Maybe It Isn't a Great Idea to Outsource Public Education to Private Companies
2 min read
As the rapid switch to online learning has made abundantly clear, K12 schools in the United States schools need learning management systems, student information systems, and videoconferencing to function. It was pretty obvious before, but school during Covid19 has brought even more focus on the infrastructure that makes school possible. Learning management systems are the mediator between students and the work they are assigned; video conferencing (used well) allows students to connect with one another, and with their teachers, when a concept is better explained as a group, or when some community bonding is needed to maintain cohesion within the course.
How many public schools in the US rely on proprietary (closed source) software supplied by private companies to run their student information system and learning management system?
How many schools use videoconferencing solutions provided by a for profit vendor?
Let's be clear about this: the glue holding the required infrastructure of our public education system together is owned by private companies. The leaning management systems, the student information systems, the videoconferencing tools -- the most widely used systems are owned by private companies, and these private companies are paid with public dollars.
The privacy issues that plague K12 education exist for many reasons, but the central role played by for profit companies collecting data from K12 students as these students engage in their legally required public education is near the top of the list.
The observations in this post aren't new, but against the backdrop of a pandemic we should take careful note: the public education infrastructure is largely run by private companies with an obligation to shareholders first, school customers second, and students somewhere after that. It doesn't need to be this way; education shouldn't need to go hat in hand to private companies to have basic needs met, but here we are. Once we are through the worst of Covid19 (realistically, when we have a working vaccine that is widely accessible) we should re-evaluate a lot of assumptions that have shaped our educational system. Hopefully, our habit of outsourcing public education to private companies will be among the many items that get improved.
