Giving Schools the Business 0
One of the recurring strategies in the campaign to sell out off public resources is to argue that the target of the day “should be run like a business.”
This tactic is especially popular when the target is not like a business in any way and often serves as a cover for reducing the pay and benefits of the (usually relatively low-paid) persons employed in that endeavor, while increasing the pay of executives and consultants feeding at trough while the endeavor is made more “business-like.”*
Thomas Zachek skewers this strategy as it is applied to schools. A nugget:
What private-sector job does teaching really correspond to? Teachers don’t do what doctors or lawyers do. Or salesmen, middle managers or roofers. Trying to educate a room full of children or teens just is not like other pursuits. (Sometimes I think a teacher’s job is most like a cross between a standup comic and a lion tamer.)
Name me five occupations in the business world that expect the level of education and preparation we expect from teachers, with similar workloads and responsibilities, for similar pay. Heck, name one.
Read the rest.
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*Overpaid CEOs and consultants at the trough are often the most “business-like” attributes of the products of the “run like a business” crew.
