Mitt Romney has taken a beating for being one of those guys who rode into town to “turn around” a mediocre or failing company – and occasionally decided to pull the plug, lay off the employees and move on to the next ticking time bomb of depreciating assets.
Almost any strategy, as long as it is legal, is just fine for the corporate takeover guys: Improve the business, pretty up the books and sell the enterprise; or shut the thing down and auction off the lighting fixtures.
The corporate takeover game isn’t burdened by rules or custom that requires one to be “nice” or “fair.” A failing or mediocre enterprise is often a drag, a blight on things around it, and the tweak that makes it better or the explosion that levels it is often a good thing for the local, state, or national economic landscape – whether or not the local town or neighborhood is happy with the results.
Where the “takeover” vocabulary and mission are most murky, of course, is in the area of public education, where an embarrassed county, region or state will take over a local school system – despite all that good stuff we’ve learned about participatory democracy and local control.
The business plan and investment strategy is a bit different in the world of public education. The takeover team can’t sell off the mess to an overseas holding company and salvage a few bucks for local taxpayers. No, the books must be prettied up to encourage further investment; that is, test scores must be improved and graduation rates must go up and the chess club must be taught to be as alluring as the local street gangs hanging out in the playground.
The takeover business vocabulary that makes reasonably good sense in the business world cries out for clarity in the education takeover game. Are the students “customers,” or – let’s be honest – products? If the parents in particular and the taxpayers in general are the investors, can they be offered reduced performance at a discounted price, which in an odd sort of way, might enhance their yield?
Tough Choices
Imagine that your takeover assignment is the Lawrence public school system, which has recently been given over to the tender mercies of the state and a takeover team. Are all options on the table? If things prove untenable, can you sell the assets and shut down the business?
Can you lay off most of the staff, spin off the high school, and focus on producing a less embarrassing elementary school education? No, it doesn’t really work that way.
Well, then, can you at least produce a compelling business plan that explains the challenges of educating a largely Hispanic, poor, English-as-a-Second-Language student body and town population – with the hint that diversifying the product line to include snobby, suburban kids would improve the test scores? No. Nobody wants to hear that.
On a school-by-school basis, the Massachusetts protocol for “underperforming” schools includes such things as extending the school day (not a plan often utilized by retail chains with underperforming stores) or firing the principal (dumping the CEO is a legitimate business strategy).
For an entire school district, especially one with as many socioeconomic challenges as Lawrence, a real “turnaround” is going to require more than following bureaucratic bullet points.
The first step might be to rescue the cluster of high-achieving students in Lawrence and send them somewhere else. They shouldn’t have to wait for “reform.” Next, recognize that in a school system where almost everyone is poor, where English is the foreign language, a dumping of the traditional curriculum is in order; that parents and their kids should be able to choose a stripped-down vocational education route that helps them escape from Lawrence schools with an employable skill.
In the short term, these takeovers of miserable school systems have as their objective to make them less embarrassing to the rest of us, huddled in our suburban havens. Not much of a business plan – but it’s a start.
