I have been a proponent for school privatization for many years now but I’m not eloquent enough to find the right words to properly express those thoughts. But do not fear, The Mackinac Center has released a study about it.
Their release of June 27, 2007 begins:
MIDLAND — The Mackinac Center for Public Policy today released “A School Privatization Primer for Michigan School Officials, Media and Residents,” the third and final book in the Center’s Michigan School Management Series for public schools. The primer, written by Mackinac Center Director of Fiscal Policy Michael D. LaFaive, focuses on privatization of schools’ three major support services — food, transportation and custodial — and discusses how frequently these services are privatized, how the contracting process works and how school officials can optimize the cost and quality of the services they receive.
Click here for the entire release.
Click here for the publication.
If you have any friends in the Ministry of Education you might slip a copy to them. But then again, they might be too busy protecting their territory rather than worrying about a better education for our Bahamian kids.
It might be better to give it to friends in the various service industries that might be able to provide some of the services our public schools need at better prices and more efficiently.
But Rick, in our system, just about all of those services are already privately provided. There’s no government school bus service; as far as I know, all school cafeterias are privately managed where they exist; and security services are also private (and being roundly criticized, too). The only one of those services that isn’t privately provided is custodial, the janitorial staff throughout the system being one of the main areas where political supporters can find jobs.
The problem isn’t support services. It lies iwth the delivery of education itself, which is so excessively centralized that Ministry officials in Nassau can still meddle in the internal affairs of individual schools throghout the country. Excessive centralization is the rot that sits at the core of all our government activities, IMO.
Agreed Nicolette, but we have to start the dialogue on real privatisation.
As long as the government runs it and there are no public accountability requirements (after all our tax dollars pay for it) we…the country…will never be able to change things.
Why can’t we privatise the teaching?