When school choice advocates tout their vision for the future, it has tended to be a picture of parents soberly examining hard data about possible schools in order to select the "best" or "most fitting." But if folks are going to great education like a commodity, then it's going to be sold like toasters or breakfast cereal or panty hose. And that means--
Marketing!
There is no sector of the free market where folks just make their product and let it speak for itself. The free market does not foster superior quality; the free market fosters superior marketing. But while schools are staffed with lots of people who know education, school marketing is mostly not their thing. And so school choice ignites a burgeoning industry--the school marketing companies.
I've been getting peppered on Facebook by ads from Schola Inbound Marketing. The company is run by Ralph Cochran, a "leading national Christian school growth marketing authority." He went to college at Grove City College, a private Christian-ish school just CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: School Marketing Is A Thing-- But Not A Good One
