Competition Is Harming Our Schools

The predominant theme in our education system has been—and is—competition. Schools in one neighborhood are compared to schools in another, town against city, state against state, and our nation against all others. Often such comparisons are ill conceived and without merit. Nevertheless, the idea that competition is good is conventional wisdom. Policymakers at every level promote competition, embedding it in the very language of policy. “Race to the Top” is a prime example.

However, that phrase and the concept behind it are incompatible with a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats philosophy presumed to be foundational in American public education. Horace Mann, the “father of American education,” believed that the common school would be the “great equalizer.” That ideal has yet to be realized.

Politicians and policy leaders prize the sentiment. The titling of No Child Left Behind bears witness. But NCLB rhetoric rang hollow from the beginning. No broad-based, legitimate effort has been made over the past three decades and more to address affirmatively the fundamental public education goals of equality and equity, regardless of rhetorical pandering to these notions by pundits, politicians, and policymakers of every stripe. Public schools today are more poorly funded than ever, the gap between haves and have-nots has widened, many schools are experiencing resegregation, and the culture of competition ensures that the education playing field will never be level.

Technology is inextricably intertwined in today’s education. From the federal office to the local classroom, from attendance software to apps on students’ tablet computers, technology is integral to schooling at all levels. Technology proponents, echoing Horace Mann, have envisioned technology as the “great equalizer.” Often, to the contrary, education technology is being coopted to serve the national mania for competition. The use of technology to support testing based on the Common Core State Standards is an example.

Sarah Irvin Belson, dean of the American University School of Education, Teaching, and Health, recently commented, “If reformers were interested in making real change, they would address the real issues that underpin the school quality, such as increasing teachers’ professional authority and encouraging high quality curriculum and instruction (note that standards do not equal curriculum). Current school reformers (including the current secretary of education, Arne Duncan) are focused on a misguided principle that competition and disclosure can be a powerful tonic for school improvement.”*

All available evidence points in precisely the opposite direction. Unbridled competition is harming our schools and the children they serve.

(*Quoted in Valerie Strauss, “Is Competition in Education Killing Our Sense of Community?” Washington Post, June 17, 2013. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/06/17/will-competition-in-education-kill-our-sense-of-community/)