Imagine the best school teachers
making millions of dollars a year,
making more than star baseball players.
That’s already happening one country.
It’s something I learned from the PBS series School Inc.
Here’s part 2 of the
Stossel-shortened version
of the documentary made by Andrew Coulson.
Wouldn’t it be great if the best teachers
earned that same remuneration
and that same recognition?
Well here in Korea,
they do!
Mr. Choi is a national star.
A lot of students have fallen in love with his lectures.
In the past, students from outside Seoul had
to come take these classes during vacation.
But as internet technology improved,
kids got the opportunity to listen to great lectures
in the comfort of their own homes.
There aren’t really many celebrity teachers,
so we have to take online courses.
He was like a celebrity to us and
he actually helped me with the subjects that I did not
really do well on.
He helps a lot of people.
On average
over 100,000 students taking my lessons.
That’s how he makes millions.
And since these most popular teachers make
the most money
teachers compete within the market to become,
like,
entertaining and educative at the same time,
you know?
Teachers competing to be
entertaining and educational!
That happens in the private education market.
Government schools...
they're different.
In government schools,
the best teachers don’t make more money.
Mr Choi is thankful for private schooling.
To be able to share the things that you know
and get paid for doing that is actually a miracle.
America’s private school sector is not yet that robust.
But there are now some charter schools
That do make a big difference.
One of Oakland’s worst schools was gradually
turned into the highest-scoring school in California.
Every racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic
subgroup of students at these schools
easily out-performs its statewide peers.
And all of them
beat the average for wealthier white students.
The high school has topped the Washington Post's
list of the nation’s best.
Jemila transferred here in 7th grade.
This charter was different from her
government-run school.
It was just a
really big transition because the school that I went to,
they actually gave me
a text book and put us in the back of the classroom
to learn and teach ourselves.
But the enemies of choice keep trying to
kill off their competition.
They fight charter schools, vouchers,
school tax credits, education savings accounts.
They say charter schools
are unaccountable,
because they’re not run by the state.
But real accountability rarely comes from
government regulators.
Regulators may sleep on the job, or
take bribes, or just
follow meaningless rules.
Real accountability happens
when parents get to choose
which school gets their money.
If there were no regulations at all,
wouldn't some private schools try
to take advantage of families?
And wouldn’t the most likely victims be
children whose parents had little schooling themselves
Here in India,
a lot of schools are taking advantage of poor families.
Back in 1999,
a team of researchers made surprise visits
to schools around the country.
In village after village, they found one type of school
that consistently had the worst facilities
and the least learning.
Most had leaking roofs,
and barely any had drinking water.
And if you’re wondering why anyone would
pay for that that kind of service
it turns out there’s a good reason:
they have to.
The findings I just described
are for public schools.
This teacher talked with a public school teacher.
I said that, “Oh, so what's been going on with you?"
And she said, “Oh, I managed to get a government job.
My life is set."
And I said, “Set in what ways?”
She said, “Well, I'm never going to be fired.
This is a job for life and it pays me well.
And I don't even have to go.”
She hasn't been to school
for the last year-and-a-half since she was
posted there.
Coulson then interviews
British education professor James Tooley.
Tooley travelled the world to
research how the poorest people educate kids.
He went to the slums of India
And I found something which
which changed my life.
I found
a private school,
a low-cost private school
in those days
charging the equivalent of about
one U.S. dollar per month.
I found one,
and then a second, then a third
and soon,
I found this federation
of low-cost private schools
When he told his fellow educators about that,
they dismissed his discovery.
“What you’ve found is a couple of businessmen
ripping off the poor.
And anyway, it's only happening
in India.
We know about it.
"It's a small thing, you know”
And I thought, ripping off the poor? But that's
not what I have seen there.
I’ve seen dedicated
entrepreneurs who are running schools.
They come in on their weekends, and run science fairs,
you think, “Okay, this must be charity.
maybe the mosques are supporting them,
some NGO,
some non-government organization is supporting them
When you see 5, 10, 15
and you hear 500 of these schools
you realize that can't be the case.
There has to be a
financially-sustainable business model.
I talked to a lot of parents and said,
“You're poor," you know
"Why are you spending money on
the private schools
when the government schools are free?”
I’ll never forget, one said,
"In the government schools,
our children are abandoned."
And sure enough,
I went to see one of these government schools.
130 children sitting on the floor.
It's a government school
just around the corner from here,
130 children,
all bright-eyed, eager to learn,
eager to welcome this stranger in their midst,
doing nothing,
abandoned.
There are government school regulators.
Tooley interviewed them,
and they admitted that they take bribes.
They were quite up front about it.
They came, they sat in the office;
they sat in a comfortable desk.
They took the money;
they didn't even bother to look
in the school.
They had a nice cup of hot chai
and off they went.
Dozens of scientific studies have now looked
at these budget private schools in India and
elsewhere.
And what most of them find is that
private schools
are out-performing government schools
that spend three or four times as
much per pupil.
These parents care about their schooling.
They said, “Why are there only 10 computers?
Why was their teacher absent last week?
They care.
They are paying money.
And because they're paying, they will
keep the schools accountable.
That's a very important thing
which you mess with at your peril.
That’s just a sample of Andrew Coulson’s
3 part PBS series,
School Inc.
You can watch the whole thing on the
Free to Choose Network's Youtube page.
Unfortunately,
Coulson did not live to see his documentary finished.
He died while completing it.
School Inc is a wonderful memorial to him
and his fine work.