‘Education and Opportunity’: A Q&A with Michael McShane

Values & Capitalism has a new book out by AEI’s Michael McShane titled “Education and Opportunity.” In it, McShane proposes a market-based approach to revitalizing US education that fosters innovation and encourages competition. He also lays out a case for education reform that encourages wiser use of technology and a “marketplace of education options.” Join us at AEI September 3 for an event on “Education and opportunity”– more details here. Below, McShane answers a few questions about his book.

Most reforms “have been dedicated to tinkering with the school systems without fundamentally questioning how they are organized,” you say. What questions should be asked?

Do the schools of today and tomorrow have to look like the schools of 80 or 100 years ago? If folks were to hop into a time machine and head back to the 1920’s, a school might be what is most familiar to them. Same human capital model, same basic organizational structure, similar pacing of students through material, the list goes on and on. We can rethink what schools look like and how they operate.

You write on new schools like Carpe Diem in Yuma, AZ, which combine technology and online education with innovative teaching, and have a high-success rate. Why are they so effective?

I think many of these schools are successful because they have figured out how to get the most and best out of their teaching staff. They help automate processes like attendance taking and guided practice that allow teachers to maximize the personal attention that they can give students.

How can we promote the creation of innovative schools like that?

Two things are important. One, funding mechanisms need to allow dollars to flow into innovative schools. Much of this innovation is happening outside of traditional public schools, so promoting reforms like charter schools, school vouchers, tuition tax credits, education savings accounts, and course access programs is extremely important.

Two, a regulatory environment that protects students and taxpayer dollars without stifling new and innovative school models. There is an unfortunate tendency amongst some education reformers to want to graft the current regulatory scheme we have to manage traditional public schools onto schools of choice operating in the educational marketplace. This is problematic, because many of these regulations assume a particular organization of schools or privilege certain approaches over others. If we want schools to look different, we have to hold them accountable in ways that does not impinge upon their autonomy or freedom to innovate.

What should regulation look like, especially for schools like Carpe Diem and Merit Prep, to name two from your book?

I think a regulatory structure could take a couple of different forms. Schools could enter into performance contacts (like charter schools do) with authorizing bodies that act as conduits of tax dollars. States could also develop inspectorates, like we see in Great Britain, or more muscular version of the accreditors that accredit many private schools today. Schools could also work with state or district education agencies to create customized accountability programs, choosing from a basket of possible metrics from which they could be judged. They could also agree to be “audited” by independent third parties who would then report to the appropriate education agency. I think there are lots of possible options out there.

Is there any downside/danger of changing the regulatory structure of schools?

If you allow for diversity, entrepreneurship, and innovation, you run the risk of folks creating terrible schools. Experiments fail. Most businesses fail. That is part of the winnowing process that the market uses to create new and better options. Regulations can blunt some of that, but you could still expect to see newspaper headlines of schools needing to be shut down because they were ineffective at improving student outcomes. However, given the status quo in many particularly urban communities, the bar is pretty low. When schools see 10-15% of their students reading or doing math at grade level or graduating less than half of their students from high school, the worry that some markedly worse option can be created is a bit tempered.

From 1950 to 2010, student population rose by 96%, teachers grew by 252%, and administrators by 702%. What are the functions of all these administrators, and are they really necessary?

A significant number of those non-instructional staff are related to providing education for students with special needs. As more and more students gained access to education, there was a need for more adults to help ensure they were receiving a quality education. But there are also lots and lots of extremely high-paid administrators that fall into that bucket as well, as well as paraprofessional staff. It is unclear how many of these individuals contribute to improving the education of children. It is also unclear why so many more are needed than were working even 10 or 20 years ago, long after students with special needs were fully integrated into the school system

Bonus question: In light of this book, do you have any thoughts on the Philadelphia school district, which is struggling financially?

The trials and travails of Philadelphia have many fathers and mothers. Ultimately, they have to get themselves on a financially stable path going forward. It is going to be quite difficult for them because their own problems are exacerbated by pension funding issues at the state level, which in the future will continue to burden them with costs that they are losing the revenue base to pay. So it’s tough. Hopefully this crisis will be a wakeup that that status quo is untenable and major structural reform is needed. But I wouldn’t hold my breath on it.

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