The definition of a
public school is a school that is maintained at public expense for the education of the children of a community or district and that constitutes a part of a system of free public education commonly including primary and secondary schools. I would add that public schools are for the common good of our nation and the world. Without an educated population our society cannot advance and the students of today will not be prepared to be the leaders of tomorrow.
The headline, “Private firms eyeing profits from public schools,” on a recent Reuter’s story should frighten you – here is why,
The goal: an education revolution in which public schools outsource to private vendors such critical tasks as teaching math, educating disabled students, even writing report cards, said Michael Moe, the founder of GSV Advisors, an investment firm in Chicago that specializes in education.
This is the very reason Scott Walker stripped collective bargaining rights away from educators. Take away their voice and the vultures can move in to pick the meat off of the corpse.
Recently in a private club in Manhattan Rob Lytle, a partner at The Parthenon Group, a Boston consulting firm, spoke to a group of investors and said,
Think about the upcoming rollout of new national academic standards for public schools. If they're as rigorous as advertised, a huge number of schools will suddenly look really bad, their students testing way behind in reading and math. They'll want help, quick. And private, for-profit vendors selling lesson plans, educational software and student assessments will be right there to provide it.
"You start to see entire ecosystems of investment opportunity lining up. It could get really, really big."
Our schools are not failing. Our students are not failing. The problem is that we have allowed legislation to be passed that forces teachers to teach to a test instead of teaching to a child’s strengths. Education is not a business and you cannot expect to have quantitative results that will give you some magical formula to raise every child to the same standard. Every child learns at a different rate and some children approach learning differently. Some students are motivated by learning, others need a game and yet others understand the concepts but do not test well or they do well with essay answers but not multiple choice standardized tests. Now toss in poverty, poor nutrition, lack of parental involvement, low teacher pay, a lack of school supplied materials (teachers should not have to purchase classroom school supplies), and a system that values numbers more than the individuals that those numbers represent and you will have this supposed “failure.”
Instead of business people and politicians setting school and teaching standards we should be letting educators set the standards and we should be fully funding our schools. Of course to do that the business people who are screaming about poor education in this country might have to actually pay enough in taxes to pay for the very schools they need to provide an educated workforce.
Profit has no place in public education. These vultures need to be told that we will not allow our schools to be privatized. Just imagine if they did privatize schools how history classes would change – I would be willing to bet that any references to unions would be struck from the curriculum.