The following account is purely anecdotal and details the personal encounters of my wife and I as we researched and interacted with the most exciting opportunity for teachers we could imagine.
My wife has been dissatisfied with the public school system almost since she entered it upon selecting her major in college. Much of the school work was pointless, and more about tolerance, diversity and political correctness than actually educating children. The cost (fortunately she had scholarships and grants) would have equaled about two years salary - and very little of it, aside from the classroom experiences and behavior management instruction, was helpful.
By the first six weeks, she was discouraged with the obvious failings of the system. After the first year, she was heart-broken at the monolithic mediocrity which kept struggling students behind and smarter students from reaching their potential. By the start of this, her third year, she was completely drained and depressed about her career, feeling powerless to help, and ashamed that she was slipping into the mold of, in her words, “the typical teacher who no longer cares.”
The Utopia Revealed
On our last trip to Europe one year ago, we were at a concert dinner in Salzburg and met a women who told us about “international schools” in countries all over the world. This woman was genuinely excited about the experience she had (and if she were not raising kids, would still be teaching) in Taiwan. We looked it up and were amazed what we found. In the last year, we have been researching these schools, which culminated in a three day conference last week in Seattle.
These aren’t just any schools - they have a special benefit from the government: to be left alone. The degree, of course, varies considerably, but whether it was only in part or in totality - the defining characteristic of these schools was that they were more unregulated than their public and private counterparts. The other feature common to all of them: no teacher’s unions whatsoever.
What this meant to us, when we had a chance to meet with dozens of these schools last week, was this:
- The level of education, and particularly innovation and dynamic instruction, was the highest we’ve ever seen.
- The success of the students was unparalleled, with almost all of them going to the best universities in the world.
- the parents were active and involved in the education, while respecting the teacher’s specialized skills.
- the facilities were top-notch, and constantly updated to reflect the best the market could offer.
- the pay was outrageously high, competitive and negotiated on merit, with bonuses for skills and performance.
- little or no taxation (in almost all cases except Europe), with 30-70% of a paycheck able to go into savings.
- housing and transportation were often included.
- private health care and retirement were also included.
These actions aren’t happening because of benevolence on the part of anyone, but because “greed” and selfishness are allowed to operate. Parents are “greedy” for the best education for their kids. School owners are “greedy” for money and success. Teachers are “greedy” for using their skills to benefit children, and earning acceptable pay. These things happen because the market is allowed to operate and individual people can create, organize and distribute goods and services in the most fair, effective and efficient way possible.
Costs and Benefits
This must cost a fortune, right? A lot of money is clearly required to bridge the gap between the crumbling schools, outdated textbooks, lack of media and low teacher pay in American public schools, correct? Actually, these schools cost much less per-pupil than American public schools. This is true even of heavily regulated American private schools. But without almost any regulation - the international schools have been able to provide high quality instruction at a fraction of the cost. Even with less money coming in, a director of a for-profit International School in Kuwait assured me it was, “very profitable” (his emphasis).
Teachers in the US are accustomed to union - and some feel that the union is providing them a wage that they couldn’t otherwise get on the market. They think the union is protecting them from being run over by the size and power of their employer. While this may be the case for teachers unworthy of even the low pay currently offered - the philosophy of wages: “equal pay for work of equal value,” is a detriment to more qualified teachers who are stuck in a pay schedule that values them almost purely based on their time in the system, not quantifiable results or success.
Remember, the benefits listed above were achieved without unions. Education is a tremendously valuable skill on the market. However, I suspect it is no coincidence that as the primary, secondary and post-secondary system becomes more controlled by government, the value of education continues to drop (hence a college degree now is worth the same as a high school diploma from 1960, etc…). These salaries and benefits are being offered to qualified teachers because they can demand it with their skills and merits. For example, my wife received three job offers and turned down several second interviews that may have led to more. If she wanted to make a career out of it (which she doesn’t because she wants to raise our children first) she could literally retire at about 45 with enough money to travel the world, buy a small estate or live on a yacht.
In fact, the demand was so high that these schools actually interviewed me (not a teacher) and collected my resume so they could get me a job with a company near the school, or on the school’s support staff. Many of the schools achieved their unregulated status by being company-sponsored schools in “free-trade zones.” One school which offered my wife a position, would shop me out to Intel, IBM and HP and assured me I would likely make even more money than her. Some schools were so unregulated that they said they would train me and I could substitute teach in their secondary school. No special license, no years of education and debt - but the same qualifications as any job: on-the-job training, specialized instruction and gradual increasing responsibility.
We Don’t Need The Regulators
All parties involved in this country are dissatisfied with public education: the teachers, the administrators, the parents and the politicians - wringing their hands in frustration as government interventions with the best of intentions fail to stop the downward slide of public education. But education, like all other goods and services, does not need to be centrally planned. The selfish interests of all parties can find common ground (and common profit) if the government would stop trying to help, and instead would get out of the way and allow these people to meet each other’s needs.
I believe that the last word in the first paragraph should be “helpful,” not “unhelpful.”
“Actually, these schools cost much less per-pupil than American public schools.”
That surprised me, so I did some quick fact-checking. This year, Morrison Academy in Taiwan charges about $12,400 per year for a high school student and $10,600 for an elementary student. Fees for boarding, music lessons, lunches, and special needs instruction are extra. I don’t know how close that is to the actual cost per student, because Morrison does offer some discounts to missionaries.
In 2002 the average cost per student in Texas public schools was $10,400.
I’m not sure how the inflation and exchange rates (Morrison’s rates are in New Taiwan Dollars) affect the numbers, but it looks like the numbers are pretty close. And of course I have no idea if Morrison’s rates are typical of international schools.
Interesting article. I know a lot of people in education who share the same frustrations you express.
“Actually, these schools cost much less per-pupil than American public schools. This is true even of heavily regulated American private schools. But without almost any regulation - the international schools have been able to provide high quality instruction at a fraction of the cost. Even with less money coming in, a director of a for-profit International School in Kuwait assured me it was, “very profitable” (his emphasis).”
I’m wondering how this is possible. Is it simply a matter of our government being so bad at managing money efficiently? Do you have actual numbers to make a comparison?
Yeah, and how do the number match up when you adjust for cost of living?
You have to take example by example for tuition rates.
In very few schools, the cost is more (in Europe and America mostly). Without checking, I want to say Oregon is about $13,000 to $14,000 per student in public schools.
For example (I took the highest figures to be conservative):
Dalian American International school in china is more expensive: $16,461
American International School in Kuwait is cheaper: about $9,000
The International School in Abu Dhabi is: $10,891
However, it is my understanding that the cost per child in public schools is not including some large costs (buildings, coaches and other public support facilities that are funded differently). Consequently, there are additional fees for international schools of course.
Cost of living is favorable (especially in non-US, EU countries). That is another major benefit. You can save your salary.
We have to remember also that the supply of these schools is severely limited, and the price likely reflects a shortage. This is speculative, but backed up by empirical cases in almost any other market, but were more of these schools allowed to exist it is very likely that the price would continue to drop.
My first reaction is, Wait a minute–you’re comparing apples and oranges. International schools are, by definition, not the same thing as any public or private school in the country where they are located and also are not the same thing as public or private schools in America. Quite apart from your economically-based analysis of the schools, they are bound to be better schools because of who their students are, and, maybe even more to the point, who the parents of those students are. Parents of children who attend international schools are most likely very highly educated, well paid, and with good social and cultural adaptation skills (these things are required for people who have jobs as English speakers in foreign lands). Those kind of parents produce great kids, and great kids make a teacher’s life a lot better.
Don’t take that paragraph to say that I’m defending the current US public school system (although, I think my own kids did fine with it, I admit to doing a lot of “homeschooling” after they got home each afternoon). My real point is that international schools are a very specialized type of education for a very small segment of the population so it is a little hard to make generalizations that would apply across the board.
Assuming that they are trying to recruit American’s as teachers rather than locals, they WILL have to pay higher than normal wages. It almost always costs more to recruit someone to work far from their native land than if you were to pay them for the same job at home, and American’s are on average far more productive (and therefore should be higher earning) than the average in any other country.
Regarding shortages, standard market theory suggests that the supply of any product will expand to fulfill the demand at cost plus the minimum profit considered acceptable to the provider. This would suggest that despite the shortage of international schools, there is in fact NOT a shortage (unless there exists some government pressure against them?). As Thainamu pointed out, the average child attending an international school is likely to be of a higher quality than the average here, which would further reduce the educational costs.
Other than the cost of books, there are NO essential costs to education. Students have in the past educated themselves from books, and any college graduate is more than capable of teaching their kids through grade school. The cost of our schooling system is based on the model we have chosen (one “expert” teacher teaching a large group simultaneously in a building dedicated to that purpose). The primary need to improve education is for interested parents to encourage their children to learn important skills and to practice what they are learning. Not until high school does teaching the average student require special knowledge. (This is NOT true of many special needs students who may require extensive special knowledge to teach.)
Most teachers are educated in crowd control and psychology, again because of the method of teaching which we pursue. Home study combined with collaborative projects utilizing specialist knowledge would be a far cheaper and effective method of teaching. Sitting around having someone lecture you about material you could more easily read in a book is simply a waste of everyone’s time (particularly that of the person with specialist knowledge). Far better that students study at home, and ask questions of the specialist only as they have need. (Students who cannot yet read need little teaching that a college educated parent cannot readily provide.)
My wife has already stated in the past that she strongly doesn’t want to raise children in California (where we currently live). This may well clinch the issue, since we will likely homeschool our children at least through grade school (I was homeschooled through highschool, and have no regrets). Since homeschoolers generally test much better than public or even private schools, adding requirements beyond the same curriculum requirements faced by other schools is nothing more than elitism and an attempt to use force to address competition.
These kind of things, in my opinion, plainly reveal that the public education system is primarily concerned with economic considerations (monopoly, competitive advantage, market power, market control) rather than education. If the government were really looking to encourage education, they would plainly allow homeschooling, remove licensing and standard requirements and provide tax breaks for all education.