Richard Vedder, Professor of Economics, Ohio University, explains:
While many factors are at work, much of the explanation can be summarized in two words: “privatization” and “markets.” About a third of four-year college students attend private institutions, and the proportion is growing. By contrast, only one-eighth of K-12 kids attend private schools.
Moreover, even public universities are far more independent of the political process than K-12 schools. Public universities have greater ability to hire and fire staff, pay people on the basis of merit, change curricula, and face far less interference from obstructionist labor unions.
These organizational differences are important. Countless academic studies show that kids learn better in private schools or in public schools that manage to remain independent of central bureaucracies. While there are exceptions, universities are more decentralized, more innovative, and less constrained by mindless rules and regulations like teacher certification requirements and class-size restrictions.
More important, however, is the fact that universities are far more subject to the discipline of the market, meaning they face financial consequences for displeasing students or parents. Nearly every American college student has to pay tuition covering a significant percentage of the cost. If colleges fail to serve the students well, they may lose tuition revenues or fall in rankings issued by organizations. Top spots in the US News & World Report list are particularly coveted.
By contrast, very few public schools charge anything for attendance. Because parents “pay” for schools only indirectly through property taxes, they demand expensive but inefficient features like small classes. While classes of over 30 are rare for high school seniors, many college kids learn quite well a year later as college freshman in lectures of 200 — and the parents rarely complain because they are now paying the bill.
Rising tuition charges at colleges and universities have increased opportunities for profit-making private schools like the University of Phoenix that have great promise both as educational institutions and as businesses. This competition forces traditional not-for-profit schools to improve quality, reduce costs, or implement other innovations to attract students. By contrast, for-profit K-12 schools tend to be financially weak since they face a huge price disadvantage relative to “free” public schools.
So how to fix the problem? Read the rest to find out (hint: Voucher related).
Interesting article, it’s cool to see what Vedder thinks about this, but what do you think? Huh?
I think he is right.
My two cents: I think the “I’m paying for it so it must be better” philosophy as applied to schools is wak. Or weak. Whatever floats your boat. Let me explain. In large markets (L.A., SF, etc.,) there are top-notch college prep private schools. Although I wouldn’t send my kids to one, there is no debating their value as academic institutions.
However, in the rest of these united states, like right here in Modesto where i live, private schools are drastically under-performing. Why? Because private schools do not have the same credentialing requirements for their teachers, nor do they have equal access to the benefits of mass-schooling. (E.g. district staff, resource teachers, visiting lecturers, career services, etc.) Economies of scale, que no?
The problem is that people STILL send their kids to these private schools, thinking that the schools have to be better because they cost, when the numbers don’t support the conclusion. The private schools themselves help to perpetuate this fraud: At Central Catholic, they boast that they have a 100% rate of high school grads going to college. What they don’t tell you is that 90% of these kids go to the junior college, and who knows how many of them actually stick it out and go on to 4-year institutions.
(My background: I am the grandson (twice), son, nephew (twice), and brother of public school teachers. I went to public school my whole life, except for three years when i lived out of the country. My public school education prepared me for a stint at UC Berkeley and UC Davis, and then gave me a meal ticket.)
-your liberal latino friend
Hey Nebur,
I am not advocating the “I’m paying for it so it must be better” philosophy, I am advocating the “there is competition so it must be better” philosophy. It is the competition part that I am more concerned with, whether that happens because one pays for it or not is completely irrelevant.
As for private schools underperforming, I agree, there certainly are private schools that are no better than public schools, but the reason isn’t because of what you state, credentials, since credentials are a limited indicator of teacher quality. Sure, there certainly needs to be some basic level of qualificiation (although many, many public school teachers would also fail if a good basic test was given), but we must not over emphasize the need for credentials. In fact, a lot of studies I have seen show that anything more than a Bachelors degree and at minimum two years of teaching experience doesn’t change much the quality output of the teachers. Credentials, overemphasized, can be used used as a method to restrict competition, to try and monopolize the education industry, and to benefit already employed teachers at the expense of good quality teachers that are looking for a job (I blogged on this previously here).
So why than, are these private schools underperforming? Again, I would place a lot of the blame on competition. IN other words, these private schools have probably reached a point where they are only nominally better than public schools and so long as they stay that way, they will keep enough customers to keep operating, so they become complacent, just like public schools.
The way to solve this is not through credentials, since that will only make the problem worse, but through competition. Punish the bad schools where it hurts most, in their pocket books, and you will see that they will soon rise to levels never seen before, afterall, competition is already creating wonders where ever it has been implemented, even in our public school system.
Btw, my latino liberal friend, you going to UC Berkeley explains a lot.
OMG! HP:
You are killing me here.
Where to start?
Let me get back to you.
I have been working hard (teaching at PUBLIC SCHOOL) this week and I am beat.
Let me think on this and get back to you.
What the heck??? Where did that icon come from by my post? Whazzup???
LOL. It’s a default gravatar that comes up unless you register your own gravatar.
I look forward to your response.
cindylu wrote:
Interesting article, it’s cool to see what Vedder thinks about this, but what do you think? Huh?
HispanicPundit wrote:
I think he is right.
Observer writes:
Ahhh haaaa. Funny stuff.
HP – I give. I have been haunted by this article this whole weekend. As an educator in public school it saddens me that so many non-educators believe the hype that they read about what is “wrong” with public schools.
There are so many issues to tackle in this article you highlighted:
1) Public vs. Private schools – Which is better? Which have more qualified teachers, which one (private) can exclude children for any reason? Which one (public) has to take any student? Vouchers?
2) Class size reduction in elementary school vs. large class size in the Univ. – Is it appropriate? Is it wasting money? Are children able to learn in a large class size? etc.
3) Issues that affect learning and in turn poor test scores: parent lifestyles, language barriers, poverty, lack of food and shelter.
4) Test Scores: Do they really measure student learning? If all states and schools are measured against each other, why isn’t a standard test give? Why do different states interpret scores differently?
5) Parent Accountability: Why is this never addressed by people outside of the education field? Parents are the ones who spend the most time with their kids and should be just asbut teachers in many cases take the blame for student performance.
I could probably write a long essay on each of these above mentioned areas but I won’t. I am obviously not going to change your mind and you won’t change mine either.
I do feel that we do have some problems in public education. One area for example is that we let students pass on to the next grade level without showing end of your competency in grade level material. This creates a HUGE problem for us educators because we have to teach in a three ring circus to be able to address the needs of all students at all levels.
So I guess my bottom line is just because it might be “broken” doesn’t mean that we need to throw it away. We (educators and non educators) should dedicate ourselves to coming together to try and “fix” the problem.
Buenas Noches – I am off to write lesson plans.
Ms AbcMom,
Thanks for stopping by. Please don’t give up on having this discussion with me, trust me, you can change my mind. I don’t care much about ‘winning’ or ‘losing’ I care about fixing. I am way more open minded than I think you give me credit for. I see the passion in your writing, and I greatly respect that, I think more people should be passionate about this topic, because it’s a serious topic that needs to be addressed. But after the passion has to come a willingness to hear each other out, to hear different views and different solutions, so please, do discuss this with me.
To narrow down your focus though, I’d really like to know what you think of vouchers. I don’t think these ‘onesy twosy’ solutions will do much of anything without addressing the core of the problem, and vouchers certainly does that. If you disagree with vouchers, please tell me why, because I have a hard time finding the counter arguments acceptable.
And just so you don’t think I am being disingenuous, allow me to offer you a book. I just finished reading, “No Excuses” by the Thermstrom’s. They are both Senior fellows at the Manhatten Institute. Stephan Thernstrom teaches History at Harvard University and Abigail Thernstrom is a member of the Massachusetts State Board of Education and a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. I tell you this so you don’t think this is just some ‘right-wing’ book out to destroy the education system. This is clearly a book by people who share our passion, and went out of their way to try and address the same problem you and I care soo deeply about. So if you allow me to, I’d like to buy you this book, and all you have to do is tell me what you think about it, nothing more. What do you say?
Yo HP. My sister likes your blog better than mine. What’s up with that, yo! You better check yourself! Oh…. and now you want to buy her a book! What a cheap trick, vato. I’m sure you know as well as I that buying a teacher a book is just as good as buying a graduate student a glass of cheap wine.
Cold blooded. I’m going to keep an eye on you.
El Nebur
It’s the layout!!! It must be the layout!! I mean, who could resist all of this beautiful brown through and through.
Please, please, put the gun down, I promise, I have nothing but good intentions with your sister. Besides, you don’t want to get too pushy, or else we might do what everybody does with an overprotective brother, we might have to go behind your back (email)!!!! LOL J/K
Gee - you boys are really funny. Thanks for the book offer but my mother told me to never accept anything from strangers. I guess that would apply to the internet world. Besides, the next non-fiction book I want to read is Jonathan Kozol’s new book The Shame of the Nation : The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. Thanks anyway. It comes out today - I am on my way to Border’s as soon as the school bell rings.
First, I didn’t know that you were an “Arthur” fan. My baby sister got me into Arthur a few years ago. Ha.
Can public schools change? I think they can, but it’s hard to change the standardization of education in public schools. I am a product of a public school from K-9, then a product of magnet school through high school, and private school in college.
I don’t think it’s a university’s (or a public or private school’s) credentials or the amount of “great” teachers, it’s what the student makes of it. I’ve met so many brilliant minds in and outside of school, and very few rarely live up to their potential (I start thinking of oso’s posts a few months back)…but it’s up to them to live up to it and do something.
Have you noticed the increase of small private Catholic high schools for lower-income families? There’s one in Austin near where I used to live called San Jose. It’s purpose is to give lower-income hispanic families a much richer(or an alternative) education from public school. Why? Because it treats it’s students a little more like college kids (they have internships and what not) than a bunch of punks.
EMC,
Fundamentally I agree with you. Your response reminds me of my friend from work, he is a Vietnamese refugee and we have known each other since undergrad, work, and now we are also going to UCSD together. The guy is freaking AMAZING. He came here with nothing, lived off of welfare for a while too, but immediately rose. The guy worked two shifts a day for two years, saved up all he could than enrolled into college. Throughout college, there were times where his dad, who is in his 60’s, couldn’t work and my friend would have to cover his shifts, eventually having school, tutoring at work, and covering his dads shifts covering almost 20 hours of the day. The guy had only 4 hours of sleep a day for sometimes as long as 6 months, but he still managed to graduate valedictorian.
Even going to UCSD now, he has a family, a 3 year old daughter, and alot of responsibilities at work, yet it is not unusual to find the guy still studying at 4 am, while my lazy ass is sleeping. I call him a machine, he just keeps going and going and going. I don’t think he has gotten anything less than an A+ since he has been here, and this through some of the hardest classes I have ever taken at UCSD.
The reason I bring this up is that you’re right, if somehow the study habits, the love for education, and the yearning to do well was somehow miraculously transplanted into every kid in the ghetto, things would look very different, in fact, that would do more to closing the racial and poverty gap in learning than any solution the infrastructure could address.
So while I agree that the large part of it is the person, is the culture, is the educational priority, that still doesn’t excuse the, albeit smaller, problem of the infrastructure, and having it live up to its highest potential.