Category Archives: Education Reform

Part VI: The Future of Market-based Reforms in the U.S.

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As Caroline M. Hoxby pointed out back in 1998, “[t]he majority of U.S. states have now enacted at least some form of choice among public schools, for example a charter school program, open enrollment among school districts, or choice within the district.” Now, over a decade later, with the blessing of the federal government, market-based reforms (i.e. choice) continue to expand at a steady pace. The results have been mixed, and as Bulkley et al. point out the extolled PMMs have not yet proven successful, nevertheless marketization (mainly the expansion of charter schools) remains our nation’s public education reform of choice. Continue reading →

Market failures in education: Part V

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Portfolio Management Models: Monopsony market structure in practice

Portfolio Management Models (PMMs) of school districts demonstrate how market-based reforms manifest in the current education policy environment, and provide an excellent example of monopsonies in public education. Bulkley, Henig & Levin (2010) explain in Between Public and Private: Politics, Governance, and the New Portfolio Models for Urban School Reform, “PMM is better understood as a contracting regime” (p. 28). A contracting regime does not attempt to bypass government as some market-based reformers (e.g. Chubb & Moe, 1990) advocate, but rather it “place[s] government into the role of consumer supreme” and incorporates private providers in an “attempt to harness markets to public goals,” (Bulkley et al., p. 28, 2010). Placing the government (i.e. the district) in the role of “consumer supreme” is what makes the PMMs monopsonies. Continue reading →

Market failures in education: Part IV

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From Monopoly to Monopsony: Constraints on Market-based Reforms

Market failures are “situations in which market outcomes are not Pareto efficient”–that is, it would be possible to make someone better off without making anyone worse off (Khemani & Shapiro, 1993). In considering education market failures, this roughly translates into the underperformance of our school systems–there is potential for our schools to be both more efficient and effective in suppling education (e.g. Peyser, 1994 and Spicer & Hill, 1990). Market-based reformers argue that because the government (i.e. school districts) has a monopoly on the market for public education, it lacks incentive to improve public schools. They point out that “competition for students among government schools is limited and their revenues from state and local taxes are given largely without regard to their success or failure at providing high-quality results” (Walberg & Bast, 2003, p. 33). As explained in the Market failures in public education: Part II, there is a strong argument to be made that the current market for public education is failing. Discouraging findings on the state of public education support market-based reformer’s claim that “government’s education monopoly has not produced the academic and social results for which it was designed” (Peyser, 1994, p. 627; see also Spicer & Hill, 1990). Continue reading →

Market failures in education: Part II

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Background: Setting the stage for market-based reforms

In 1965, Congress passed the first major piece of federal education legislation–the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)–with the intent of “improv[ing] education for children from poor families” (Cohen & Moffitt, 2009, p. 2). Since then we have tried various approaches to public school reform–more money, greater accountability, and higher standards, among others–all to no avail. The crisis in public education that John Dewey wrote about in the early 1900s and that A Nation at Risk (ANAR) captured in 1983, persists to this day as we worry about high dropout rates, low achievement in reading and math, a persistent achievement gap, and our fall in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) international education rankings. According to Leaders and Laggards: A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Innovation (2009):

After decades of political inaction and ineffective reforms, our schools consistently produce students unready for the rigors of the modern workplace. The lack of preparedness is staggering. Roughly one in three eighth graders is proficient in reading. Most high schools graduate little more than two-thirds of their students on time. And even the students who do receive a high school diploma lack adequate skills: More than 33% of first-year college students require remediation in either math or English. (Center for American Progress, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Hess, p. 7)

Similarly, the Journal reported in 2010 that “[d]espite nearly two decades of policy and investment focused on closing academic achievement gaps and improving overall student achievement, reading scores on the NAEP 2009 assessment among fourth- and eighth-grade students have barely budged since 1992” (Nagel, 2010). As the first edition of the Leaders and Laggards report (2007) put it, in our public education system “student achievement has remained stagnant and our K–12 schools have stayed remarkably unchanged” (Center for American Progress, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Hess, 2009, p. 9). In light of these findings, it is reasonable to fear now, as we did in the 1980s, that “the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people” (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983).

It is against this dismal backdrop that marketization has arisen as a viable solution to our education problems. While the idea of marketization in education is over a century old, “charter schools, the private scholarship movement, and pilot voucher programs all emerged after 1990, creating a wealth of empirical data on how parents, when given a choice, go about selecting their children’s schools” (Walberg & Bast, 2003, p. xxii). The late 20th and early 21st Centuries have seen a marked increase in market-based solutions to education problems. For urban areas in particular, market-based reforms have become the new norm. This year, 13 states enacted school choice legislation; an additional 28 states have legislation pending (Gardner, 2011). The latest reauthorization of the ESEA, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) served as a major impetus for increased privatization and marketization of public schools. NCLB, with its focus on testing, accountability, and in particular turning around failing schools, has “led to an increased willingness to explore other alternatives, including solutions previously considered radical, such as the privatization of K-12 education” (Solomon, 2003, p. 1283). As Patricia Burch (2009) explains in Hidden Markets: The New Education Privatization:

In some areas, the connection between NCLB and the market model is very explicit. The obvious links include statutes that require schools to make test score targets under strict timelines. The market model also is explicit in NCLB choice provisions. After two years of not making test score targets, schools must offer parents the option of transferring to a non-failing school in the district. After three years, the school must make after-school program vouchers available to families, paid for with NCLB funds. Over time, schools not making test score targets may be closed and their staff fired. They may be reopened as charter schools and taken over by for-profit private firms. (p. 6)

In some ways school choice movements have benefited from components of federal legislation. Burch (2009) further explains, “[u]nder NCLB, Federal education policy becomes a vehicle for stimulating and protecting the market” (p. 6). In fact, NCLB set a precedent for policy as a vehicle for market-based reforms that has continued to be supported by the Obama Administration. Like NCLB, the Obama Administration’s Blueprint for Education Reform and the pending re-authorization of NCLB also highlight school turnarounds–a major opportunity for privatization. Furthermore, the Adminstration’s key education reform tool thus far, the Race to the Top (RTTT), advocates other market-based reforms including removal of caps that limit the numbers of charter schools within a state and the creation of state and district environments that are more friendly towards school competition. With the support of the federal government, privatization, choice, and competition have quickly spread across the nation, promising to raise student achievement and improve efficiency in public education. Ironically, as I will discuss later, the same legislation that promotes choice as a solution to our education problems, also inhibits choice from working effectively. How does choice function in current markets for public education? Will market-based reforms be effective at improving public education? What does the future have in store for our systems of public education? To answer these questions we need to understand the structure and key components of the market for public education and examine market-based reforms from the standpoint of supply and demand.

Sources:

Burch, P. (2009). Hidden Markets: The New Education Privatization. New York: Routledge.

Center for American Progress, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute. (2009). Leaders and Laggards A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Innovation. Available at http://www.americanprogress.org/ issues/2009/11/leaders_laggards/report.html. (14 December 2011).

Cohen, D.K. & Moffit, S.L. (2009). The Ordeal of Equality: Did Federal Regulation Fix the Sechools? Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Gardner, W. (2011, December 16). Read the Fine Print About School Choice. Education Week. Available at http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/walt_gardners_reality_check/           2011/12/read_the_small_print_about_school_choice.html. (17 December 2011).

Nagel, D. (2010).  NAEP: Reading Scores Flat at Grade 4, Up Slightly at Grade 8. The Journal. <http://thejournal.com/articles/2010/03/24/naep-reading-scores-flat-at-grade-4-up-slightly-at-grade-8.aspx>. (14 December 2011).

National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A Nation at Risk. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Available at http://www.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/members.html. (14 December 2011).

Solomon, L.D. (2003). Edison Schools and the Privatization of K-12 Public Education: A Legal and Policy Analysis. Fordham Urban Law Journal. Vol. XXX: 1281-1340. (30 Fordham Urb. L.J. 1281 2002-2003).

Walberg H.J. & Bast, J.L. (2003). Education and Capitalism: How Overcoming Our Fear of  Markets and Economics Can Improve America’s Schools. Stanford: Hoover             Institution Press.

Market failures in education: Part I

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My first blog series of the year is going to delve into the economics of education, and I’ll let you know right now that this is by far the most challenging topic I’ve ever researched and written about. Needless to say, that means I learned a lot and had the enriching experience of looking at public education from a completely new standpoint. Even if you cringe at the thought of thinking of education as a market, utterly despise the education-market metaphor, and/or feel that economics has no place in education, stay with me. I know where you are coming from, believe me I’ve been there, but there are many useful things to be learned by looking at the economic aspects of education policy. Trust me.

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How Does Learning Take Place in the Brain?

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To create a modern theory of learning, we need to understand how learning takes place in the brain. This probably seems obvious, but I doubt that many (if any) of you had “brain science” as part your teacher certification. Learning about the brain is fascinating and confusing, and something that everyone in the education field should do. Continue reading →

Using Neuroscience to Innovate Learning

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Education is valuable to society—“access to knowledge affords the opportunity to develop capabilities, fulfill human potential and break the heredity of disadvantage” (Burd-Sharps et al, 2008). According to the American Human Development Report 2008-2009, education is linked to better health, a longer life, higher civic and political participation, greater ability to adjust to change, a more robust self-identity, stronger and more extensive social bonds, more stable relationships, and greater personal happiness. Education allows us to develop cures to diseases, advance technology, decrease poverty, etc.—it is not an “end” but rather a “means”, and it is the key to understanding the world around us. That being said, education per say is not what allows us to learn. “Learning and memory are at the dead center of cognition;” they are part of what define us as humans (NP 150). The brain makes education possible.  Continue reading →

Chains of Ignorance: The Final Chapter

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Over 80 percent of public schools in the United States will be considered failing by 2014, the year in which, according to NCLB, our schools’ children should have reached 100 percent proficiency in reading and math. This depressing statistic embodies the failure of NCLB, providing compelling evidence that the act has not been successful in improving education for disadvantaged students. This lack of success is largely attributable to the policy instruments associated with NCLB that revolve around measurement and sanctions, not capability. As Cohen and Moffitt explain, “when policy instruments are effective, it is partly because they help to mobilize the capabilities that enable practitioners or organizations to improve services and solve problems”; these are two things NCLB does not do (Cohen & Moffitt, 2009, p. 25).  Continue reading →

Chains of Ignorance: Part IV

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“Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge” –Horace Mann, 1872

NCLB promised “a new era of high standards and high accomplishment”, putting testing and accountability center stage as the key tools we would use to ensure that no child is left behind (Ravitch, 2010, p. 110).  In The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education, Diane Ravitch details the rise of assessment, accountability, and choice and explains how they have displaced “larger goals of education” such as engaging students in academic content, preparing students to think critically, developing active and responsible citizens, and creating lifelong learners (Ravitch, 2010, p. 16; 230). She argues that NCLB does not come anywhere close to meeting these goals and has instead generated fads like testing, accountability, and choice that inherently undermine education. As Ravitch (2010) describes it:

NCLB was a punitive law based on erroneous assumptions about how to improve schools. It assumed that reporting test scores to the public would be an effective lever for school reform. It assumed that changes in governance would lead to school improvement. It assumed that shaming schools that were unable to lift test scores every year–and the people who work in them–would lead to higher scores. It assumed that low scores are caused by lazy teachers and lazy principals, who need to be threatened with the loss of their jobs. (p. 110-111)

Essentially, NCLB operated on flawed assumptions. It was ignorant of the lack of school capability that Payne described; it supplanted efforts to bolster capability with instruments that promised to improve student achievement at all costs. The deficit in our knowledge of schools’ capabilities (or lack thereof) has turned instruments such as accountability and market-based reforms into monsters of ignorance–panaceas. Both accountability and market-based reforms promise high achievement and are seen as solutions to our educational failures, but in practice unless accountability and market-based reforms contextualize schools and provide instruments to bolster school capability, they, like other panaceas, are be doomed to fail.  Continue reading →