The Policy Paradox by Stone - my thoughts

Policy Paradox

Stone (2002) defines the market in her first chapter as, “a social system in which individuals pursue their own welfare by exchanging things with others whenever trades are mutually beneficial” (17). She also says that markets compete for scarce resources. This definition illuminates the many reasons schools struggle when they try to adopt a market model. First, schools offer education to all, but many graduates give back to the school. The trade is not mutually beneficial for the school. Many people with high school diplomas refuse to support the schools through levies or volunteerism. If the schools, as agents of the government, benefit from the more educated populace they produce, then the government should fund the entire school system. Only then are all parties of the market mutually benefiting from the partnership. Schools have the resources they need to educated students, and government has the educated citizens needed to sustain democracy.
If a tax payer is expected to be a paying party in the market of schools, a mutually beneficial outcome is no longer just an educated populace but a competitive worker who can add to the community’s wealth. If one argues the outcome should still be an educated populace, then schools are failing to keep up their end of the bargain because voting numbers are low even among educated people, and Putnam (1995) notes that civic engagement has been declining since the 1960s. Furthermore, policy contradicts that belief with its ever increasing standards that are unrelated to citizenship. If government foots the entire bill for schools, then the curricula would have to change drastically to allow schools to fulfill that mission. Schools would have to be measured by civic engagement and voting numbers rather than by SAT scores and standards.
The second point Stone makes in her definition of the market relates to the idea that competition is held for scarce resources. This part of the market system has affected schools tremendously, because this approach to education started the choice movement of charter schools, magnet schools, and school choice. However, the underlying assumption of the school choice movement, if one applies a market model, is that education is a scarce resource, or at least “good” schools are. This idea seriously undermines public schooling. If we raise the bar for all schools, teachers, students, and administrators in an effort to leave no child behind and level the playing field, then we are no longer a market system because our scarce resources are now abundant. As a market model would predict, would schools then be worth less? Would education be worth less since the supply would easily accommodate the demand? We have already seen this happen with regards to high school diplomas. A generation ago, people without a high school diploma could find jobs and be active community members. Today, one cannot even find employment at the most base jobs without one. The high school diploma is no longer an end, but a means to reach the next level. As soon as high school no longer acted as an “end” for some, it became a commodity for all and the fierce competition for that commodity heated up because its value determined one’s ability to attain the next phase.
By definition, a market system cannot allow equality and uniformity to happen: Thus, defining education as a market-driven commodity has grave results. Stone discusses the community, and how “the most highly contested and passionate political fights are about membership,” (19). If school is now a commodity in a market system, a commodity with scarce resources, then people will fight to be part of the school communities that yield the most. Currently, we do that by moving into a neighborhood where citizens pay a premium for their schools via property taxes, but if we eliminate the need to live in a district one attends, then the definition of community is at stake. The United States already offers education to all, even the illegal immigrants and homeless children, so the only competition for a market system within education is to find the best school.
Our society is way too competitive and enmeshed in the market system to allow equal schooling to all. The market system’s purpose is to weed out the bad and make the good push themselves to excellence. By definition, there must be winners and losers. Even as school systems and the government try to enact policy that helps every child succeed, the reality is that we know that cannot happen. It is the elephant in the room: No one wants to openly support limiting opportunities and resources, but if we support market driven education systems, that is exactly what we are doing. We may be able to give everyone a high school diploma, but can we really expect the people who have defined themselves as capitalists to forego that philosophy in relation to the schools? Of course not, because we have tied school to the workforce. If school was meant to create an educated and participative citizenry, then all citizens might be willing to allow schools to offer equal access, resources and opportunity to all. After all, a good voting public is a public good. But when we start tying schooling to workforce development and competition, we recognize that everyone cannot get the trophy. Someone has to be the CEO and someone has to mop the floors. Real life isn’t about equality for all, and although we have made great strides in helping minorities and disadvantaged people rise above poverty and racism via a good education and compete, this country is still very enmeshed in the old boy network.
Our country has tried to raise the bar in our market driven schools through regulation. That regulation aims to make schools equal and more transparent about how they use their resources. Stone recognizes the limits of the market, and she realizes that regulation yields deliberate concealment. In a society where secrecy is strategy, one cannot expect schools to maintain total transparency if they are in the market system. Therefore, a market philosophy for schools will yield secrecy and concealment. The haves will find ways to make the school experience better for their children despite the “transparent” reporting of equality among schools. Perhaps the haves will move to private education all together. Perhaps they will hire extra tutors or supply extra internships and experiences for their children that no matter how good they are, all schools simply cannot provide.
My argument may sound fatalistic, but, as Stone notes, “to ignore side effects, or to pretend externalities are a defect in a minuscule area of human affairs, is to undermine the ability of public policy to achieve efficiency in any important sense” (79). Efficiency occurs when the collective moves together toward a goal. Stone notes that “communities” fight for their own survival, for the “security and pride that come from membership in that community, social trust, camaraderie and the enrichment and dignity of participating in collective decisions” (79). If we allow all schools to become equal, then we will break down the communities they are intended to serve. Communities will no longer be able to rally around the school as the defining element of their identities. Instead, they will have to look elsewhere for commonalities. What would those be? Could they begin to align based on race, socio-economic status, religion, or ethnicity? If communities had to start reframing how they are defined, then we could end up in a very segregated society, for simply using American as the main component of one’s identity is too vague.
This argument has big implications for educational policy. If we agree that market driven schools cannot work to achieve a public good, then we must also redesign the purpose of schools by revisiting the reason they exist. We must work to develop the collective sentiment, Ferdinand Tönnies’s (1887) concept of Gemeinschaft in education. Jones (1990) explains:
People interact together on the basis of reciprocal and `whole person' relationships which are to their mutual advantage. ... Members of Gemeinschaft bodies follow collective sentiment.... But with the onset of industrialism, the mutualism to be found in Gemeinschaft gives way to the competitiveness of Gesellschaft society in which relationships are fragmented, self-motivated and egocentric. ... If a future society based on the Gaian principles of interdependence, mutuality and interrelatedness is to be achieved, a reemergence of some form of Gemeinschaft is essential (108-113).
If public schooling wants to achieve clearly paradoxical aims, then it needs to redefine how we educate people. The early years need to follow a Gemeinschaft model where we teach student cooperation, citizenship, and a common set of American values that ties them to their larger community. This would be the portion the government could fund in its entirety. However, once students have achieved the knowledge they need to participate in their communities, the next phase of schooling could focus on the Gesellschaft’s more individualistic and egocentric aims. At this point students could learn the market system and the skills needed in the workforce. Communities and businesses could fund this portion of education. Community identity could be preserved, all students could attain an education necessary for participation in our society, and all students would have an equal playing field from which to begin their competitive workforce development.



Bibliography
Jones, Alwyn K. 1990. Social Symbiosis: A Gaian Critique of Contemporary Social
Theory. The Ecologist 20 (3): 108-113, p. 108
Putnam, Robert D. (1995). Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital. Journal
of Democracy, 6(1): 65-78.