Private Enterprise & Public Education
by Frederick M. Hess • Dec 21, 2012 at 6:37 am
Cross-posted from Education Week
Cross-posted from Education Week
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On Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal, I noted that McGraw-Hill's recent $2.5 billion sale of its education publishing unit to private equity firm Apollo Global Management elicited only yawns. That same lack of interest greets the tens of billions that are routinely spent on everything from writing utensils to professional development in education. In 2008, schools and systems spent $22 billion on transportation; $20 billion on food services, and even $1 billion on pencils.
Yet, while these transactions draw little response, heated cries of "privatization" welcome relatively modest for-profit providers seeking to offer tutoring or charter school options to kids trapped in lousy schools. This shows up in federal legislation banning for-profit ventures from competing in the U.S. Department of Education's "Investing in Innovation Fund" and restricting their participation in the $3 billion federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) program. When the New York charter school cap was lifted a couple years back, the ritual pound of flesh offered to the unions was an agreement to ban for-profit charters. Most recently, in the case of the "parent trigger," the reform-minded advocacy group Parent Revolution has pushed for legislation that prohibits parents from partnering with for-profit charter school operators.
It can be easy to overlook how unusual this state of affairs really is. John Bailey, executive director of Digital Learning Now, explains that in areas like health care, clean energy, and space exploration, "Policymakers do not ask whether they should engage for-profit companies, but how they should." For example, he notes,
