PPS' Celebrate! --a dog and pony show for "market-based" education

Here in Portland we have our own version of Amsterdam's red light district, where "ladies of the evening", perched in windows, display their "goods" in an attempt to attract customers.

Our red light district is at the Expo Center on February 3.  It's called Celebrate!Portland Public Schools.  The product being hawked?  The schools themselves.  The customers?  Eager parents looking for the 'perfect' program for their children.

Roll out the carnival barkers!

Excuse the metaphor, but I see little difference between marketing the world's oldest profession and marketing education.  Much like the working women of Amsterdam, those schools which fail to attract enough customers --students-- fail the market test, and are destined to wither on the vine until the district axe --closure-- falls.

Market-based education, much beloved of libertarians like Portland's Cascade Policy Institute (and its puppets), supposedly injects healthy competition into the government schools "monopoly".  If it works in the business world (although imperfectly), they ask, why not public educaton?  School choice  becomes the ultimate measure of accountability.

So let me ask this:  Does anyone at the district seriously think that Jefferson or Roosevelt cluster elementary schools have the allure to "compete" with Ainsworth, Skyline, or Forest Park in the Lincoln cluster?  That parents will "choose" Grout over Winterhaven?  Or Binnsmead over the Creative Science School?  I think not.  The "competition" betwen these schools takes place on a completely uneven playing field.  It's a rigged game.

Some, including me, reject out of hand the business model* of educational governance.  I've argued that education is not a commodity to be marketed like breakfast cereal or  automobiles or  male enhancement drugs.  Education, by its very nature, is not in the business of selling things. 

The business model is nothing more than creeping neoliberalism** at work in the "commodifying" of education.  I wrote last May that Vicki Phillips is at heart a neoliberal who believes the "best way to get to where we want to go educationally is to free up the 'educational market place.' "

And that's the direction that she, with the help of a largely compliant and like-minded school board (and the Oregonian), has taken the district.  And why we now have the spectacle of the annual Celebrate! PPS.

It's time to do away with this marketing nonsense.

* Robert Freeman from the linked post:

"To make a profit from education you need to do two things: increase efficiency and reduce costs. Increasing efficiency means removing variability while boosting output. This is a great formula for mass-producing hamburgers or semiconductors. It is a disaster for producing intelligence and character in children."

**  The "three elements" of the neoliberal approach to education are:

• cost efficiency achieved by "commodifying the product"
• standardizing education so that its outcomes can be measured by multiple choice achievement tests
• the focus on "marketable skills"

Comments

[carla]

I agree with your assessment of market based schooling. What I'm wondering about though what you think schools can do (especially those in "failing" schools) to put some spit and polish on their reputation..as well as make the necessary substantive changes to get the public behind them again...?

[Terry]

It's the responsibility of the district, Carla, not the individual schools to put the "spit and polish" on neighborhood programs, especially in demographically disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Open enrollment and school choice are the culprits here. If the district continues to create and promote niche programs for middle class parents, many of whom welcome the opportunity to avoid sending their kids to lower class schools, then the problem will only grow worse.

In the meantime, it's helpful to acknowledge district policy for what it is --market-based and elitist. Remember, we're talking about a public school district here, which is supposed to provide quality instruction to all kids, regardless of circumstance.

[carla]

It's the responsibility of the district, Carla, not the individual schools to put the "spit and polish" on neighborhood programs, especially in demographically disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Okay, I'll grant that.

So..how should they go about doing it, exactly?

[Terry]

First, the district should revisit its choice and transfer policies. Some student transfers may be necessary, even appropriate, but the bulk of transfers now are based on the perceived quality of a school. We don't know anything about the quality of district schools, including their teachers, aside from student scores on achievement tests. Anybody that knows anything about testing and mesurement realizes that test scores are largely a function of student demographics.

Second, stop requiring individual schools to "grow" themselves. The district can easily adjust attendance boundaries to ensure that schools enroll a sufficient number of students.

Third, stop promoting special programs --magnets and focus options-- which drain capable students from traditonal neighborhood schools.

Fourth, and this is related to the last point, make sure that all schools have comprehensive instructional programs, including music (especially) and art. Currently there is little equity between schools in Portland.

Fifth, hire competent principals for all schools. All schools deserve effective educational leadership.

Lastly (and I could go on and on) stop denigrating schools like Jefferson (which has had four different principals over the past few years) and then meddling with programs that have proven to be both popular and successful. It's outrageous that after two short years Jeff's small academies were jettisoned for an entirely new structure with four separate schools, including single sex academies.

The opening of the proposed boys and girls academies, by the way, had to be delayed for a year due to a resounding lack of interest.

[Rob Kremer]

Funny, but the excerpt from the Freeman article forgot one necessary element of making a profit: satisfying the customer. Can you name a successful, profitable company that does not deliver a product that satisfies customers?

You also are apparently of the opinion that in a marketplace every single product is commodicized. That is so far from the truth to make me wonder if you are really even seeking the truth.

There are examples everywhere of services and products that are successful precisely because they have figured out how to "de-commodicize" their product that would otherwise be a commodity by differentiating their product through some value added service or feature.

By the way, charter schools in Oregon are required to be non-profits. Every one of them strives to find a niche that it can compete and succeed in. The notion that they are making public schooling into a commodity is laughable, especially when compared to the school districts which tend to use a one-size fits all model for such things as curriculum, teacher training, school calendar, school hours, etc.

You can't have it both ways. You object to central control/standardidation of public schools, and in the same breath you condemn the differentiation of individual schools.

You reject the market model "out of hand," because for some reason you think that education by its very nature should not be in a marketplace. I would suggest that "out of hand" is the only way to reject the market model, because any degree of scrutiny of that position would reveal its flaws.

Our system of higher ed is based on a market model, and people flock to the US from all over the globe to come to our schools. Our K-12 schools, based on a government monopoly that does not rely on satisfying the customer is in no such position.

Talk to people in Singpore, Holland, even Pakistan, India, and Korea and they tell you our K-12 schools are a joke.

[Terry]

You're wrong, Rob. I don't "condemn the differentiation of individual schools." Quite the opposite. I think each school should be empowered to develop programs that the meet the unique needs of their students. That's school reform 101, and it can be done without promoting charters and other niche schools.

[Rob Kremer]

But you want students to be assigned to schools and their parents should have no say in which school their kids attend, right? So if the school a child is assigned to hasn't quite developed a program to meet his unique needs, that is just too darn bad? How is the school then held accountable if the parents are literally trapped in the school?

I've never seen you address this question - the horrible inequities that are inerent to the system you defend.

[Rhonda]

And of course you neglected to address the substantive points I made about satisfying customers, commoditization, etc.

[Terry]

You operate on the mistaken assumption, Rob, that all public school students have parents who take an active interest in their children's education. Unfortunately, that's not true.

The inequities of choice, which I have addressed many, many times, are clear --students with disinterested parents are left behind in poor neighborhood schools without adequate parental involvement or support.

It's the responsibility of the public school district to ensure that those kids recceive the quality education that you see in wealthier neighborhood schools, or charter schools. In short, the district is obligated to run programs in loco parentis.