Quality and the Public vs. Private Post-Secondary Education Divide

Five Changes We Need in How We Look at Education

It would seem to me that if we are to make serious and lasting education reform in North America then we are going to have to address the great divide that is occurring between public and private education and substantially adapt our reforms in ways that speak to the issues of both. While a certain amount of dynamic tension is bound to exist in any industry where a vibrant public and private sector exist, the upcoming legislative pressure and student loan reforms as well as enrolment changes stemming from economic recovery are going to constrict resources in ways that could make the rhetoric very venomous (and ultimately detrimental) to both.

1) Quality in education needs to be about the education, not the funding model

Having worked as president of a private college program, been educated in the public university system and served as an public university ACC member, I am always surprised by the degree to which it is generally considered self-evident among educators in each environment that the other model is seriously deficient to the point that public or private is considered a condemning adjective. For the public schools, private education is:

Profit-centric
Lacking in standards or quality control
Student exploitive and/or expensive

For private schools, public education is:

Slow to respond to changing needs or critically out of date
Bureaucratic and political
Student unresponsive

If we are to overcome this, we need to return the debate and evaluation of school quality to a question of academic outcomes and student experience. There are good schools and bad schools in both models, and we need to objectify standards to differentiate the good from the bad that transcend model. When we equate either public or private education as categorically “bad”, we tarnish and diminish the value of education as a whole.

2) Recognize that neither approach is going away

Owing to the transformative force of education on a population, government will always have a role to play in funding and directing the education of its population. Likewise, no matter how comprehensive a public education system is, there will always be educational agendas and topics that are not, and perhaps cannot be, taught to the population at large.
Classic visions of competition between the groups are short sighted. Any initiative or idea whose primary intention is to destroy or diminish the influence of either group is both wasteful and ultimately bound to fail. Instead, we should focus our energies on how to operate for mutual advantage.

3) Recognize that both approaches have a great deal to gain by sharing resources

As educators, both private and public institutions have so much in common, including common needs. By pooling resources and dividing labour, many of the following problems can be significantly improved:

Integration of best pedagogical practices
Integration of new learning technologies into the teaching environment
Development of education technology
Creating and accessing affordable, high end curriculum
Preventing fraud, diploma mills and other criminal wrongdoing

4) Actively foster projects where public and private educators can interact collaboratively

When we create contexts for positive mutual interaction and forums for personal interactions, we help build in an appreciation for the issues and challenges that others face and we facilitate opportunities for the cross pollination of ideas. When I was president of a private college, I made a point of serving as a volunteer on the animal care committee of our local community university. Likewise, by offering opportunities to University staff to serve on my curriculum review recommendation committee, we were able to provide genuine interactions of value.
I feel the best scenario would be to pull together representatives from both communities to work on a collaborative project that both could benefit from.

5) Challenge prejudice and categorical judgement wherever we find it.

The memes I have discussed in this post can be insidious: they show up in blogs, in casual comments, in the press, and in underlying assumptions. If we are to overcome them, we need to vigilantly listen to ourselves and to others and shift our language, coverage, and discussions away from lopsided or categorical thoughts towards more case-by-case and issue driven discussion.

At least, That’s how I see it today-

Graham Harvey

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