"The Bottom Line" in public and private schools

January 18, 2004

One of the arguments against privatization in K-12 education is the jaundiced view that "they're just going to look out for the bottom line."

This is true, they've got to make their payroll and pay their utility bills, so yes, money is the bottom line. But this is a specious argument because the unspoken assumption is that other K-12 entities don't have to watch their bottom line!

Every school principal we know has had a yearly budget with which to run the school. Sure, they've got to pay everyone's salary and handle normal operating expenses such as buying cases of paper for the photocopiers. But choices can be made to add more staff, such as support personnel, or to buy new sets of textbooks or computers.

Since all entities have money as the bottom line, let's take a different approach to the concept.

What's the "bottom line" at the local widget factory? You could say that it's money. But how does the factory get the money? By being successful in making widgets! It is only through success in its core mission that the business can meet the bottom line. So you could just as well argue that its bottom line is just as much "success in widget production" as it is "money."

Here's where the critics chime in "but students aren't widgets, and schools aren't widget factories!"

Well, duh.

Such a phrase is intended to end the argument on privatization. But a glib retort like "students aren't widgets" doesn't change the fact that core business principles still apply, to both factories and schools!

We've got two words for the concept: free market. Here's where public schools and private schools part company.

Obviously private schools make their budgets by having parents choose not only to pay for their children's education, but to chose their particular school. Public schools in affluent areas operate in a similar fashion, and must compete with the local private schools for pupils.

But how do public schools in less-affluent areas, such as our cities, get their budgets?

Just by the mere fact of their existence.

Urban schools just need to be there, and the money comes year after year. While some are successful (and some have stellar records of achievement), far too many are underserving their students.

Which is to say they're not very successful at their bottom line, which is educating children.

What the public needs to know is that it is with only the worst of the worst that much of anything is done to change the picture at schools daily committing educational malpractice.

What usually happens with failing public schools is a new principal or leadership team is brought in. Often supports (such as more money!) are offered to help the school improve. In extreme cases the school is "reconstituted"--a percentage of the staff simply transfers out, with new folks transfered in--but never 100%!

But an option which is simply not on the table is for the school to be shut down.

Now you tell us that govenment schools aren't a gravy train!

Make 'em compete "in the real world" and folks will wake up, smell the coffee, and teach the children.