The Corporate Model

For years, we've heard that the corporate model -- results/profits at all costs -- should be emulated by government. Anyone who disputes this notion is painted as an anti-American communist who doesn't understand how things work in the "real world."

Here's one example of what that mindset can lead to.

Atlanta Public Schools are reeling from the fallout of a state investigation that confirmed reports of a massive test cheating scandal throughout the district. On Thursday, the interim state superintendent Erroll Davis announced four main reforms the district will adopt immediately, and vowed that educators who participated in the cheating would never teach in Atlanta public schools again.

Earlier this week a report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation revealed that 178 teachers and 38 principals had participated in cheating in the district. The new state investigation confirms a cheating scandal of stunning breadth. The GBI investigation confirmed cheating in 44 of 56 public schools they looked into. Eighty teachers confessed to participating in the district’s cheating.

Why did cheating become so routine and pervasive?

The report laid out three main reasons for the widespread cheating: politicians and school officials set and enforced unreasonable targets for yearly testing progress that were to be met at any cost. This in turn helped institute a culture of fear and intimidation throughout the district. So obsessed was the district with test results, it discarded concerns about ethics.

In other words, Atlantic educators were more worried about the bottom line (test scores) than the actual educating itself!

This is precisely the kind of ethics-challenged mentality that running government entities like a corporation engenders. It doesn't matter what the mission of the agency or program might be; the bottom line is the ONLY thing that matters.

I don't know about you, but that's not the kind of government I want.