An article about the for-profit sector in K-12 education posted on Twitter got me all worked up and the 140 character twitter rant limit means that it is now a (long overdue) blog post.
While it is an open secret that most schools are run as for-profit enterprises, making money in the name of building funds, donations, non-refundable deposits (what in the world is that?) and even each pair of school socks that they sell, this article removed even the emperor's garment from the greed of the sector.
It is scary when educating the future of a nation gets measured against profit. To me the article seems to show that the *entire* focus is on profit, with the quality of education being an unintended by-product, if at all.
Good teachers, like good professionals in any field, are few and far between. They are far more valuable than a "curriculum", no matter how great it is. A great teacher doesn't need a curriculum while the best of curricula are rendered useless by bad or even mediocre teachers.
These for-profit enterprises would do well to reflect on the fact that they are playing with the future of the nation by setting up schools without a thought to the quality of teachers and thereby education they serve up.
While it is an open secret that most schools are run as for-profit enterprises, making money in the name of building funds, donations, non-refundable deposits (what in the world is that?) and even each pair of school socks that they sell, this article removed even the emperor's garment from the greed of the sector.
It is scary when educating the future of a nation gets measured against profit. To me the article seems to show that the *entire* focus is on profit, with the quality of education being an unintended by-product, if at all.
Good teachers, like good professionals in any field, are few and far between. They are far more valuable than a "curriculum", no matter how great it is. A great teacher doesn't need a curriculum while the best of curricula are rendered useless by bad or even mediocre teachers.
These for-profit enterprises would do well to reflect on the fact that they are playing with the future of the nation by setting up schools without a thought to the quality of teachers and thereby education they serve up.
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