Last week, Chris Whittle surprised people by announcing a new, educational venture: a national chain of private, for-profit schools. Whittle has already aroused plenty of controversy with Channel One, which offers television sets and satellite dishes to schools in return for a guarantee that their students will watch a daily, 12-minute program, with 2 minutes of commercials. Some states have outlawed Channel One, but it is apparently on its way to becoming a commercial success.
Whittle says his schools will be as different from the ones we know as an incandescent light bulb is from a candle. Specifically, he is aiming for schools that are less bureaucratic, make greater use of technology and have more flexible arrangements for staffing. Most of the planning is yet to come. But here are some of the details Whittle provided---and some of the questions they raise.
Whittle schools will admit any student whose parents can come up with the tuition (though Whittle has not said whether the schools will keep unsuccessful or troublesome students). Tuition will be pegged to public schools' average per-student expenditure, now about $5500 per year. And 20 percent of the places will be set aside for students who cannot afford to pay.
In the first phase of his project, Whittle plans to spend $60 million for research and development, bringing together 100 experts from, many fields. In 1996, he will open 200 schools, and by 2010 he hopes to have 2 million students in a national chain of Whittle schools.
Much of this sounds promising---in particular the idea of bringing together experts in a concentrated effort to achieve a breakthrough in education. The idea of creating models that public and other private schools can follow is also a good one. But there are some big questions.
The U.S. is a free country so anybody who wants to can open up a private school. And parents are free to send their kids to private schools; the Supreme Court settled that issue years ago. But until now, most private schools have been nonprofit institutions run by churches, or like-minded parents. Here, we are presented with the prospect of a national chain of for-profit schools.
Our principal experience with proprietary schools in this country has been bad. I'm thinking of the trade and vocational schools that attract students with advertisements about how all their graduates get outstanding jobs as dental technicians or paralegals or computer programmers. Investigations have frequently found that these claims are wildly inaccurate aid that students get little educational value in return for their money. So Whittle schools could be excellent; but they could also be like the proprietary trade and vocational schools that use lots of advertising to attract customers---and deliver very little.
The issue of advertising raises a second question about the Whittle chain. Markets depend on adequate information, and if we are to have competition between Whittle schools and public schools, we need full and accurate information about both. We know that public schools are not doing well because we know how many students are absent every day and how many drop out. We have figures, too, about how many violent incidents take place and about student achievement on various tests. Private schools don't have to provide us with any data. So they, can be judged on the basis of what they are willing to tell prospective, customers. States should make sure parents have enough information to make good choices by passing legislation that requires private schools to meet the same testing and reporting standards as public schools.
A third thing we need to consider is that, even if Whittle schools don't have selective admission requirements, they're obviously going to admit mostly students whose parents can afford, and are willing, to pay. These kids are among the most successful learners; losing them will have a terrible effect on the achievement levels and tone in the public schools. And the schools will lose not only the kids but their parents, too. Since these parents are, as a group, the most active in education, their loss will be devastating: A school that loses 2 to 3 per-cent of parents could lose 50 percent of active support. This double loss could lead to a substantial deterioration in the public schools. And continued erosion could create a system where the majority of youngsters have to pay for a private education, while the rest are trapped in public schools that are equivalent to hospital charity wards.
But no matter what you think of Whittle's plan for a chain of for-profit schools, it may do public education a big favor by waking up educators to the dangers facing public schools. Until now, supporters of public schools have believed that they could dissuade Congress from passing legislation calling for vouchers or tuition tax credits. Or, that failing, they've thought they could go to the Supreme Court and get such legislation declared unconstitutional. But now, in addition to the threat of vouchers and public assistance for private schools, we face the prospect of a national system of nonpublic schools which, on the basis of the profit motive, will aggressively recruit youngsters from the public and other private schools. Will public education be able to meet this challenge? At least we can now hardly avoid seeing it.