do if, say, the police force or army was not working. We wouldn't privatize either of them; we would take lessons learned and make them better. Public schools are the same sort of institution, a public service for the public good.