To edbizbuzz readers:

Thank you for helping edbizbuzz get the opportunity to reach a broader audience. In partnership with Education Week, and its online presence, edweek.org, this blog will be moving to http://blogs/edweel.org/edweek/edbizbuzz/ on or about September 5. There, “your editor” will adopt the first persn “I”.

As readers know, edbizbuzz is neither an apologist for k-12’s education industry, nor its watchdog. This blog is premised on a point of view about the industry - specifically, an explanation of public education's evolution since 1990 as the migration from a vertically-integrated state-run enterprise shaped primarily by politics, to a competitive market in teaching and learning programs driven increasingly (but in no way absolutely) by results. I believe we are in a transition between two worlds. The "end state" is still up for grabs, but we are never going back to the 1980’s.

Observers typically explain k-12 as a political battleground, an ongoing scientific experiment, a philosphical arena, a budget, a classroom, and a journey to children's self-realization as adults. All these are no more of less legitimate than the idea of k-12 as a marketplace.

My point of view is not so much that we should have private sector sales supporting k-12's teaching and learning function/activities (although I do believe that), but that we have had them for decades in the form of textbooks and local consultants. The emphasis placed by state governments on school accountability since the 1990s and the federal government since the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2001 opened this market to a new kind of enterprise – the school improvement provider. Their disruptive entry into a market so stable it was barely visible, has forced stakeholders in public education to focus on the role of private enterprise in public and the kind of involvement the nation needs, wants and should have.  

I believe that it is in every stakeholder groups' interest to see that the k-12 market works for them as well as possible.  So, yes, I am "for" business, but I am also "for" districts, unions, charter schools, etc. in the sense that they are all necessary actors in a market.  And in the end, markets are a means to an end; that is, a system of public education that provides kids with the set of skills, experiences and values society owes anyone we expect to contribute to the next generation. Where individuals, organizations and groups are serving that interest, they will get kudos. Where they aren't, they will be critiqued.

This blog has always been a forum as well as a soapbox. As we reach a broader k-12, community please take advantage of the opportunity to comment – especially when you disagree.

Thank you again,

Marc Dean Millot
edbizbuzz