Corporate ed

With so many public school districts tapped out when it comes to funding, test scores, and graduation rates, the private sector has begun swelling into the gap, taking more and more of an active role in shaping the direction of public education. This trend has intrigued me ever since I wrote a story on Microsoft's School of the Future in Philadelphia for Fast Company a couple of years back. I expected to be put off by Microsoft's efforts to ingratiate itself into public ed, but came away surprisingly impressed. The School of the Future kids I met were much more confident speaking in front of large groups than I was at their age, and let's face it—in today's world, it pays to know how to use Power Point.

Microsoft isn't the only corporate behemoth anxious to put its stamp on today's youth; other companies pursuing public-education ventures include Lockheed Martin, Citigroup, and Google. In many cases, public school districts welcome corporate intervention. Paul Vallas, former “CEO” of the Philadelphia school district, was known for actively courting public-private partnerships. Such partnerships tend to be win-win—the sponsoring company gets good PR and a chance to evaluate its pedagogical ideas, and students in financially stretched districts get access to resources and teaching methods that might never be available to them otherwise.

The question now isn't whether public-private ed is going to take off—it already has. The questions of the moment are what rules should govern company involvement in our kids' education and at what point corporate self-interest gets in the way of the public good. (In this case, “the public good” is a well-rounded education that prepares kids for any occupation they might choose—not just for becoming denizens of corporate cube farms.)