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Reading, Writing and Enrichment

Private money is pouring into

American education and transforming it.

People have instinctively recoiled from giving children’s education to private companies. In most countries the business of running schools is firmly in the grip of the state.

When the state does the job well, that is fine, but growing numbers of parents want more from their taxes. The wealthiest buy private education, but most people cannot afford to pay twice for schooling. In America, strong pressure for reform comes from blacks and Hispanics in big cities, who are deserting the public school system in unprecedented numbers.

One way forward is to encourage new sorts of educators to run public schools. This is beginning to happen. Schools run by non-profit groups now educate some 250,000 American children; and a few companies are bidding to run failing schools.

Such schemes free education from the stifling grip of teachers’ unions and bureaucrats. Not only will that cut costs. It will bring stability to staffing, making it easier to sack bad teachers and keep good ones. That is especially important in America, where schools have ludicrously little say in their own staffing.

The US government says that the country spends a total of $635 billion a year on education – more than it devotes to pensions or defence – and predicts that spending per pupil will rise by 40% over the next decade. Private companies currently have only 13% of the market. But International Data Corporation, a consultancy, reckons that this share will expand to 25% over the next two decades.

Surprisingly, the new flood of private money is not going into private schools, which educate just over 10% of America’s children. Private schools have proved unwelcoming territory. Most existing ones are impossible to buy because they are run by charitable boards or controlled by the Catholic Church; and their endowments, which subsidize fees, make them hard to compete with.

So the new education companies are concentrating on supplementary services – mainly testing, coaching and pre-school education.

Sylvan Learning System, a Baltimore-based company founded by two university drop-outs, is the market leader. Testing is its most profitable business, but it also sells tuition and training. When a student flunks a test, its coaching arm can offer help to sort out his problems.

But Sylvan is also venturing into what could become its biggest market by far: public education. America’s public schools are increasingly frustrating parents and are falling behind international standards. America spends more of its GNP on education than most countries, yet it gets mediocre results. Children in Asia and Europe often trounce their American counterparts in standardized schooling tests. More than 40% of American ten-year-olds cannot pass a basic reading test; as many as 42 million adults are functionally illiterate. Part of the reason for this dismal performance is that close to half the $6,500 spent on each child is eaten up by ‘non-instructional services’ – mostly administration.

Now the barriers between public and private sectors are eroding, allowing entrepreneurs into the state system. Given the prospective growth in the market, education will go on attracting investors. But will private money do any good for pupils?

One improvement may be a greater focus on the individual. Much private tuition is personal, geared to particular needs. Private investment can also make for greater willingness to experiment. Companies can try things out more freely, and institutionalize successful experiments more rapidly, than can public schools. Some provide children with an ‘age-appropriate curriculum’, based on the latest research on brain development.

Not surprisingly, there is plenty of opposition to creeping privatization, mainly on the part of teachers’ unions. Yet America’s schools are so clearly failing, and parents are so clearly willing to spend to escape the consequences that union opposition may not slow privatization down. The biggest policy question will be whether, with the right sort of government regulation, they can be steered so as to benefit all schoolchildren – and not just, as now, a privileged few.

(Compiled from ‘The Economist’)

Choose the best answer to the following questions.

1. The article says “most people cannot afford to pay twice for schooling” which means that

A. private school fees are high and they don’t want to pay a double price for schooling.

B. they cannot pay school fees and at the same time pay taxes a part of which is spent on education.

C. they cannot pay school fees twice a year.

2. One way to improve the performance of public schools is to

A. do away with teachers’ unions and bureaucrats.

B. cut costs.

C. give public schools a better opportunity to select staff.

3. The existing private schools are hard to compete with because

A. they get money contributions from charitable boards and the Catholic church.

B. they are run by charitable boards.

C. they are controlled by the Catholic church.

4. What does not illustrate that America’s public schools are falling behind international standards?

A. America spends more of its GNP on education than most countries.

B. More than 40% of American ten-year-olds cannot pass a basic reading test.

C. Children in Asia and Europe have better results in schooling tests.

5. “Functionally illiterate” is a person who

A. cannot read.

B. cannot write.

C. cannot do his job properly because of lack of education.

6. Does the author of the article think that

A. privatization of education will fail due to opposition on the part of teachers’ unions?

B. privatization will most certainly develop?

C. privatization will not be encouraged because it benefits only privileged children?

V Now read the article carefully, find the following words and word combinations in the text and learn their meaning. Make it a particular point to use these words in the further overall discussion of the problem.