The book you really want for this information is "America's Public Schools: From the Common School to "No Child Left Behind" by education historian William Reese.
Assuming an involved parent (with the accumulated educational knowledge/value associated with a proper education of their own) rather than purely an "unschooling" approach (which is increasingly more popular, if risky) - this is likely true.
You are effectively providing the student (your child) with a full time, one-on-one tutor (you) which is significantly more effective (even with a less experienced teacher) than an instructor being asked to teach 20/30/40 children at one time.
A teacher in a full classroom of 30 students simply cannot pay attention to a child's advancement as precisely as a teacher working one-on-one.
A guy named Peter Frase considered this question in Jacobin magazine a while back (link below). His answer pivots around resources availability and social construction.
Based on these constructs he developed "Four Futures" as follows:
-Egalitarianism and abundance: communism
-Hierarchy and abundance: rentism
-Egalitarianism and scarcity: socialism
-Hierarchy and scarcity: exterminism
Frase definitely swings from one side of the fence, so it may not be your kind of thing - but it's one take on the idea.
My primary concern with the privatization of education is not that charters, like KIPP, can't and won't educate students effectively and efficiently. As a teacher I understand that there are many ways in which our educational system can fundamentally improve.
My worry is that the incentives of private enterprise could very well lead to an education system that doesn’t strive, as a core mission, to education all Americans to a high level.
If we did transition to a privately held education system we would, naturally, need to consider whether or not funding would be guaranteed by the government (as is currently true, within bounds). If funding is guaranteed it seems like that cost of education would explode. Private programs would have few incentives to restrict overhead and procurement costs, as is true in contemporary military procurements and fee-for-service healthcare delivery models. Schools would be operating, after all, in a persistent, non-voluntary market.
A second – and more damaging – possibility (if funding is not government backed, though it seems likely to take place regardless) is that that private educational institutions would be incentivized to either reduce the quality of education provided to low performing (and thereby low-value) students – perhaps through low-overhead online coursework (which has not yet proven itself an equal method of educational delivery – see failure of K12 Inc. online schools) - or to outright reduce the availability of education to low-performing/low-value students. While this clearly undermines the long-standing tradition that all children the United States must be provided with an equal education, we might find a corollary in the current national conversation regarding healthcare availability, or lack thereof, for the poor.
In this case, it is unlikely that withholding education would carry the same moral difficulty for the public as restricting healthcare does when a poor individual comes to the emergency room with a grave injury. As such, these low-performing/low-value students would likely be allowed/encouraged to drop out of primary and secondary charter education (which we already see, for instance through zero tolerance conduct rules, in small charter school populations of ELL students and students with cognitive/behavioral problems) – or they would fall onto a governmental supported educational system specifically tailored to their educational/SES class. It is possible that this safety-net education system would allow for more specifically tailored education practices – however, judging by the historically tiered and inequitable education system we see today (Reese, 2007), (Kozol, 1992) it seems unlikely that these schools would constitute anything more than a dumping ground for struggling students.
It is, instead, more likely that these safety-net schools would be highly stigmatized and exacerbate negative self-perceptions of students’ future economic opportunities (Ogbu, 1987) while also limiting students access to academic knowledge and skills necessary to enter a modern workforce (Oakes, 2008). The reframing of the term “public education” to carry the same connotations as “public house” or “public hospital” is already underway – as discussed by Lee Raudonis, former executive director of the Georgia Republican Party.
If we’re not concerned with education as a primary empowering force for personal advancement and an initial level playing field for all Americans, then we can just move along.
For me, as a white/middle class/privately educated k12 teacher – it is something to protect against.
Readings (in order of use):
Reese, W.J. (2007). Public schools and the common good. In History, education, and the schools (pp. 141-158). New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan.
Kozol, J. (1992). Savage inequalities: Children in America’s schools. New York, NY: Harper Perennial. Chapter 3: The Savage Inequalities of Public Education in New York (pp. 83-132).
Ogbu, J. (1987). Variability in minority school performance: A problem in search of an
explanation. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 18(4), 312-334.
Oakes, J. (2008) Keeping track: Structuring equality and inequality in an era of accountability. Teachers College Record, 110(3), 700-712.
They are strong education tools, no doubt - but note that each of them is a support technology for traditional education, not a replacement for it. These success stories could not succeed (or usefully exist) without a well established traditional education system.
These are also not the sort of tools the article here is discussing (which instead posits that the future of education will be the replacement of traditional flesh-and-blood education with digital education platforms - which will fail).
While the author believes that "the ease, access, convenience and lower cost [offered by online education] appeals to people just about everywhere" the huge - giant - glaring omission here is that education is not so much about enjoyment, ease, or cost as it is about developing your core competencies, content knowledge, and cognitive development - it must, in a word, work.
And, it doesn't.
I'll be quick to change my tune when online education proves itself effective - but right now online k12 education is failing miserably all around the country despite great promises and powerful support(e.g. there are current 16 online k12 charter schools in Pennsylvania getting terrible results).
This isn't a field in which innovators are allowed to fail for a year until they find appropriate answers to their problems - that year of failing is a year of their students failing to advance. There is no stomach from teachers, administrators, or parents for such bumbling - nor should there be.
Teachers/administrators/schools do not have their funding tied to the improvement of their high-performing students.
This is a natural by-product of the Texas model of educational reform (NCLB/Race to the Top/etc.): teachers cannot be trusted to teach and assess their students where those students might be (with regards to content mastery) so we implement standardized tests which focus attention on the lowest performing students (often overwhelmingly teaching them test-taking skills irrelevant to real life) and thereby reducing the time allotted to core curriculum for everyone. It's a system that only improves academics on a superficial level (raising scores without raising academic mastery) and diverts billions of dollars out of already constrained school budgets to private testing/content material providers (NCLB requires tests and other measures without providing resources to implement them - hence resources must be stripped from other programs or services at the schools).
I disagree - I believe that when these people make such statements as "I never got a job from a poor man" they actually understand, and accept, their low social position in relation to the wealthy. It is a product of an authoritarian mindset. They respect, or at least accept, the authority of the wealthy - to whom they serve in one way or another - while claiming privilege over those they perceive to be of lower status (say - public servants, minorities, foreigners, immigrants, sexual deviants, etc. and so-on). The wealthy or influential understand that many, if not most, men have a desire to be led - so they conveniently choose to lead these men in such a way that benefits their own status and wealth.
A question of importance, then, is what happened to noblesse oblige...
As an educator - and long-time HN lurker - I completely agree. The aim of the ed. HN clone is a good one, but the approach is misplaced. I am here entirely due to personal interest; there is very little I read on HN that is in any way immediately applicable to my classroom practice.
There generally seems to be a knowledge and mutual understanding gap between the tech. and ed. communities that has prevented significant partnerships (though they are sincerely needed)and attempting to recruit educators in this way doesn't seem productive.
That said, I believe the ed. community could take a few pointers from the tech side's approach to idea propagation (and the lack of true preciousness of most ideas) and I would look forward to participating (should you get your registration problems figured out).