Public schools are over-regulated
The last post had some fun with signs, and ended with this observation:
“…public agencies, including public schools, are constantly faced with outdated policies, requirements, and signals. And those policies are stifling innovation, undermining confidence in public education, and putting up roadblocks to new public schools, programs, and models of instruction.”
That’s not a new observation. DLC members and DLAC attendees often talk of their frustrations with policies, requirements, and regulations. In a discussion about AI, a DLC member emailed me this: (I’ve edited for clarity and to maintain anonymity)
“The biggest barrier we are facing right now is purchasing. We must go through procurement here for anything. Over the last 12 months, they have locked down purchasing, so, I can't just go out and license a few ChatGPT accounts for staff. We are expected to go through the gauntlet of purchasing rules, and if the vendor won't play ball (who at OpenAI is going to fill out a bunch of forms? who at Anthropic is available to work out payment by CHECK?), we simple can't use them.”
Despite the recognition of these challenges in our circles, the problem is still under-appreciated, and it applies to public agencies in many ares, not just public schools. Matt Yglesias explores this issue, noting that “we have subjected government action to more stringent regulation than we apply to private actors.”
Key quote (emphasis added):
“Some parts of the private sector really have become less regulated (airlines), while others have become more strictly regulated (housing), but what’s regulated most strictly of all is the public sector. And this overregulation of the public sector locks us into a vicious cycle. First, we make it very difficult for public center entities to execute their missions. Second, this leads public sector entities to develop a reputation for incompetence. Third, the low social prestige of public sector work leads to the selective exit of more ambitious people. Fourth, elected officials in a hurry to do something often seek ways to bypass existing public sector institutions further reducing prestige.”
Does this describe public education? Not exactly, but close. Most parents are satisfied with their child’s public school, even as overall satisfaction with public education is down; there’s not the general “reputation for incompetence” that some public agencies have. But there is no question in my mind that policies do indeed make it very difficult for public schools to execute their missions.
Arguably, a key problem is that unlike other sectors, it’s not just that “we make it very difficult for [public schools] to execute their mission,” but that we disagree on the mission of public education. Other areas with significant public sector involvement are less complex. Housing? We need more of it, case closed. Yes, there are battles over multi-family housing, building height, etc, but almost nobody argues that we aren’t in need of more housing. Transportation? We need more and better infrastructure across many modalities, including both roads and public transportation. Even on energy, at least based on the current election cycle, both parties are arguing for more abundant, lower cost energy, and disagreeing mostly at the margins regarding the mix of fossil fuels vs renewables.
But public education is different, because society argues about goals as well as methods. Are we educating students for jobs and economic growth? For society and democracy? Do we focus more on classical education or more on emerging critical fields and issues? At the heart of many education policy debates is a disagreement about the very purpose of education, and that disagreement leads to conflicting and sometimes arcane regulations.
Although I’m rhetorically wandering a bit here, it’s an important digression because the point is that the policy barriers that innovative educators face don’t exist in a vacuum. They share elements with other public agencies, and they are also in some ways even more widespread and systemic. Examples include:
Funding disparities based on modality (online schools and courses, hybrid, etc)
Funding mechanism differences which challenge traditional district bureaucracies to efficiently account for and fund students in innovative schools
Accountability systems that don’t consider students who are ahead or behind relative to what the system perceives as an “average” student
Purchasing requirements
Employment contracts that make shifts in how people work difficult to implement
And plenty more….
As noted at the start, much of this is not new. Readers who have been in the digital learning field for a while recognize that these are not new battles.
These policy barriers, in the past, have slowed but not stopped innovation in public education. They have been the equivalent of hiking in sand. You can do it, but it’s far slower and harder than it should be.
But there are two new elements that are making the public education policy shackles more important than ever: education savings accounts, and artificial intelligence.
To be clear: we support the full range of educational options: private, charter, traditional public, and other forms. ESAs are a critical part of those options and hold significant promise, although how well they will be implemented at scale remains to be seen and early returns are mixed. Private schools play important roles even beyond the numbers of students they serve.
But for the foreseeable future, a large number—almost certainly a majority—of K-12 students will continue to attend schools in traditional school districts. As some students and families may choose new options, in some cases powered by AI and in some cases funded by ESAs, public school districts must have increased freedom to respond, innovate, and compete. A three-tiered system in which private educational entities have free reign to innovate with the use of public funds, while traditional public schools are shackled, and charter schools are somewhere in between, will create new divides that will make concerns about the digital divide (computers and Internet access) seem quaint.
More on that topic in the next post.