Learning on the Job: When Business Takes on Public Schools (review)

Plagued by failures, the corporate educational movement was nearly consumed by the flames after the dot-com stock crash. Out of the ashes, however, now comes a remarkable book by Steven F. Wilson. Readers are treated to a most unusual set of mea culpas involving corporate excesses and mistakes. Yet, Wilson does not perform any last-rites, but rather joins contrition with frank suggestions to reposition a new generation of education management organizations (EMOs) for the coming day when No Child Left Behind mandates that "failing" public schools provide additional choices that will expand themarket for corporate services.

Wilson, the former CEO of Advantage Schools, reports on seven private organizations that sought to revitalize public schools. One organization, the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), is a nonprofit. Like the others, KIPP is powerfully motivated by the belief that outside organizations can shift the educational train off failed tracks in ways that public officials can't. As the Vice President of Chancellor Beacon Academies (one of the seven EMOs studied in this book) puts it, "One of our key advantages is that we can hire and fire people" (p. 134).

Wilson and his compatriots are "can-do"missionarieswhose moxie to take on public regulation and bureaucracy was inspired by evidence from field-based classroom techniques. Drawing from research by the right wing of the educational establishment, these modern educational entrepreneurs understood public education as overly political, under-researched, severely compromised by organized labor, and far too susceptible to fads.What public schools lacked was old-fashioned management capable of raising test scores through the tried and true methods of discipline and drill. Thus, it is with a curious blend of hubris that Wilson reports on the mistakes made by corporate school enterprise.

The book concedes that the EMO's of the nineties over-promised academic improvements, failed to develop agreed upon standards for measuring and reporting learning, recklessly took on contracts at schools that posed high business risks, underestimated the costs of capital construction, and handled "secondary customers" poorly. Yet, according to Wilson business failures were only partially the fault of the business leaders. Instead, more often, it was unrealistic parents, contract-breaking school officials, or outlandish expectations by teachers for professional respect that inevitably undermined the business plans of corporate enterprise.

Wilson would have readers believe American's are so enamored of their public schools and so suspicious of profiteering that EMOs are thrust into a political snake pit that virtually ensures private management will fail a sufficient rate of return (p. 263-267). There is no recognition by Wilson that public school officials seldom feel loved, and often face virtually identical constraints on their operational capacity. Nor, does Wilson acknowledge any contradiction between corporate acceptance of public monies for education and the responsibility to anticipate and manage (if not actually address) the various public demands.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Wilson's description of school unions. Wilson's EMOs seek a free hand with which to bypass the legally constituted representatives of professional educators. To be sure, labor is not above fault, yet any union animus against those who lead the privatization movement becomes more understandable in light of their explicit assertion here that management must have unilateral right to fire and discipline faculty and principals. Claims for such authority are based upon management's need to administer instructional techniques precisely, so as to ensure their successful results.

Perhaps the most important sections in Wilson's book concern themselves with test results. His reporting on this score is inconsistent, at points championing corporate claims of high test scores, while at others acknowledging that independent analysts have occasionally put forward reasonable grounds for skepticism. Wilson concludes with an optimistic assessment based on what appears to be a selective use of available data and analysis.

Wilson notes that, contrary to fears of choice and voucher detractors, schools administered by EMOs...