Edison isn't so much a private school as it is a business plan that just happens to have a school attached to it. There certainly are private schools that do a good job, but Edison isn't among them.

Chris Whittle, is first and foremost an adveritsing executive, and this isn't Chris Whittle's first foray into business plans disguised as education. He's also the guy behind Channel One, the "educational" TV shown in many classrooms comprised of two minutes of ads and ten minutes of fluff. It's advertising disguised as education. People from all over the political spectrum, from Adbusters to George Will have written on the topic -- see http://www.commercialalert.org/index.php?c...d=32&article_id=120 for details.

You have to credit Whittle for taking really offbeat approaches to advertising in an era where people are becoming increasingly media savvy. He once proposed creating a magazine for maids and other domestic help as a means of promoting a brand of detergent.

I have no trouble with earning a profit for your work, but when doing good work no longer matters and profit becomes the only motivation, you often get terrible results. That's hardly "delivering value to your customer".

Pat,
    That's a weird assumption to make. The reason I have such strong feelings about this is I've lived in philly for 20 years have been in quite a few philly schools (though never as a student) work with and am friends with countless philly school graduates. Had two close friends who were teachers in the Philly public schools--both now have quit. If you want an amusing evening of horror stories assemble a group of such Philly p.s. alumnae and invite them to take trip down memory lane.

And by weird coincidence I work in the same (small) building with probably the main organization that mobilized the anti-edison campaign in philly so had a ringside seat to the YEARS worth of effort to slander Edison and make their job impossible. Pat do you read the NEA press? Can you point me to a single article that casts any reform that breaks out of the current regime in the slightest as anything less than evil? I saw this non-stop manufacture of "the sign to hate" close up.

I don't know Where you work Pat, but "urban" is not urban is not urban. Even within Philly there are schools that work better than others and they're all "urban". It's not urban versus suburban versus rural. It's the power of school boards versus teachers unions versus education bureaucrats versus parents versus students. Where there is no balance among these interests the results are dire.

And where a city has lived under one party rule for 50 years
and the perks and patronage have been allowed to accumulate unchecked for that half a century you can add even more dry tonnage of institutional cement to the mix.

I don't give a rat's ass about Edison as a business or whittle as entrepreneur. I don't think Edison makes much sense on paper as a business. But I know that the Phila School district makes no sense on paper or in the real world as an educational organization. It's almost good that
the unions have focused all their energy on Edison since the numerous other new school managers in philly have been allowed to make progress while Edison gets all the heat.
I wrote to education blogger joanee jacobs about one firm that was featured here in the press. She wrote about it here http://www.readjacobs.com/archives/2002_09...rchive.htm#85407169. follow the links in her short piece for more on Victory schools and edison's problems. (the piece Cory trumpeted is way old news for anyone who's really paying attention).

I don't particularly like shifting the mess around-transferring failed schools to new managers as a solution, I'd prefer full voucher payouts of the pro rated per child costs of schooling in Philly (and everywhere). But I'm glad for reform whatever shape it takes--charters, new management, home schools, partial vouchers, even school choice within the current system introduces at least a little feedback into the currently signal locked loop.

Memo to progressives: Instead of robotically rejecting any and all school reform that transfers power from unions and educrats to parents (and listen to this Pat, teachers--real teachers, not time servers) be aware that the politics of this is changing. Look to philly where the worst schools are in supermajority Democratic districts and where the state reps were (largely) on the side of reform and against the school bureaucracy and unions in this fight. Instead of being on the wrong side of history in the old stalin pact way (when the sign to hate shifts to the sign to love and then back again)concentrate on the supposedly core progressive ideas about challenging the power elite and their institutions and returning power to the people and see where those ideas lead you when they replace the short term electoral and fundraisng concerns of the Democratic party as your ethical compass.

You might want to start your reprogramming with this
http://citypaper.net/articles/111501/news.hallmon2.shtml

but just about any coverage of the schools fights here in the local press will do. Coverage by reporters who, and in newspapers which, used to be against reform in all the well rehearsed ways. they changed! You can too.

markets are cool and all, but they behave... um... oddly with certain institutions.

vouchers and privitizations all seem like a good way to make education work more like the medical system in the usa. then one out of seven children could skip the whole thing altogether.

Edited by author 11-01-2002 03:01 PM
quin writes:
"markets are cool and all, but they behave... um... oddly with certain institutions."

That may be the case because(as in the case of medicine) they aren't allowed to operate as free markets. So you end up with low supply resulting in high prices and then calls for ever more restricted markets. It's a downward spiral.

People wouldn't expect the government to be better than private industry at manufacturing high quality low cost products and services such as televisions, computers or food(at least not if they've ever eaten in a school cafeteria). Why do they expect better results from the government when it comes to educational services?

One problem with a "free market" in education is that people other than the student have an interest in how well (and how) the student is educated. How would you structure the "education market" to take into account society's interest in making sure that all members of society meet some basic minimum?

Tom,

I am sorry to say that the sheer ignorance of your reply to Pat's previous post is too awesome to contemplate.

 How someone as ignorant and malicious as you are is allowed to live is an indictment, itself, of the claim that there is a God.

Your friend in -oidliness,
Abelard

stevedekorte: actually, i believe that markets behave unpredictable when the elasticity of the market itself is (for whatever reason) inversely proportionate to socio-economic status. there are several foils to the invisible hand, and i don't believe all of them can be written off as governmental interference. some of them are simply structural. the right tool for the right job: in many cases, the market is the right tool. in others, it may not be. it seems foolish to apply market theory to all situations just because it is absolutely the right answer in some.

abelard,

good points.

tom

quinn writes: "i believe that markets behave unpredictable when the elasticity of the market itself is (for whatever reason) inversely proportionate to socio-economic status."

I'm not sure what you mean. If by "elasticity of the market" you mean price elasticity it sounds like your saying the more money someone has the less they are willing to pay for education. Is that right?

quinn writes:"it seems foolish to apply market theory to all situations just because it is absolutely the right answer in some."

Ok, but it appears it work well in not just "some" but the vast majority of products and services. Look around your house an ask yourself how many of the things you own or services you use would be better produced by the government.

Also, I've yet to hear a good argument for why education a special case. We certainly have tested socialized education and are familiar with the results. you might say "they're just not doing it right" and maybe your right. I'm just asking to test the alternative if only in one state.

Unfortunately, much like the legalization of drugs, the people against it won't allow it to be tested in even a single state on grounds that the results would be too damaging. This is convenient as it allows them to avoid an empirical test of their a priori social theories.

 i don't mean price elasticity. see
http://www.mintercreek.com/micro/overview.html for an overview of
elasticity in general. in terms of this site, i think the closest thing to
what i am talking about is income elasticity. the particular usage i am
describing is when the demand remains largely unchanged with changes in
price or supply. there is still a market theory for inelastic markets, but
i am proposing that where elasticity of demand increases as SES increases
the market begins to behave unpredictably. to describe it another way,
where the more poor and politically impotent people express significantly
less ability to "opt-out" or change their market behavior than their
counterparts higher up on those scales, the market doesn't often achieve
anything close to theoretical perfection.

the edison case points out a typical and difficult problem in inelastic
markets: one article show possible good business practices that create a
positive result, but they are vulnerable to predation at the turn of the
stock market whereas the demand for education (one for each child) remains
unchanged.

as for looking around my house, i see almost nothing that is the result of
pure market practices. almost every product and service i use is produced
though a careful and often unobserved balance of legal and logistical
management, social custom, market communication and downright socialistic
infrastructural cooperation. i wouldn't want to give up any of these.

quinn writes: "the particular usage i am describing is when the demand remains largely unchanged with changes in price or supply."

Ok, this would be the case with food. Markets are well proven to keep people fed. The largest instances of mass starvation in modern times that I'm aware of were in Communist Russian and Communist China.

"the edison case points out a typical and difficult problem in inelastic markets: one article show possible good business practices that create a positive result, but they are vulnerable to predation at the turn of the stock market whereas the demand for education (one for each child) remains unchanged."

Edison is a bad company that *should* go out of business. That's how the market works. Poorly run companies run out of money and go out of business and better run ones take their customers. The only problem is that thanks to the fact that it's part of a state monopoly(only one supplier), when it fails, the whole system fails. A market has many suppliers. The state hiring a company to run some schools is not an example of using market forces as there is still only one supplier.

"as for looking around my house, i see almost nothing that is the result of pure market practices. almost every product and service i use is produced though a careful and often unobserved balance of legal and logistical management, social custom, market communication and downright socialistic infrastructural cooperation. i wouldn't want to give up any of these."

I think your grasping at straws here. When you go to buy a car there are many suppliers competing for your(and other consumers) business. That is a market. When you go to purchase k-12 educational services you have to buy it from the government. You may choose not to use what you've paid for but you still have to pay for it. That is not a market.

"Ok, this would be the case with food. Markets are well proven to keep people fed. The largest instances of mass starvation in modern times that I'm aware of were in Communist Russian and Communist China."

ok, we are at cross purposes here.

my whole point was that education is not a straight forward inelastic market, food isn't a great example of an inelastic market anyway, the classic example is utilities, and the rest is irrelevant to our discussion.

i am *so* *not* grasping at straws. buying a car would be impractical without a road system, impossibly slow without a cooperating communication system, and insanely dangerous without a legal system. none of these are created by markets- there is a posistion which calls for creating these institutions with markets, but if you are there you are pretty much arguing from david freidman's position. check out "machinery of freedom" and/or http://www.daviddfriedman.com/

it's an interesting position to take, but it's also complex and difficult- it deserves a great deal of consideration before one takes it.

quinn writes: "my whole point was that education is not a straight forward inelastic market, food isn't a great example of an inelastic market anyway, the classic example is utilities, and the rest is irrelevant to our discussion."

I don't follow you. How isn't food a good example? Everyone needs to eat regardless of the price or supply of food right?

"as for looking around my house, i see almost nothing that is the result of pure market practices."

Those products where produced in a market(many suppliers and consumers) that has government over site. This is what I'm suggesting for education. This is very different from having those products produced *by* the government.

food isn't a great example because it's not a commodity market. an
individual food source, such as corn, can be, but then they are also
highly highly highly elastic. everyone needs to eat, but they don't need
to eat the same thing. plus many people have some of the skills to opt out
of the market to some extent. this isn't to say anything about food and
markets, this is only to say that it isn't a good example of an inelastic
market because there are too many possible foils to the model. utilities
is a better example... all watts taste the same and start out
commoditized. the need for electricity is fairly stable compared to any
particular food market. it isn't going to go the way of pork rinds int he
80s because people's ideas have changed.

...which still isn't what i'm saying about education. i'm not calling it a
pure inelastic market, i am calling it a market where inelasticity varies
specifically with the SES of the consumer. that is the market i am
claiming behaves unpredictably and fails to balance.

education, health, and basic nutrition describe an outline of a person's
capability to participate in society and the economy. no other resource
contains such sweeping consequences, so no other resources behaves the
same. every person that slips through the cracks of these systems
describes a terrible weight and loss for the society and economy they are
part of. express privatization answers none of this- it merely trusts them
to the invisible hand to work out. i am a big fan of reform and
alternatives. hell, i used to teach in a public charter school and would
again. but i believe is direct and structural addressing of the problems,
not throwing things at the wall to see what sticks while people's lives
get ruined.

"food isn't a great example because it's not a commodity market. an individual food source, such as corn, can be, but then they are also highly highly highly elastic. everyone needs to eat, but they don't need to eat the same thing."

Ok, that makes sense to me.

"plus many people have some of the skills to opt out of the market to so" extent.

That's certainly true of utilities too. One can reduce consumption with efficiency improvements(better lightbulbs, insulation, etc) and some can buy solar panels and get off the grid entirely.

"utilities is a better example... all watts taste the same and start out commoditized. the need for electricity is fairly stable compared to any particular food market."

Ah, but if there were many suppliers then the amount purchased from a given supplier would be highly elastic with price. It's only because of the government created monopoly in power that we think of power as single source. Also, brand matters a lot in the power market. Green energy tastes different than nuclear energy for many consumers.

"which still isn't what i'm saying about education. i'm not calling it a pure inelastic market, i am calling it a market where inelasticity varies specifically with the SES of the consumer. that is the market i am claiming behaves unpredictably and fails to balance."

I'm still not clear on what your point is. Can you give a particular example of the "failure of balance" of privatization without the economic terminology?

"education, health, and basic nutrition describe an outline of a person's capability to participate in society and the economy. no other resource contains such sweeping consequences, so no other resources behaves the
same. every person that slips through the cracks of these systems describes a terrible weight and loss for the society and economy they are part of. express privatization answers none of this- it merely trusts them to the invisible hand to work out. i am a big fan of reform and alternatives. hell, i used to teach in a public charter school and would again. but i believe is direct and structural addressing of the problems,
not throwing things at the wall to see what sticks while people's lives get ruined."

The problem is that peoples lives *are* currently being ruined. And while people have been tweaking socialized education for decades it only continues to get worse. How many more decades does this have to go on before it's worth trying something different if only in a single state? It don't think it's fair to call moving to markets "throwing things at the wall". Markets are very well established to deliver higher quality products at lower prices than centrally controlled systems.

Just because an ideal socialized system has the goal of preventing people from "slipping through the cracks" doesn't mean that it actually performs this goal better than markets.

There was a NPR discussion a while back about education reform and it was mentioned that the private schools were doing much better under all sorts of measures of success. The socialized education advocate disputed the value of these measures. So the privatization advocate asked under what measures could a private school be considered successful. The socialized education answered "none". This makes me wonder if ideology is more important than for some than education.