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Profit for Education, Ask the Swedes, Ctd

by Whaleoil on December 17, 2011

It isn’t all about money, it is about priorities in spending in education:

The last government assumed that the main problem with English education was a lack of money, and funding almost trebled. Gove often mentions what happened next: our schools plummeted in the international league tables. They used to be fourth for science, now they’re 16th. They used to be eighth for maths, now they’re 28th. And yet our private schools remain the best of any major economy on the planet – one of the few things that Britain still does better than any other country. The challenge, which no British government has been able to solve, is how to spread the excellence.

This is precisely the argument that Labour touted here with ECE. They argued that we should spend even more money despite trebling the budget for ECE for negligible increased outcomes.

It took a group of determined parents to lure Barbara Bergstrom’s IES through the British bureaucratic labyrinth (even now, it can manage but not own the new school). The effort is a perfect example of David Cameron’s Big Society: politicians may balk at profits, but parents care only about the quality of education and don’t see why a deprived corner of Suffolk should not have the world’s best. It might just catch on. If Britain’s education sector were to emerge as an education industry, it is easy to see sink schools – our national shame – being eradicated within five years. The only obstacle is political squeamishness. As Sweden found, tolerating profit is the price you pay for helping the poor. The question is whether this is a price the Liberal Democrats are willing to pay.

Precisely. What is wrong with profit in education? If someone can turn a profit and provide a quality education to pupils in poorer areas then why not let them. It isn;t as if the state schools are doing a stunning job.

Hekia Parata and John Banks need to stay strong in the face of likely teacher union strife, break those unions if necessary and move toward providing the best education that money can buy our children by providing choice and competition tot he state sector.

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  • Kosh103

    Profit from schools is wrong. Full stop. Education is there as a right and a service. It is one of the most important things a country does and turning away from educating alone and moving into schools becoming  money making companies is NOT good for kids. The focus will end up on making  money and not educating the kids.

    I have zero faith in the “good will of man” to educate kids well and make money without sacrficing the kids along the way.

    • Anonymous

      Ah.  So, all of the proof of charter schools working really well counts for precisely nothing then.
      “There are none so blind as those who will not see.”

      • Kosh103

        There are few charter schools that work, and those that do, make very little difference in the stats.

        It is all about idiology. Only a fool cannot see that.

    • Gazzaw

      So that’s why private schools occupy the bulk of the top twenty slots in academic, sports & arts achievements with the balance being taken up by state schools who have somehow managed to maintain traditional teaching methods. Some of those colleges are purely profit-driven eg Senior College and founded by very fine educationalists such as John Graham.& Dawn Jones. 

  • Paulus

    Charter Schools started with David Lange’s “Tomorrows Schools”, with Kohanga reo and has continued ever since, particularly with Maori “education”. A new large Maori Secondary School has just been built in Tauranga, and opens in February. They will operate as a Charter school doing their own thing, paid for by Taxpayers. So what is new ? 
    And there is a Charter primary School in Epsom which has been running for some years.

  • Anonymous

    What the idiot kosh fails to see is that the “good will of men” has nothing to do with things. There is this thing, kosh, called a “charter”. That is what dictates things. That is what sets the goals and penalties. 
    But then I wouldn’t expect an ignorant prick like you to understand that.

    • Kosh103

      If you really think requiring schools to make money will improve education you are dumber than I thought.

      • Anonymous

        Who said anything about the “making money” improving education?
        It is the CHARTER and good teaching that does that, you moron.
        The profit side of things is little more than a side-effect. The balance-sheet of a school has fuck-all to do with the quality of education that it offers.
        Fuck, why IS it that the left are so fucking DENSE? 

    • Rwm

      As kosh says ‘ it is all idio(t)logy. He she know.

  • TScott

    Countries (such as Australia) have private Universities, that both perform and research at high levels. Many students prefer Bond Uni (a Aussie private uni) as it has a much better program of getting its students into high paying job. The percentage employed and median wage for graduates is often a reported figure and thus the private unis care more about it than public unis to attract students. The outcome is good for everyone, @b32f09744e97966ab0d05f2db1e98c09:disqus why wouldnt you expect to the same thing to happen in private schools? (given a small enforcement agency)

    • Kosh103

      Uni’s are different to Primary and Secondary education.

      And private schools and the “top/middle” public schools are just as good as each other.

      It is poverty, family issues, drugs, booze where the problem is. But the right would rather attack education and teachers than do anything of real impact.

      • TScott

        No one is denying that poverty, family issues etc are not real issues that need to be addressed. However, that doesnt mean nothing should be done to improve the education sector along with these issues.Equally, noone is denying that the top public schools arent good but again how does that help people who don’t live in the most exclusive suburbs in Auckland where the best public schools are?

        Also can you actually give a reason why the lessons from tertiary education are not applicable to secondary education? Apart from it my require you to address and consider real reasons rather than just attack “profit” and “corporations” than do anything of real impact?

      • Sars

        TScott – you asked the Kosh a pertinent question that he will ignore and never answer. I think that education is the key to getting out of poverty – for some kids school is the most stable environment they have. It makes sense to give kids the education that will allow them to see a path out of poverty and the ability to action it. However that happens isn’t important but realistically, the current system isn’t doing a great job so it makes sense to improve it somehow. The Kosh and others are more than happy to crap all over the Charter School suggestions while not offering one viable alternative to the current system. 

      • Vij

        No one is attacking education and hard working teachers, just you, you moronic idiot.  You are nothing but moronic idiot who cannot accept there are other points of view.  It’s not about right, left or centre, it’s about what’s best for the country and that could mean another point of view or a mixture of both.  Only morons like you can’t think past your singular point of thinking.  Go away you moron.

      • Kosh103

        @ tscott. Actually the right tend to ignore the real reasons for poor child education outcomes and just attack teachers. This is because of idiology, the right wing have this outdated view of how children learn and thing an (basicly) one size fits all approach will do it. This view has not changed for many many decades.

        As for the difference between HS and Uni – really??? You dont know?

      • Kosh103

         @vij. It is good to have other points of view, doesnt mean that the rights view is correct by any means. And you clearly are very uneducated about learning and how it happens. Esp for kids that struggle. In any discussion about education you are at a massive disadvantage.

  • aobugs

    Its simple really. Supply and demand. If private, charter, other schools do well, there is demand. If not, there wont be. How many Private schools, schools with special character etc are closing due to lack of numbers? How many state funded schools are closing because of falling rolls? Simple – supply and demand always wins, regardless of what politicians try to do – Especially left ones! 

  • Ionmannz

    Private school results tend to reflect the parent’s social economic status and all the supportive nurturing those parents provide – i.e. healthy diet, sleep, minimal TV, no drugs, medical treatment, music et al lessons, encouraging peer group, etc etc. Not necessary good teaching. Take two children, encourage one in a high socio economic home and abuse the other in a low socio economic home. What do you expect when it comes to academic achievement?  The difference is not because of their teachers. How many children / babies are battered and killed from high socio economic homes?  None.  They tend to be exclusively from low socio economic backgrounds. Teachers/schools are not to blame for that. So if we fill the Senior College with randomly selected students from South Auckland (warts and all) will the Senior College (and their ilk)  continue to occupy the bulk of the top twenty slots in academic, sports & arts achievement? No. Unless they come from totally supportive backgrounds those students will wilt, flicker and fail. Their peer group out side of school and their family’s lack of resources and know how will become overwhelming in the pernicious influence of those students lives.

    • Anonymous

      @50899ac0fba6703b314773a3dd1dd743:disqus  – So, according to your logic, we shouldn’t even bother educating the children from unsupportive homes and with low socioeconomic backgrounds.
      According to you, they will fail no matter what, so why bother?

      Have you stopped to think that of the vast number of children overseas who attend charter schools – in the United States, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark -  not all of them will have a supportive background either?
      Many of them have been set up in poor areas, serving exactly the kind of families that you dismiss as hopeless cases. Their success rates speak for themselves. 

       What difference is there between a child from a New York inner-city ghetto and one from South Auckland?
      Neither are exactly “advantaged” in their backgrounds.

       What *proof* do you have that educating children from a poor background in a charter school does not work?
      None. 

      On the other hand, this blog has given ample proof that it does work.

      • Ionmannz

        No, never give up and always offer every child every opportunity. I might not have presented my argument clearly. What I am saying is that we need to compare apples with apples.
         
        The results from The Senior College can not be compared with low decile South Auckland Schools.  If you swapped teachers you would find that the high decile cohort would still excel and the low decile cohort would still lag behind.
         
        Sweden, Denmark etc tend to be monocultural  in their make up (if not in numbers then at least in their outlook) so let us not compare NZ with those countries.
         
        Talk from the supporters of charter schools has so far has been on secondary schools but surely, if a student is failing at secondary it’s almost too late. Primary schooling (and indeed preschools) is where the effort needs to be placed.
         
        Charter schools appear to have some ability to select their students. So what happens to the students they don’t select? And note that the Government will only do it in areas where there are large numbers of students so they can choose (cherry pick) and not take in disruptive, aggressive or special needs students.
         
        Here is a challenge – go to Mangakino or Murupara or a similar socially deprived area (and preferably one off the beaten track with limited social services)  where there is only one school and you have to take all the students, warts and all – ie no picking and choosing.
         
        Ok, sounds like charter schools are about to be set up. If so make it a clearly measured open trial with accurate measurement by non partisan educationalists to determine if it makes a difference, but make the comparison with schools of similar demographics and resources.

  • Anonymous

    “Charter schools appear to have some ability to select their students.”  In fact, if you look at the schools in Sweden (and many in the States), this is not the case at all. They are forbidden by law to cherry-pick their students.  
    I fully agree that secondary school is far too late to try to change outcomes. Charter schools are (of course) not restricted to being secondary schools. 
    I’d have no objection at all to an open, non-partisan comparison of similar-demographic charter schools and state schools. I’m sure that the charter schools themselves would welcome such comparisons.