Privatizing Education In The United States

By Author: Henry Ford
Total Articles: 189
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In the recent past the concept of privatization of education has gained root. Although Americans have freedom to choose between different forms of education including private school, charter school, public schools, and others, the drives towards privatization of public school defy this (The Heritage Foundation). This is a political movement that has been calling for reforms in the education sector based on the logic of market based reforms that brings business strategies in production of public education. The call for privatization of education is enclosed on the concepts of market place values like outsourcing, limited government control, competition, choice, and others which are likely to make education sector competitive and profit driven. The whole idea is built on the foundation of government contracting and vouchers. The idea of privatizing education is grounded on research findings which shows that higher academic achievements in higher education is based on lower level of government bureaucracy. The drive towards privatization has also been accelerated by critical problems that are facing the education sector in ...
... the country which never fades away (Ball 46). Poor labor relations between teachers and the government, deteriorating facilities, and other social factors are making it necessary for radical reforms in the sector and these reforms are packaged in privatization of education. For most people, it has been established that public schools have become the last resort for those who cannot afford to take their children to private schools. This is because private schools have shown consistent higher performance compared to public schools convincing most people that private schools offer best education and this should be the way for the public schools to go. However, the issue of privatization of education comes with different advantages and disadvantages. It may not be as easy as most people perceives considering the fact that government schools handles millions of students while private schools handles fewer children making it possible to provide student centered education. Although privatizing education promise improved management, it comes with many disadvantages and therefore it is an idea that should be carefully scrutinized before implementation.
Privatizing education
Privatization of education refers to the aspect of having schools operational norms associated with those of a private enterprise. This means that privatization encompass having new management in place that will replace the government and manage schools like a private business. Privatization is geared towards making education a product which means that education will be packaged and marketed like a product (Apple 50). In consideration of the efforts that companies are putting to ensure that their products compete with others in the market, privatizing education is meant to make it more competitive since there will be market competition which means schools will raise standards of education in order to make them more competitive (Burch 30).
In broader perspective, privatization encompasses management practices like contracting out or outsourcing. This includes instances where private firms are contracted to perform non academic services including printing, food services, operation of book store, and others (Friedman). This also includes aggressive labor relations and minimizing payroll expenditure by reducing unnecessary expenses. Therefore, privatization of education mainly encompasses seeking more autonomy from the government and making education more competitive. This also includes raising tuition in order to meet the rising cost of education to offer competitive salaries to teachers. Privatization also means incorporating the concept of enrollment management in education which will limit financial assistances and adopt a culture of services to the students who should be perceived as clients (Mac, and Iver 93).
Since 1980s, concerns about the performance of U.S education system became a major concern. Several national reports showed that the quality of education was deteriorating and the overall performance was going down. Since then, it has been established that the level of performance in U.S public schools lags behind that of most developed nations. These reports which assessed student performance on Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SATs) showed that public education has come under increased threat of deterioration in different perspectives and this was having a serious impact on student performance (Ball 16). Comparative analysis between United States and other developed countries shows that the level of performance is still very low. This is despite United States using billions of dollars in the education system. In critical assessment, there are many ways in which U.S education system has failed and time to correct it has come. The drive to have changes in the education system are geared towards ensuring that the country maintains its leadership in different areas especially in science where it is facing major challenge from other countries. The current education system has been described to be short of fulfilling such aspirations.
Most critics of the current system of education argue there are two main ways through which the education system of country can be reformed. First, the system of education should be reformed through privatization. This will ensure that there is new system of education system in the country that is geared towards competitiveness of education as a product and this will raise standards of education. Second, education reforms should take a radical step and dismantle the whole education system and replace it with a new one. This is because there are there are many faults in the current education system that needs to be reviewed in details. Privatization of education has gained favor over dismantling since it is based on the already experienced model of private schools which have shown to be success compared to government public schools (Apple 48). They argue that this is an already experimented system and cannot be compared with another that has not been experimented.
Privatization of public schools may bring the long needed change in the education system. The problems facing public education seems multidimensional but they arise from few areas including staffing and facilities development (Burch 17). Staffing is one of the major problems facing the education sector as a high number of teachers leave public education within few years of entering into the profession. This is due to the fact that teaching as a career is perceived to low paying and unattractive (Ball 46). Lack of motivation among teachers becomes a major impediment for optima performance. However a critical review of this problem shows that it stems from the management. Privatization will therefore bring about effective management of teachers which will ensure that they are well motivated and perform optimally. This will also bring about improved business oriented management where teachers can sign performance contract and therefore deliver (Ascher 69). However, this will come with the need to increase payment for the teachers as a financial way of motivating them.
Under the contracting system, the government will be able to base the performance of contracted corporations on student performance (Apple 72). This means that if organizations fail to perform, they will be replaced with other organizations that can perform. However, this may bring a major challenge because there will be continuous change of management and this may finally bring performance down. Privatization may therefore improve performance but it will also be met with many challenges because education is geared towards wholesome growth of the student but privatized education may only concentrate on improving academic performance only neglecting the basic concept of education (Mac, and Iver 93).
However, privatization of the education is an idea that will not be easily bought by Americans. It is seems a new idea that may change the education system in the country and improve performance which will raise the level of education status in the country. Privatization of education may be something that has been practiced through private schools but it creates fears among Americans owing to the value they attach to government owned institution.
Considering the long standing support for the public education, it can be outright concluded that any effort to dismantle the current system of education would be futile. United States records history as the first country in the western world to institute public system of education that catered for the needs of all segments of the society. Public schools have been geared towards wholesome growth of the student and are not geared to high academic performance that neglects other areas of personal growth. It is due to the critical nature of public education for Americans that it has been used to address any issues facing the youths. Ranging from drug abuse to teenage pregnancy issues, public schools have been fundamental in tackling these issues in the society. This means that instead of being expendable, American society is becoming more dependable on public schools (Bauman 61). It is one of the few remaining viable social institution that can be relied on to tackle increasing social problems. Therefore, it would be difficult for the government to do away with public school or just give them away without having a say in their management.
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