Do Schools Need a New
Framework with More Choice?*
Take a test. Guess what part
of public education has grown fastest during the past 50 years: instruction or
administration?
If you guessed
administration, you are wrong. A study that I undertook with Eugenia Toma of
the University of Kentucky shows that Michigan has spent several times more
money on the classroom during the past five decades than on administration and
benefits. The familiar complaint that schools spend more money on
administrators than on teachers and children is wrong. We just assume that if
we only spend more money on the classroom, the product would improve.
What then is the problem?
Consider the governing structures of education, which is the subject of our
study, “A New Framework for Public Education in Michigan.” The study analyzes
the outcomes of public education. By measuring existing standards, such as
standardized test results and dropout and graduation rates, we discovered that
not all schools fail and no school fails all of the time.
Where failures do occur,
however, they tend to be repeated. They tend to be concentrated in identifiable
areas—mostly, large urban centers. Similarly, resources tend to be concentrated
where the rate of failure is least in the existing system of public education.
The study also found that
education money is distributed contrary to demonstrated needs. Students from
failing school districts—who don’t take advantage of resources reserved for
them—actually subsidize the educations of students in successful schools. Since
the students in failing schools tend to be poorer than the students in successful
schools, this constitutes a redistribution of wealth from the poor to the
well-to-do.
We also demonstrate that the
inefficient use of resources occurs in all schools, and is tied to how schools
are governed. Having the government run – instead of pay for – the schools
seems to be the single greatest cause of the inefficiencies in all schools.
Earlier theories blamed
failures in schools on capitalism. Critics confused the “government production”
of schooling with “government financing” of schooling. It is the same as
confusing road building with highway financing.
There is no defense for
being comfortable with failure any longer. The way to correct this problem is
to devolve school ownership to the citizens within specific school districts.
We recommend distributing ownership shares to citizens and awarding extra
shares to teachers and administrators to protect their leverage during the
transition period.
Shareholders would govern
the schools through boards of directors chosen by vote of the actual majority
(not the tiny minority of voters who now run every public school). The emerging
corporation would be a public entity subject to the rules that govern all
public corporations. Moreover, every child, no matter what the family or educational
background, would receive the same level of public funding for education and
therefore command the same value of educational resources. There would be no
excuse for failure.
Schools would freely
establish tuition rates and recruit students competitively. The state would
cover the cost of tuition by paying the current average, annual cost of
education directly to students. That sum is about $5,900. In the new
competitive environment, in which students could choose to enroll at any
school, the tuition rate would fall to somewhere between the higher rate and
the usually far lower tuition rates (on average) charged by independent
schools.
At the same time, schools
would enjoy a net increase in resources, as the expenses involved with an
overly bureaucratized system fall. The Vaughan School, an autonomous charter
school in Los Angeles, has demonstrated this.
State government would help
the situation by absorbing current debts (retirement and bonded indebtedness)
from existing school districts. The state could finance this debt through
current funding by assuming a one-time debt to be paid over a long period.
The “new framework” would
shift government’s role from providing the mechanisms of education to providing
the funding for schools. In this new arrangement, the customers (families)
would have more choices of schools. And this competition would improve public
education.
William D. Allen is the dean of the James Madison College at Michigan
State University and project director of the
“New Framework for Public Education in Michigan” report.