John Chubb and Terry Moe think they know what's wrong with America's public school system, and why. In their new book Politics, Markets and America's Schools (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1990), they offer a compelling diagnosis -- and a new pitch for an old "panacea" that would leave us in worse shape than the disease.
Good schools, Chubb and Moe argue, require autonomy, but our schools are strangled in bureaucracy. The reason, they say, lies in our cherished democratic system of school governance. How can that be? On the local level, for example, elected school board members are generally interested in getting re- elected. So they respond to lobbying from varied and vocal constituencies for things like which programs, should be cut or funded and what subjects should be taught and how. Of course you need a bureaucracy to devise guidelines and administer these programs. And when new demands lead to new programs, you get a new layer of bureaucracy and requirements for schools.
Local rules and regulations are only the beginning. State and federal laws, driven by the same democratic control, add to the gridlock. The result is schools where every staff member is probably governed by some rule every minute of the day -- schools that aren't working anymore for kids.
Chubb and Moe's analysis is impressive because it offers an explanation for how our schools got into such bad shape and why it seems to be so difficult to improve them. The over-regulation that saps the effectiveness of a school are not, Chubb and Moe tell us, an anomaly -- something that a right-minded group of reformers can sweep aside -- they are inevitable features of the democratic control of our schools.
If Chubb and Moe are correct, dealing with this problem is going to require all our ingenuity. So it's too bad that the only solution they offer is to end democratic control and put schools in the same category as toothpaste -- that is, under market control. But with this important difference -- the individual would choose the "product," but the public, would still pay.
Under the scheme that Chubb and Moe favor, schools would be virtually unregulated. The state would allow just about any group of people to start a school. They would set their own criteria for student admissions and teach pretty much what they wanted. Parents would be free to choose the schools that attracted them, each school would receive public money according to the number and kind of students enrolled and kids whom no one wanted would somehow be found a place. The idea is that a wide variety of schools filling particular tastes would grow up. The ones that were satisfactory to consumers would flourish, the others would fail.
Sound appealing? Of course. We all agree that having choice is a good thing, and we generally dislike regulation. But deregulation, as we have seen from our experience with the airline industry and the savings and loan disaster, does not always benefit consumers; it can even hurt society. What Chubb and Moe don't tell us is that market control is great for some things and rotten for others -- like public education.
- In a deregulated school industry, we can expect schools with sports orientations patronized by sports-loving families, schools with orientations toward particular racial or ethnic groups for members of these groups and so forth. This would satisfy individual customers, but what about society? Market schools would be under no obligation to teach the democratic goals and values that we have always counted on our schools to teach -- and that now, more than ever, we need our schools to teach.
Market systems can't work without good, reliable information. Chubb and Moe try to provide that for their market schools with parent information offices. But how will these offices get their information and how reliable will the information be? If these unregulated market schools are operating in the pressure of competition, won't we see false claims and distorted data to lure consumers? Of course in a market system, the prevailing rule is let the buyer beware, and this may be perfectly okay for breakfast cereal. Your being taken in by the extravagant health claims of the latest food fad is unlikely to harm me, but can we afford this attitude in education, an enterprise that affects the welfare of children and of all citizens in a democratic society?
It's odd that the only alternative to democratic control Chubb and Moe discuss is market control. Because there are others. Why not insulate the public schools from direct public control by bringing them under the authority of mayors or county executives? Or why not change school boards into bodies that meet once a year instead of a couple of times a month? This would free them from pressure to exercise the minute surveillance that is now too common, and both corporations and universities operate effectively with boards like these.
Chubb and Moe have a good argument but a lousy case. School governance should become a central issue in the education reform debate. But pointing out the flaws of democratic control in schools does not prove that market control would deliver educational salvation. In the coming weeks I'll say more about why there's less in Politics, Markets and America's Schools than meets the eye.