Commodification of Public Goods: The Free-Market Mugging of Education

Chapter 8 of American Education by Joel Spring, titled “Local Control, Choice, Charter Schools, and Homeschooling,” asks deeply important questions regarding the control and dissemination of education in American society,addresses the numerous stakeholders whose perspectives must be considered when creating curricula across the country, and includes the "goal" of "developing human capital to ensure the United States remains competitive in the global economy," (219) a concept I been struggling with since I entered the education program and work with primarily first-generation college students. In it's focus on charter schools, this chapter also provides a top-notch, diplomatic outline of all the reasons I don't support charter schools. Yo, this chapter has everthing: Race, class, gender, religion, spatial concerns, they're in here! It should come as no surprise to my classmates that I am vehemently against charter schools, which I consider an extension of conservative attempts to control the morality of future citizens, break unions, commodify, and corporatize education.

Deeply influenced by free-market economist Milton Friedman, conservatives have turned to using the language of "school choice" as they fund parochial, private, and charter school options to eliminate monopoly public schools held on education. Free-market supporters argue that schools are like any other product in a marketplace, and competition will creat improvement through competition. I disagree, in that I believe that education is a public good, and should not commodified, nor subject to the whims of the market. (This is the part where I disclose that I'm fully #TeamKeynes.)The 2016 Republican platform called for school choice and financing for home schooling, private/parochial schools, charter, magnet, and online schools, career technical education and early-college high schools.

However it is important to consider whether these options provide union support or professional development, and whether they are non-profit or for-profit companies. What is the target student demographic? What are the enrollment requirements, or student code of behavior? And since taxes follow students to their schools, who will be left behind in the public schools? Will these school choice alternatives essentially defund public schools, leaving behind poor student who lost the enrollment lottery, students with behavioral issues, and the special education population? Following No Child Left Behind, the Unsafe Schools Options allowed parents to transfer students to a different school, with the caveat that the transfer school may not be a failing school. For families living in failing districts, this reduces their options drastically. If the only option becomes enrollment in charter schools, it reads like the government is directly targeting poverty-stricken school districts unable to provide support services for lack of funding and aligning themselves with corporate ed groups, to the detriment of public education.

School choice vouchers for parochial schools leads to the question of whether the government should fund religious education, which I also oppose. Many parents are concerned about the religio-moral education of their children, but that's literally the responsibility of the parents and their church. Removing dollars from public schools to fund private, religious education is incredibly problematic. Not the least because it silos the student from learning about the potential plurality of diversity in their surroundings. Although the Supreme Court allowed that Ohio Project (1983) did not infringe any amendments in that the basis of the law was secular, and avoided "entanglement" between government and religion. The fact that the majority of vouchers went to parochial schools because there were no public options available to urban parents reminds us of the segregation and gatekeeping measures in place by suburban schools to provide an academic and professional edge to suburban students to the detriment of their urban neighbors.

The injection of neo-liberal capitalism economics into public goods such as public education has resulted in a muddy mess of American capitalism, class advantage, segregation, and religion that ultimately only benefits corporate stakeholders, politicians, and families with enough capital to provide a rigorous education to their children, and only serves to further widen the inequality gap in the United States.

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