Could a business operate like a public school system?

In the many conversations about the woes of education that I have had, one argument that comes up consistently is that schools would function better if they operated more like a business. One “front porch chit chat” I had with a gentleman who owns his own business said to me “if I ran my business like the public school system runs their schools, I’d be out of business before the end of the year”. That got me thinking. Let’s flip the narrative. Instead of schools operating like businesses, what if businesses operate like public schools?  Let’s take a look at 10 reasons why your business would fail if it had to operate like a public school system.  

1. Let’s start with customers. Who are the customers? For a business that is easy. Your customers reflect what product or service you are selling. Your advertising and marketing would be directed to that specific group. If a customer is not happy for any reason you, the business, will try to accommodate them by offering them a refund, an exchange, or a coupon for a certain amount off their future purchase. Businesses respond to individuals. As a business, you can also pick and choose who to do business with. If you have an unruly customer, you can have the customer removed from your business. You can also refuse to serve a customer for pretty much any reason.

 For public schools it’s a little harder.  First, who is the customer? The student? The parent or guardian? The taxpayer? We could argue the child since schools are in the “business” of educating children. But in America, children are not legally adults until age 18 & in most cases it is the parent/guardian that will speak on behalf of the child. So does that make the parent/guardian the customer? But, how does the school answer to the parent/guardian? Schools have hundreds of students i.e customers. Education is not individualized, meaning everyone is getting an equal education. There may be some modifications due to an IEP, but all children are receiving an equal education. In a typical classroom a teacher has 25 students. That’s 25 sets of parents/guardians. Which parent/guardian does the teacher answer to? All 25? What if 5 parents/guardians want  X and these 5 do not want X, but want Y instead? What about these parents/guardians that want Z?  Which parent/guardian does the teacher answer to? Does 5 parents speak for 25? It’s impossible for a school to respond to the individual like a business does, because a school operates out of the interest of what’s best for society, not what’s best for the individual.  Public schools, per law, can not pick and choose who their customers are. They have to take in and educate ALL the students that walk through their doors; the high achievers, the kids from poverty, the kids with special needs, the kids suffering with mental illness, kids who suffered abuse, the kids with physical and/or cognitive disabilities, the ELL kids (English language learner), the defiant kids. ALL the kids. However, businesses can pick and choose their customers. They do not serve everyone like public schools do. They can target only their customers and they do not have to serve everyone that walks through their door. 

2. Let’s take a look at your product or service? Public schools are in the “business” of providing a service & that service is education. That education is determined by the needs of the public that the schools are providing an education for. That makes public schools people centered.  Meaning they exist to serve the people by providing ALL children with an equal education and the tools needed to learn. Key words being ALL the children. How do you serve everyone? How much do you charge for your service? What will your market bear? Where does your funding come from? How will you generate revenue? What’s your profit margin? Oh wait…you’re a public school you don’t generate revenue or sell your services. You’re not a storefront.  Businesses are not people centered, they are profit centered which brings up the next point. Funding….

3.  Businesses generate revenue. They sell a product or service and they depend on the customer, that they have strategically marketed to, to purchase their product or service therefore, generating revenue to pay their overhead. Their goal is not only to generate revenue, but to turn a profit. Without turning a profit the business will fail. Businesses are profit centered. All business decisions are made with profits in mind, not necessarily what’s best for the customer or society. To a degree businesses can control their funding. They can set their prices based on market demand. If they have too much of a product they can run a sale.  They can find investors to invest into their company. Public schools have none of the above options. Schools do not generate revenue. Their funding is determined by elected officials  that quite often have little to no background in education. School funding is at the whim of who won the last election. Schools might have a pro-education group in office that will “fully fund”  the schools or schools might be at the mercy of a not-so-friendly-to-public education group that chooses to reduce funding. I put “fully funded” in quotes because name one school that was considered to be fully funded, but yet still had to fundraise. If you’re fundraising, is the school really fully funded? (that’s another blog). The amount of funding is set (not by you) at the beginning of the fiscal year and you are expected to operate within that budget regardless of the circumstances in the market. On a positive note, since you’re not generating revenue you don’t have to allocate money to advertising and marketing so there’s a big savings there. 

We are halfway through, still think you can run a business like a public school?

4. Hours of operation: Businesses can determine when they are open and when they are closed. They can set their hours of operation. They determine their employees’ work schedules.  If something comes up and you need your employees to work beyond their scheduled time you can offer them overtime or comp pay. School schedules, however, are set by law that is determined by our State Legislature, i.e. elected officials (which we’ve already established most have little to no background in edcuation).  Schools in NC operate 185 days per year or 1,025 hours of instruction. If more time is needed, then too bad since schools can not operate beyond that time frame.  If an employee works beyond those hours (which the vast majority of teachers do) they will NOT, I repeat, will NOT be compensated for that time in any way. Imagine a private business being told by their state government when they can open and when they have to close and the local government setting your daily schedule. 

5. Speaking of overtime. Now that you are running your business like a public school you lose any and all rights to salary & benefit negotiations. Your salary and the salaries & benefits of your employees will not be set by you or the market, but by your state government.  Salaries and benefits can change on a whim without any input from you or your employees. These salaries will also be politicized by politicians, especially in election years.  

6. Expenditures: Everything pertaining to a school is public record. Schools are constantly being audited. Every single cent spent on operating a school system is under scrutiny by a variety of inspectors. Every cent is accounted for. These audits and scrutiny are public record and open to interpretation and constantly questioned by people who do not work for the public school system nor do they have a background in education or an understanding of how a school system is run. Yet, somehow they are the ”educational experts” and feel they are qualified to criticize it all.  During the Great Recession, gas prices were at $4 per gallon at the pumps. Diesel was higher and local school systems were faced with the real possibility of not having enough diesel to run the buses.  For a business they can just move money around to cover the shortage, but for a school system it’s not that easy. Once money is allotted to a certain area it stays there. You can not just move money around without approval. Approval means meetings, paper work, votes have to be taken, open to public comment, people sign off on it. You know all those bureaucratic things we love to complain about. The reason we have them is because someone, somewhere in the past did some dishonest things and mishandled and/or misappropriated public money. So we now have these procedures in place to prevent things like embezzling. Imagine running your business where every cent you spent, every line item on your books had to have prior approval and constantly be subject to public scrutiny. 

6. The deciders: You don’t get to make decisions about your business. Outside governing bodies do. These governing bodies are made up of democratically elected officials, who may or may not have a background in your business or field. They might listen to you and pass a policy that is good for you and your business or they may not. Don’t hold your breath on this one, because legislation on education more times than not, does not include the input of any educators & quite often does not benefit teachers, students or schools. If you follow the money you’ll clearly see who benefits. 

7. Raw materials. You will no longer get to choose your raw materials. Everything will be handed down to you by the above “deciders”. There will be little to no input from you and you will be required to take what is given to you and produce a quality product, even if the materials are flawed. You can’t reject the materials or send them back. You will have to use what is given to you. In the public school system, curriculum and instructional resources are determined by the State Government. All public schools receive the same curriculum. Regardless of the quality of that curriculum, teachers are expected to do great things with it. Even those teachers who don’t have textbooks or instructional materials for their classes…..that’s another blog. 

Have I convinced you yet that you can not successfully run a business like a public school system? Moving on to #8.

8. The press and social media. Be prepared to have everything you do and say reported by the press. There will be times where you will be front page news for both the good things you do and the not so good things you do. Social media will become your nightmare. You will be accused of doing things that you never did, never dreamed of doing, but you will find yourself defending your career against all the crazy delusional lies being spread about your career across social media. Your friends and family will question you because they “heard” employees in your business were child groomers. You will be blamed when your customers do not use your product correctly, even though they have been told over and over how to use it. You will also be blamed when your customers don’t succeed, even when they don’t show up or follow any of your directions. All of this will be your fault and you will be tried & found guilty in the court of public opinion for failing your customers.

9. Customer communication. You will be required to communicate with ALL of your customers’ parents or guardians. ALL. OF. THEM. All on a regular and timely basis. You will provide them with information on how they are academically, socially and emotionally. What they are good at and what areas they need improvement. You will have to document all of these meetings. You will not have an assistant to delegate these tasks to. 

And finally #10….

10. Well, I could list more but, do I really need to? I think it is clear that if a business can not operate like a public school system, then why do we expect a public school system to operate like a business?

Instead of telling your local school system how it should be done, help them by stepping up and advocating to your local Board of Commissioners and our NCGA to fully fund schools, to listen to teachers, administrators and superintendents. Advocate for paying teachers what they are worth (which is a hell of a lot more than what they’re paid now). Advocate to reinstating all that has been ripped away from NC teachers over the last decade plus. Instead of trying to tear it down, help build a better system by making sure ALL gets an equal education here in NC where y’all means all!