As I start applying for jobs, I’ve had some discussions on the merits of starting your own business. I can see why you’d want to, especially since I’ve noticed an upswing in ads like these:
News flash: school isn't there to make you happy. It's there to educate you. And to give you the social skills to meet the friends that will make you happy. And to give you the credentials that will make you the money that will give you the stability to be happy.
Hell, what isn't better than a high school classroom if you're a hormone-driven teen?
Ah, the direct marketing of education, complete with drug-company scare tactics. If you click on the site, you’ll find out your kid needs an online (and for-profit) alternative that provides “student-centered learning.” Because classrooms aren’t defined by having students in them, obviously.
I guess this is tutoring, and that’s one way to make money if you’re an educator trying to get out. And sure, there’s no doubt that one-on-one learning is more effective than classroom learning. I’m not so sure virtual one-on-one is, though. Even passing over the ethical issues of not socializing your kids, catering to those with money, and widening the gap between rich and poor, you couldn’t pay me enough to work for this company.
Or maybe you could. Texas A&M has just published a “report” (if you can dignify it with that term) quantifying how cost-effective their teachers were — oh, and don’t worry, when they listed how much revenue profs generated from winning prestigious government grants, it was only an “informational” footnote, reflecting nothing very important. Yeah, just ignore the man behind the curtain, too.
Hmm….According to A&M’s financial calculations (basically, the tuition being paid into each class) I’d be delighted to to offer the general public a Vanderbilt-quality lecture at cost — as long as they were paying it directly to me. And as long as they understood that this payment in no way constituted an “investment” or gave them any say over the material. This is why I’m guessing most educators wold rather work for themselves than for a company. They’ve had enough of working for unreasonable bosses and they want a little say over their learning environment.
This is why I also couldn’t work for the “University” of Phoenix.
Look, I understand the frustration with schools wasting their money on bloated administrators and koi pond maintenance. This goes double for college, where you’ve got to pay for public school. And I understand people’s annoyance with profs who don’t even try to see their subject as relevant to real life, or who are completely out of touch with the students’ need to make some money at the end of a liberal arts education (hint: this includes the authors of Higher Education?). There are valid reasons to give the boot to apathetic instruction, snooty curricula, and ivy-covered reliquaries.
But paying for something doesn’t mean you run it. And you absolutely cannot do education by the customer-satisfaction model, because what students should be learning is (for example) that they’re not the center of the universe, life isn’t fair, and the human race acts abysmal much of the time. Or maybe just that they’re average. “Not everybody can be A” is another good lesson, but it’s not the feel-good sort of thing most kids are looking for these days.
So maybe rugged individualism is the way to go. Rogue teachers offering ad hoc services have been around a long time. In ancient Greece, these were the sophists, wandering thinkers who took money from youngsters wanting to learn rhetoric. The sophists got a lot of flak for what many called a mercenary investment in amoral persuasion rather than real devotion to Truth and Beauty, presumably because they answered to no one but themselves.
Ironically, I think it would kind of be the opposite nowadays.
isn’t k12 the government’s (public school) version of free homeschooling? i could be wrong…
Not quite, but I think that’s exactly what they’d like us to think. They’re “partners” and “course providers” being used by some public schools, but many more private schools. So while they’re advertising it as enrolling your student for “free” if it’s a public school, k12 is still a for-profit business (hence the .com) and someone (i.e. the school and the taxpayers) is paying their price. It’s prominently displayed that you can buy directly from them, too, so they look to me like govt. contractors at best.
I admit I have a real pet peeve about this stuff because I rated websites for a time. Advertising disguising itself as neutral information really, really ticks me off.
i just this past week heard an alarming stat…that the cost per kid for public school to the taxpayers is an average of $7k…..i’d love to know who their ‘partners’ and ‘course providers’ are.
Yeah, that does seem a bit much. And it’s not that I object to money well-spent on education, it’s that I’m skeptical given the money that k12 appears to spending on its own advertising as well as the government’s general record with its contractors. Also, k12′s website strikes me as a being deliberately slippery — another holdover from my rating days.
wow (about the stat).. that is surprising.
This is the first time I’ve been introduced to K12.. eek!
Eek, indeed, but check out the interwebs, because they’re all over it! It’s rather maddening!
I’ve been reading this blog straight through instead of reading Judith Butler, and I would definitely hire you to teach me about Plautus. Just, you know, in case you’re branching into that market.
Oh dear, Judith Butler might come after me and I’m sure I’d lose that fight. I’ll let you know if I’m offering Plautus lessons, though I suspect it will be a while.