Our district got rid of our night time custodial staff and hired a firm to do the cleaning at night. The district saved money, but the teachers constantly complain about their rooms. Sometimes it seems like the only thing the night custodians do is empty trash, clean bathrooms and sweep the halls.
Companies look at a sector like education, and because they don't know the sector well at all (except that, of course, everyone went to school, so everyone is an expert) so they look at it and go "Surely there are inefficiencies we can squeeze to get profit." They assume that there must be a lot of change under the couch cushions, but they've never been in the living room and they don't even know if there IS a couch.
Saw this cross-posted by Andy Spears. Thanks for the analysis. Teacher here. A critical point here is that efforts to increase efficiency require a closed system of concrete variables and measurable outcomes. A lot of the damage is done in the reduction of the "outcome" of education to a single quantitative figure--achievement on standardized assessments. Pretty much anyone would acknowledge that the public school system has more and even greater aims than maximizing test scores and that scores don't reflect much of what it means to be educated, but all other purposes are subordinated and ultimately eliminated because they have no assigned value in the closed system in which policy makers operate. Of course, it's challenging to come to agreement over what those purposes might be--e.g. clearly some don't believe that understanding and tolerance of diversity is a valid purpose of public education. But that seems like a good place to start breaking out of the efficiency cycle that is eating our education system alive.
Our district got rid of our night time custodial staff and hired a firm to do the cleaning at night. The district saved money, but the teachers constantly complain about their rooms. Sometimes it seems like the only thing the night custodians do is empty trash, clean bathrooms and sweep the halls.
Love this:
Companies look at a sector like education, and because they don't know the sector well at all (except that, of course, everyone went to school, so everyone is an expert) so they look at it and go "Surely there are inefficiencies we can squeeze to get profit." They assume that there must be a lot of change under the couch cushions, but they've never been in the living room and they don't even know if there IS a couch.
Saw this cross-posted by Andy Spears. Thanks for the analysis. Teacher here. A critical point here is that efforts to increase efficiency require a closed system of concrete variables and measurable outcomes. A lot of the damage is done in the reduction of the "outcome" of education to a single quantitative figure--achievement on standardized assessments. Pretty much anyone would acknowledge that the public school system has more and even greater aims than maximizing test scores and that scores don't reflect much of what it means to be educated, but all other purposes are subordinated and ultimately eliminated because they have no assigned value in the closed system in which policy makers operate. Of course, it's challenging to come to agreement over what those purposes might be--e.g. clearly some don't believe that understanding and tolerance of diversity is a valid purpose of public education. But that seems like a good place to start breaking out of the efficiency cycle that is eating our education system alive.