"Education
Review" Reviews
Market Education: The Unknown History
This review originially appeared in Education
Review,
September, 1999, and was written by Alison Halpern
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Coulson's
Reply to this Review
In Market Education, Andrew J.
Coulson applies an historical perspective to argue that the current public system of
education is inherently flawed and should be replaced by a privatized educational market.
As a former employee for the Microsoft Corporation, Coulson brings to this topic an
"outsider's" view; perhaps this association with such an immensely financially
successful company partially explains his optimistic view of not only private schools, but
also for-profit schools.
Using selected anecdotes from world history, Coulson builds an
argument against the efficacy of government-run schools. He describes the shortcomings of
public educational systems in societies such as Sparta, Rome in the Common Era, Germany
during the Reformation, and England, France, and the United States in the 19th and 20th
centuries. These examples are meant to support his assertion that governmental systems of
education are inferior to private systems such as those in ancient Athens, pre-Common Era
Rome, and Japan's juku system of the present.
For example, Coulson juxtaposes the free-market elements of
Athenian education with the state-controlled schools of Sparta. He attributes the success
of the former society's educational system to its few government regulations and
marketized structure, in which any man could teach whatever subject he desired.
Instructors had to compete for students and thus keep their fees affordable while offering
attractive curricula. Spartan education, on the other hand, was entirely state-directed;
boys were schooled away from home in a strict learning environment. The curriculum focused
on physical activity in order to prepare them for careers as warriors. Coulson ties the
harsh education of Sparta and the low level of literacy among its citizens to high levels
of government intervention.
One of the strongest aspects of this book is in this application
of history to policy. For too long, policy makers have ignored the lessons of history when
developing policies. Coulson makes a strong contribution to the field of educational
policy when he argues that by studying the past, we can make more informed decisions.
History can suggest what has worked, what hasn't, and why. As noted by David Tyack and
Larry Cuban, "History provides a whole storehouse of experiments on dead people"
(Tyack & Cuban, 1995, p. 6). In Market Education, Coulson demonstrates
the utility of examining of past events in order to help shed light on current policy
decisions.
But while historical comparisons are undoubtedly instructive in
educational policy, they must used in a subtle and complex manner. The differing contexts
and meanings need to be explored carefully to enhance our understanding of the
similarities and differences between the past and the present. Alongside his descriptions
of each society, Coulson needs a more nuanced analysis of the particular governmental,
social, and educational structures, and how these factors, separately and together,
influenced the success or failure of their respective systems of education. The author
pays only lip service to the successes of the public systems in his historical comparisons
outside of their ability to indoctrinate young minds and bodies. The monolithic nature of
his argument leaves little room for Coulson to expand his analysis beyond a simple
"public equals bad and private equals good."
Coulson devotes a large portion of the book detailing the
shortcomings of public education in the United States. There is little in this section
that will be unfamiliar to most scholars of education, except perhaps his heavy reliance
on standardized tests, including the SAT, to measure student achievement and school
performance. But unlike many educational researchers who critique the practice of public
education while remaining committed to the idea of it, Coulson simply condemns both the
practice and the idea of public education.
Included in the censure of public schools is a prolonged
discussion of methods of literacy instruction. Although Coulson does not seem to have a
background in literacy, he easily dispenses with whole language instruction (or, as he and
other critics refer to it, "look-say") as "pedagogical oblivion"
(p.167). He too easily navigates the complicated waters of reading research, admitting
that the goals of whole language are admirable, but claiming that there is no empirical
evidence of its success. He relies heavily on the work of Jeanne Chall but ignores the
thorough critique of her work by Marie Carbo. In fact, he is silent on the body of
research demonstrating the effectiveness of whole language instruction. Whole language
approaches, like phonics-based methods, are not without their flaws; in Reading
Lessons, Gerald Coles ably discusses the complexities of the debates over literacy
and some of the problems with various forms of literacy instruction, particularly the
depoliticization of literacy practices.
Coulson's critique of public education goes beyond curriculum and
pedagogy; he also attacks public school teachers as "anti-academic" and schools
of education as "intellectually bankrupt" (p, 140, 144). While "not all
government school teachers are low achievers with no interest in academics," it seems
clear that in his opinion those teachers are the exception, not the norm (p. 141). With
such condescending attitudes toward teachers, it is no wonder so many teachers complain of
low respect and status in their field, a complaint that has led many to withdraw from the
education profession.
Once Coulson has finished his condemnation of public education,
he turns his attention to the solution, market education. Perhaps the strongest aspect of
the book, the section on privatized alternatives explores a variety of options, including
charter schools, voucher programs, tuition tax credits, private administration of public
schools, and a national curriculum. Each one is analyzed according to the five
characteristics he believes are most closely linked with a successful educational system:
parental choice, parental responsibility for education, freedom for schools to operate as
they wish, competition among schools, and a profit motive for these competing schools. Not
surprisingly, all of these factors are aspects of a free-enterprise-based system of
education. Coulson's conclusion, then, is that the most effective educational system is
that which most closely resembles free enterprise: for-profit schools with private
scholarships for low-income students.
While Coulson's case for privatized education may be convincing
for readers who have not followed closely the debates over school choice, it is seriously
flawed. For example, he dismisses John Witte's study of the Milwaukee voucher program as
"suspect" because he disagrees with the composition of the control group.
Instead, he relies on the study conducted by Jay Greene, Paul Peterson, and Jiangtao Du,
which concludes that the voucher program is a success. However, this latter study, like
the former, is highly controversial; most of its results are not statistically significant
by accepted social science standards, although the authors conclude that the voucher
students learn more than public school students. None of the shortcomings of this study
are discussed in the book, even though they would contribute greatly to the readers'
comprehension of the issues.
Coulson also neglects important works in school choice research,
most notably Geoff Whitty's comprehensive review of studies from the United States,
England, and New Zealand. In this article, Whitty concludes that choice reforms "that
trade on the 'market metaphor' are likely to increase rather than reduce inequalities in
education" (p. 6). This finding is supported by Trading in Futures: The Nature
of Choice in Educational Markets in New Zealand, a longitudinal study of choice in
New Zealand which demonstrates that the educational market deployed there exacerbated
inequality in the schools. The omission of influential research by Whitty and Lauder et
al., as well as of other prominent scholars such as Jeffrey Henig, Sharon Gewirtz, Kevin
Smith, and Kenneth Meier, leaves the book incomplete.
The educational system that Coulson envisions is one with as
little government regulation as possible. All but the poorest families would pay for their
children's education themselves; those that do not have the money to do so would receive
private scholarships. Under this system, wealthy families could send their children to the
most expensive schools, while middle-class families would have to make do with whatever
they can afford, and low-income families must rely on the benevolence of private
organizations. There would be no regulation to guard against discriminatory policies and
procedures. Instead of a democratically elected body governing the educational system, we
would rely on the market to provide a just system. Given the market's abysmal track record
with regard to social justice, it is imperative that concerned citizens reject this
scheme, and instead stand up for the idea of public education and work together to make
the practice of it more effective for our children.
References
Carbo, M. (1988). Debunking the great phonics myth. Phi Delta Kappan, 70, 226-240.
Coles, G. (1998). Reading lessons: The debate over literacy. New York: Hill and Wang.
Greene, J. P., Peterson, P. E., & Du, J. (1996). The effectiveness of school choice in Milwaukee: A secondary analysis of data from the program's evaluation. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (San Francisco, CA, August 30, 1996); Harvard University Occasional Paper 96-3 (ERIC Document Reproduction No. ED 401 597).
Kasten, W. C., & Clarke, B. K. (1989). Reading/writing readiness for preschool and kindergarten children: A whole language approach. Sanibel, FL: Educational Research and Development Council (ERIC Document Reproduction No. ED 312 041).
Lauder, H., Hughes, D., Watson, S., Simiyu, S., & Waslander, S. (1995). Trading in futures: The nature of choice in educational markets in New Zealand. Wellington, NZ: Ministry of Education.
Manning, M., Manning, G., & Long, R. (1989). Effects of a whole language and a skill-oriented program on the literacy development of inner city primary children. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Mid-South Educational Research Association (New Orleans, LA, November 8-10, 1989) (ERIC Reproduction Document No. ED 324 642).
Stahl, S. A., & Kuhn, M. R. (1995). Does whole language or instruction matched to learning styles help children learn to read? School Psychology Review, 24, 393-404.
Tyack, D., & Cuban, L. (1995). Tinkering toward utopia: A century of public school reform. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Whitty, G. (1997). Creating quasi-markets in education. Review of Research in Education, 22, 3-47.
About the Reviewer
Allison Halpern
Allison Halpern is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her dissertation examines the educational activities of a youth evangelical organization in the post-World War II era in the United States
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