Yes, businesspeople are flawed human beings. But they are the least-flawed major segment of society. If any such segment deserves our admiration, gratitude, and sympathy, it is businesspeople.
Our education system is filled with teachers who seek to elevate the status of non-profits and government. They seek to lower the status of for-profit business. My guess is that this would change if we had a voucher system. If educators worked in a profit-seeking mode, then they would not be going all-out to denigrate profit-seeking.
Contrary to what we are educated to believe, there is nothing inherently noble about working for non-profits or for government. Businesses are forced to make the interests of customers a priority. That is not true for non-profits or for government. The non-profit just has to satisfy its donors. Some government officials have to worry about satisfying enough people to stay in power, and the connection between how well they serve people in general and their electoral prospects is pretty loose. But most government workers do not even face the threat of being thrown out of office. Maybe they have a boss who cares about how well they serve people, and maybe the boss is willing and able to fire them if they fail.
I am not saying that individuals who work for non-profits or for government are uncaring or lazy. I am saying that they work in an environment in which being uncaring or lazy is not punished as reliably as it is in business.
I think that it ought to be more socially desirable to work in business than to work in the non-profit sector or in government. It’s too bad that it seems to be the other way around.
“Our education system is filled with teachers who seek to elevate the status of non-profits and government. They seek to lower the status of for-profit business. My guess is that this would change if we had a voucher system. If educators worked in a profit-seeking mode, then they would not be going all-out to denigrate profit-seeking.”
Um. What? We had a president that did that. We have a media that does that. We have elites who do that (usually because that’s what how their daughters justify their expensive college degrees until they get married).
But I don’t know many K-12 teachers saying “Go to school so you can work for a non-profit.”
And if educators worked in a profit seeking mode we’d be an entirely different country. But even to the extent that k-12 is not profit seeking, it’s not educators that have pushed for the absurd expansions that don’t make sense from a “profit” perspective. It has never been educators pushing higher standards (aka more advanced topics) for everyone, but policy wonks and politicians. It wasn’t educators who pushed for a ridiculously generous special education law, nor was it educators originally who mandated that the country pay to educate illegal aliens, or that we provide non-English speakers education in their own language. It wasn’t K-12 educators who began accepting remedial level college students and then consistently lowering the standards for a college education.
You keep blaming the wrong people, man. And that’s why so many of you who hate public ed have no idea of how to fix it.
BTW, Caplan acknowledges that vouchers don’t work. Have you?
I think it is unquestionable that, “Our education system is filled with teachers who seek to elevate the status of non-profits and government.” I suspect at least 95% would agree with the statement, “Capitalism caused the Great Depression and then FDR saved capitalism by regulating it. A decent society is not possible unless government regulates business–a lot.” Of course, by now, that may be more a reflection of the larger society than anything else.
(And look at all the millionaires and billionaires who try to morally launder their money by giving it to schools, something the schools are happy to encourage–both the idea that that money is tainted and that it will be used wonderfully at the educational institution it is given to.)
It is certainly true that few individual teachers have pushed for the laws and policies you mention, but educational unions and professors have, and individual teachers have been willing to just go along. Teachers may bitch privately about special education or a million other things but there is no movement to do anything about them. Certainly, no union election has been lost on that basis.
Interesting. I think the best alternative to public education is the one that encourages even less market engagement by a large segment of the population. Homeschooling.
The value-capture/value-creation debate is on one axis; but the degree to which this is mediated through the market is another axis. I do not believe it is effective to put parenting, for example, into a market framework. Similarly, I don’t believe it is effective to put justice into a market framework, or moral teaching. These have their own non-market spheres (family, government, faith communities). Within those spheres, there is a balance between value creation and value capture (‘profit seeking’, reward systems). A disconnect between value creation and capture in any system creates a problem; whether the market or some other mechanism is used to regulate the linkage.
The thumbnail mission statement for a government agency: fulfill the will of the people; for an NGO: help the needy; for an ordinary corporation: make a profit. Thus (in the most superficial view): noble; noble; ignoble.
Lol. How oversimplified. Someone once said the only difference between a not for profit and a for profit organization is who gets the cash. And it is always the needy. Remember past scandals about the salaries and benefits received by the chief executives of some not for profits. People are advised to check on how musch of the funds raised actually go to support the cause. Remember that after 9/11 the Red Cross raised all sorts of money but had difficulty spending on that cause:
“The American Red Cross was criticized in the media, notably by Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, and by some in Congress for misleading donors by soliciting and receiving donations worth $564 million after the 9/11 attacks, after it was discovered that the majority of the received funds were put aside for the organization’s long-term use rather than going to support victims and volunteers.[6] The Red Cross was forced to change its policy. ” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernadine_Healy)
The bottom line is that not for profits need to watch the bottom line. Else, like for profit organizations they run out of cash and close up shop.
The difficulty with not for profits is the lack of good corporate governance. Just like for profits, not for profits and governments are staffed with flawed human beings.
As far as being profit oriented, if businesses didn’t make a product that people wanted, sell it a price that creates value for their customers (a price less than the perceived benefits), they wouldn’t make a profit.
I suspect Prof Caplan’s note made many of us recall Adam Smith’s criticism of Oxford and its compensation system, “In the university of Oxford, the greater part of the public professors have, for these many years, given up altogether even the pretence of teaching.”
Having come to teaching after a career in business, I am alert to the different motivations and consequences across the sectors. Among the adjuncts (who seem most exposed to market forces) the use of student evaluations seems to have caused many to seek student favor rather than to demand academic effort.
– Left to the market’s devices, the wealthy will disproportionately invest in their kids. Over time, this would grow and deepen into a rigid, formal class system, as has happened many times throughout human history. The public school system is a conscious effort to prevent this, although it seems to be happening anyway.
– I doubt that there’s much difference between working for a private school or a public school, except that public schools retain a legacy of industrial-era benefits (worker protections, actually decent health insurance) that have been abandoned by the private sector. The public sector also pays rather worse; it probably more or less works out.
– Schools have some properties of a natural monopoly; there are likely to be efficiency gains from having a single big school in each neighborhood rather than a bunch of smaller schools.
– I’ve spent a decade in business and a few years now in government, and as far as I can tell the accountability is stronger in government (which isn’t saying much). I don’t see any reason in theory or practice that an elected school board is likely to be less responsive to the parents than a corporate board of directors. A corporation is subject to the same agency issues as a government (when the corporation and government are bigger than Dunbar’s number).
– Whether public or private, schools are subject to (Lance) Armstrong’s Law: If people are forced to promise more than they can deliver, they will probably cheat.
“Among the adjuncts (who seem most exposed to market forces) the use of student evaluations seems to have caused many to seek student favor rather than to demand academic effort.”
Yes. But that’s ok, because students will only be going to school to get an education, and will rank professors based on the quality of their instruction.
Oh, wait.
“I doubt that there’s much difference between working for a private school or a public school, except that public schools retain a legacy of industrial-era benefits (worker protections, actually decent health insurance) that have been abandoned by the private sector. The public sector also pays rather worse; it probably more or less works out.”
Not true. Public K-12 schools pay much more than private. Better benefits, too. But private schools still use some form of pay scale, from what I’ve read. They have far more job turnover, and suffer from shortages even more than public schools. I live in an area with elite private schools that are, nonetheless, considered roughly at par with the same area’s public schools. A rich kid is far more likely to suffer a year of math instruction with an unqualified sub in the private school than the public.
“Schools have some properties of a natural monopoly; there are likely to be efficiency gains from having a single big school in each neighborhood rather than a bunch of smaller schools.”
This was true until we started in with charters, which Arnold likes. Charters are exacerbating the teacher shortage, which is driving up salaries and pensions.
Charters are a way to achieve the tracking that is immensely valuable but not allowed in public schools.
Driving up costs and causing shortages of qualified personnel are the converse of the efficiency gains that I suggested would result from treating schools as a natural monopoly. In a similar way, if we created a whole bunch of competing local water companies, we probably would wind up paying more on average for water and would find that we didn’t have enough qualified plumbers to keep the bunch of independent water systems functioning in good order.
NPR has a segment called “How I built that” which is all about giving status to entrepreneurs. I don’t think the left hates business, but it doesn’t automatically assume making money = good. Which is reasonable, considering that I’ve worked for lots of companies that made profit while doing bad.
Good and evil is contextual. No profit model has a monopoly.
It’s a sorting issue. Business is the economic sector where performance is measured, success is rewarded and failure is punished. Many (most?) of the people in education are terrified of those three things.
In fairness, they aren’t terrified because they’re bad at their jobs (although some are). They are terrified because outcomes are driven much more by the characteristics of the student population and their nonschool environments than by the characteristics of the teachers. Trying to turn the average low-income student into a Harvard prospect is like trying to build a combat-ready F-35 out of Legos; I can’t do it, nobody else can do it, and it’s pointless to punish people for not doing it.
Agreed. But if you said that at your interview for a public school teaching position, you would severely reduce your chance of being hired. Here in eastern Massachusetts, where there is a teacher surplus, you would completely disqualify yourself.
Well said! A most excellent and important post.
The bottom line is that, internationally, the US public schools are mediocre at best. Ranked by PISA scores, the US comes up woefully short. It is difficult for many to accept, but the sad fact is, we are losers.
Singapore tops all nations on all the PISA test scores and has an Edusave program that perfectly illustrates your point on vouchers.
Edusave provides that Singaporeans between the age of 6 and 16 at the point of school admission are automatically given an Edusave account and receive a yearly contribution from the Government’s Edusave Pupils Fund until they reach 16. These accounts may be used to pay for enrichment programs or additional educational resources. They are supplemented by merit-based scholarships and grants:
There are various reward programmes for students who meet certain academic rankings as well, some of which is targeted at low-income households.
The Edusave Scholarships (ES) include:[1]
Edusave Entrance Scholarships for Independent Schools (EESIS)
Edusave (Independent Schools) Yearly Awards [E(IS)YA]
Edusave Scholarships for Integrated Programme Schools (ESIP)
Edusave Scholarships for Primary Schools (ESPS)
Edusave Scholarships for Secondary Schools (ESSS)
The Edusave Awards include:[2]
Edusave Merit Bursary (EMB)
Good Progress Award (GPA)
Edusave Awards for Achievement and Good Leadership and Service (EAGLES)
Edusave Character Awards (ECHA)
Edusave Skills Award (ESA)
Achievement Awards for Special Education Students
Of course, these require that Singapore use high stakes testing and streaming. Both of which are strenously opposed in the US by the education lobby and so we have very little chance of achieving a truly superlative public school.
Reform of public schools is near impossible, however, because the teachers’ unions have substantial control over one of the political parties. Local control has been largely supplanted by state and federal intrusion that hinders rather than helps. The only “reform” that will ever get through is higher pay for the ineffective teachers already in place.
Opting out of public schools one way or another is the only real solution for families who care. Secretary DeVos has been making encouraging noises lately. Her June visit to The Netherlands, in particular, is a great sign. https://nl.usembassy.gov/u-s-secretary-of-education-betsy-devos-visits-the-netherlands/
Since we are stuck paying for a Department of Education anyway, DeVos might as well use it to launch a Dutch School Choice Model initiative. It would make a fantastic 2020 campaign platform plank.
And also note that in Singapore public schools primary school assignment involves an application process, in which parents apply to schools of their choice and assignments are based on priorities like having a sibling in the same school, having a parent who attended the school, having a parent who has volunteered at the school and other criteria. School choice matters.
Actually, the data shows that in America, school choice doesn’t help, and actually hurts a little. Singapore may have good schools, but school choice does not appear to be the secret sauce.
https://fredrikdeboer.com/2017/05/01/why-would-school-choice-improve-outcomes/
https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20174022/pdf/20174022.pdf
I’d prefer to see parent satisfaction compared between those with more choice and less choice.
Using the logic of the first link, we can also justify getting rid of most beverage choices because they all do about as good as water, or worse, at quenching thirst. We’re wasting so many resources producing so many beverage choices!
Actually, America does have some very good public schools, but as Jay’s comment, August 11, 2018 at 11:12 am, suggests, it is because the students are good and the parents push their kids.
If any such segment deserves our admiration, gratitude, and sympathy, it is businesspeople.
How are businesspeople not admired, graditude and sympathy? Successful ones get paid a lot of money and isn’t the ultimate reward? What else is there? Are we suppose to send Koch Brother thank you cards? Or Jeff Immelt? Anyway have we seen who was elected President? Donald Trump!
Frankly, living in the desert of Southern California I think the ultimate people who deserve gratitude are people picking argiculture products 12 hours a day for $60/day.
“The non-profit just has to satisfy its donors.”
Kind of like the Republican Party!