Education logo

Business-Managed Democracy

‘Business-managed democracies are those in which the political and cultural
arrangements are managed in the interests of business.’
Sharon Beder, 2009.


Menu Bar
pointer Business-Managed Democracy » Education » Schools as Businesses » Business Model » Rust
Business Model not Appropriate

There are good reasons to believe that a business model, with its focus on cost-effectively producing outputs, is inappropriate to education. Learning is not work and teaching is not production. Graduates are not manufactured. Lewis Finch, a Colorado school superintendent, pointed out:

reference
Reference: Quoted in Nancy J. Perry, ‘Where We Go from Here’, Fortune, 21 October, 1991.

Corporations want us to operate public schools like they operate their businesses. They can carefully select their raw materials to produce, say, the best Oreo cookies in the world. But out behind the plant is a pile of refuse made up of those that don’t qualify. Is that the kind of school system we want for America? I think not.

reference
Reference: Alfie Kohn, ‘Students Don't 'Work' – They Learn’, in Alfie Kohn and Patrick Shannon (eds) Education, Inc. Turning Learning into a Business, revised ed. Portsmouth, NH, Heinemann, 2002, pp. 64-5.

Many school activities produce an outcome but the process of achieving that outcome is what is important. Learning should be about discovery, exploration and curiosity, not just performance and achievement, which is all the business model is concerned with.

arrowPrevious

See also: Business Model | Business Language | Business Management

References

 

© 2009 Sharon Beder
http://www.herinst.org/BusinessManagedDemocracy/education/businesses/appropriate.html
Government