Privatization: A Solution for School Inequities?

• Author: Chubb, John E.
• Position: Brief Article

Economically disadvantaged students suffer a number of financial inequities in public education. The school districts in which poor children live often have fewer tax dollars to spend on education than do districts in which middle-class children live. Poorer districts also tend to pay lower teacher salaries than richer districts and have difficulty attracting and retaining teachers. These inequities have recently been challenged in the courts, and states are finding ways to mitigate some of these imbalances.

But other inequities continue. One is the tendency for disadvantaged students to be served by the largest and most bureaucratized school systems. School systems serving more than 100,000 students have disproportionate numbers of poor and minority students. These same systems are plagued by the inefficiencies of public bureaucracy, meaning not only that disadvantaged students have less spent on their education than their more advantaged neighbors but that the money tends to be spent less efficiently.

Another inequity occurs within school systems. The least experienced teachers tend to teach in the schools with the highest concentrations of disadvantaged students. Most public school systems honor seniority when deciding which teachers to hire. Teachers prefer to teach in schools where student behavior is good, student turnover is low, and parental involvement is high. Thus, problem schools tend to have the most teaching vacancies, which are filled by inexperienced teachers. Because new teachers are paid less than veteran teachers, inequities in staffing bring inequities in funding: schools with disadvantaged students receive less of every district dollar than schools with advantaged students because teachers in schools serving poor kids cost less.

Privatization could go a long way toward correcting these inequities. First, if private school management firms contract with the largest and most bureaucratized school systems, disadvantaged...