Large, bureaucratic organizations, especially government agencies, are well known for using words to shape public perceptions and obscure their own failures. (George Orwell’s “1984” was simply an extreme literary example.)
I realized this truth again when I was reading one of the local newspapers published in Dakota County, Minnesota. Various editions of the newspaper “This Week” published an article that could have come straight from the marketing machine of Independent School District (ISD) 196.
The article praised the ISD 196 for being of such high quality that virtually every school-aged student who lives within its boundaries attends one of its schools. It’s a variation of the age-old marketing appeal: the WhizBang Gizmo simply must be great, because everyone owns one.
Thanks to some quotes from district officials as well as some rather kind words–and some words that could have been said but were not–the article amounted to a puff piece for the district: Isn’t it grand?
I instantly saw several major logical problems with the argument, starting with the fact that the consumption of the service being offered–a seat in a school–is mandatory. If 90 percent of the population owns an iPod music player, that fact is a tribute the to merits of that the product. Nobody is required by law to own an iPod.
Let’s turn to education. Since children are required by law to “purchase” schooling, the fact that 90 percent of them actually attend school X, or even any school at all, tells us nothing about the school(s) in question.
The argument put forth by ISD 196–and I suspect, many other districts–has many other holes in it, too. So many that I dashed off a letter to ThisWeek. They chose to not publish my letter, but they did run a letter that expressed similar sentiments.
In a letter printed in the the January 22 edition of This Week, Rosemount resident Larry Goedtel properly called the newspaper and the district to task:On Page 2A of the Jan. 16 edition, there was the headline “District 196 Residents prefer public schools.” The article indicated that the “capture rate” of students in District 196 is 88.6 percent.
It appears that Superintendent John Currie is pretty happy with that number since he’s quoted as saying, “I think everybody read a lot about students flocking away from public schools to other options, and that’s not necessarily true in our district.”
Right now public school has a monopoly on education. Sure a child can go to a private school, or a parent can choose home schooling, but it is done primarily at that families own expense. Oh, and that family is still forced to pay taxes to support public education. So the “capture rate” statistic is totally meaningless.
Let’s make it more fair. If tax money followed the child and not the “public monopoly,” would public schools still maintain their current “capture rate” of 88.6 percent? I highly doubt it. So to use this figure and the interview with the superintendent, to support the headline that “District 196 residents prefer public schools,” is at best a joke.
We’ll never know how good our public schools really are until they have to compete on an equal footing with private schools and home schooling. Until then, please, save me the propaganda.
By the way, I thought it was totally fitting that it is called “capture rate” and not “choice rate.”
Mr. Goedtel nails it.