Guest commentary: Increased competition is hardly the key to better schools | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

Guest commentary: Increased competition is hardly the key to better schools | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

Increased competition is hardly the key to better schools

Gov. Rick Snyder is right: All of Michigan's children deserve an excellent education. Our state's future depends on it. The question is: How do we move toward this shared goal?

Snyder has stated -- and we agree -- that school improvement can be "achieved in our present system of collective bargaining." However, Snyder also proposes a market-driven system based on increasing competition. Competition results in winners and losers. When it comes to our kids, that's not an outcome we can accept. Public schools are not private firms driven by the profit motive.

Michigan has already experimented with increased competition in education more than most states over the past two decades, and we need to look closely at the results. Our charter-friendly laws have led to the development of more charter schools than all but a handful of states, 75% of which are operated by for-profit companies. Research has shown that charter schools as a whole do not outperform comparable public schools, but they have