the costs of edu"business"

There is a great deal of discussion about marketing in education programs (teacher ed., ed amin. etc). The concern stems from the threat of the "competition" -- those new programs popping up all over the landscape, many of them in cyberspace, selling "convenient" ways for prospective students to receive certifications that will allow them to work in schools. The environment - the market - is driving the efforts of traditional programs to modify admissions requirements and/or provide instruction online so as to appear more convenient as well. The culture of schooling -- convenience, client-driven, cost/benefit considerations, and "standards" - are transforming the institution, P-20, in important ways, and we need to pay attention.

What I am thinking about, I know, is part of the larger privatization movement that has come to characterize the institutional environment of schools -- institutions that provide the frameworks and vocabularies that script "innovation" and change.

I am troubled by culture of consumerism in education -- the student as "client"; the emphasis on marketing a product and competition and the impact this has on how we define the "product." This is troubling because of what it is doing to teachers, administrators and educators at all levels. What is the market communicating about what students, teachers and adminstrators need in terms of preparation and how does this discourse silence broader community-driven purposes? Why is the notion that schools should fuel democratic ends (ends that encompass economic concerns) seem so revolutionary (and marginalized) right now, in this moment? Why are parents, if considered at all, considered stakeholders (shareholders?) rather than participants - and what is the difference? We need to pay attention.

Aren't programs, like schools, shaped as much by the people in them than by their policies and programs? In fact, it is the people that bring the policies and programs to life and given them meaning. Shouldn't we be more concerned with ways to recruit students whose voices and faces are missing in many traditional programs, than with competing in the "market." The distinction may be a bit artificial, and the competition is real -- but we need to pay attention to what competition does to people, programs and institutions in the absence of leadership-- when we start to think of our students as clients, and reacting to market conditions, instead of being strategic about shaping the rules of the game. To borrow from the corporate world (with considerable reluctance), recruitment is a vital part of building and maintaining corporate culture. Seems to me, leaders in schools (pre k through graduate school) that are trying to return to the original mission of schooling -- the democratic mission -- are: deliberate about recruiting its adult members and partners who breathe life into the organizational culture, confident that this mission is worthwhile, and steadfast in defending it.