AV#171-175 - INTRODUCTION to series -The business of education (is education)

Public education struggles to define its mission.  Above all, public schools struggle to clarify their purpose—and stay with it.  (See “AV#161 – Schools with a Mission,” May 23, 2017).  

The business community can support such work.  Clarity of purpose matters.

However, when business uses its clout to push its own agenda on schools, educators—pliable and vulnerable, accustomed to shifting course depending on how the wind blows—often surrender.  Schools adapt, but suffer the consequences.  More mission creep. More confusion as to their purpose. 

I cheer the support many corporate leaders and businesses have provided to the most basic change I have witnessed the past two decades in public education: the emergence of charter schools as a valid option within the Colorado K-12 system.  I am appalled by false claims against choice and charters as “privatization” – maybe a valid charge in a few other states, but not our story.  Even worse is the paranoid rhetoric about corporate intrusion intent on “destroying public education as we know it”–all to advance some kind of “free-market vision." I see no trace of that in Colorado.

I know many business leaders mean well.  Many understand the skills-gap and the needs of the economy far better than I do.  And I am sure many hope to provide young people meaningful choices. 

Nevertheless, I have kept a wary eye on the role of business in its support of various non-profits working with schools.  During my time as a foundation program officer in the early 1990’s, I lost faith in both the Colorado Alliance of Business (CAB) and Junior Achievement.  Our foundation supported their efforts in K-12 schools, but I concluded that, if well meaning, neither had a significant impact on improving public education.  (CAB later merged with the Public Education Coalition, forming today’s PEBC.)

I believe educators are neither paranoid nor anti-business to question recent developments—where business pushes an agenda that clashes, as I see it, with the purpose of public education.  Specifically, in 2018, I believe educators must be clear-eyed about the role business leaders wish to play in advancing career education.  For something fundamental has changed these last few years. Especially for K-12 schools and community colleges.

I have looked into this issue recently and will now spend the next few weeks sharing my concerns in a series of newsletters.  Each Wednesday, for a month.  Feel free to ignore Another View for all of January if this is not of interest. 

In February, on to my second newsletter on education priorities for our next governor.