Capitalism and Education
Is the point of education to produce a profit?
Education has been plagued by the “run schools like a business” crowd since forever. They come in a variety of sub-flavors, from the “Run schools like a business so that I can profit from them” crowd to the “Run schools like they are an extension of my business so that graduates emerge ready to serve me” crowd.
But they all share a childlike faith that running things business style is A) a simple definition and B) the best way to run anything.
Peter Greene – Substack author of ‘Curmudgucation’.
Education is a mess: At this stage it is difficult to find anyone who disagrees with that. An American tradition is to jump into a mess and do the American thing – find a way to make a pile of money from the problem. Thus we have vouchers. Vouchers are based on the ‘like a business’ model – somehow if we just direct all that money into private schools they will be run ‘like a business’ and all our problems will be solved (or somebody’s going to make a boatload of money).
The truth of vouchers is becoming clearer daily – they are a way for the wealthy to plunder public money for personal gain. There are two pathways to this: First is to use the voucher as a nice rebate for money already being spent for a private education – I don’t like public education, I prefer private, but I want YOU to foot some of the bill. Please don’t believe we have the same option because as this money becomes available the cost of GOOD private education will only go up and the voucher doesn’t cover it. The second is ‘schools’ that are opening for the sole purpose of taking in the voucher funds, which schools – freed from any oversight or standards to maintain – collect funds for as long as the pretense of providing an ‘education’ can be maintained, then take the money and run. Vouchers are a monkey wrench in state budgets (as they will be for the federal budget if enacted federally), and actually don’t even address any of the very real problems facing public education.
Capitalism is about making money, but who is the money for – investors. However you define the purpose of education, generation of profit for an investor has no place. Capitalism has no place in education because education is not a business. Frankly neither is healthcare. Both of these areas are expensive human services the society SHOULD provide and for which there is no room to be drawing funds from the service to enrich ‘investors’. Nevertheless the wealthiest corporations in America today are the healthcare giants. They are looking at education with envious stares – this is not a good thing at all.
