By Richelle

While reading a recent copy of the Economist, I stumbled onto an article that caught my attention – “A Swedish Model: A Swedish firm has worked out how to make money running free schools.” Hmm–making money running “publicly funded” schools? I had to read more as I wondered about the quality and support for such a model.

A little background: According to the article, private schools can be opened up and receive the same dollars as public schools. Over the past decade the number of students educated in such schools has reached about 10% of the total population.  While these schools cannot charge students additional funds, they can work to make a profit by using less money than they receive in funding. Quickly, chains of schools have risen across the country, seeking to educate students using public funds more efficiently, in the hopes of making a profit. 

Schools making a profit?  Would the school founders be so highly focused on money-making that other things, like the quality of student learning, might suffer?  Right off the bat, something didn’t sit right with me – Would kids be shortchanged as entrepreneurs tried to make money? Couldn’t the “profit” be reinvested in the students so that they learned at an even high level?  Is this the ultimate result of what happens when a “business model” is applied to education? 

While I had many questions, I kept reading and exploring the Swedish system. The article takes the reader on a journey into one of the largest chains of such “for profit” schools in Sweden, Kunskapsskolan (“Knowledge Schools”). The schools are compared to Ikea, because of their bare bones approach to educating students and their practice of getting the “customers” to do the work themselves, through self-exploration and personal study. An interesting idea, if students are motivated and willing.  Maybe this is why the schools are a “choice” and not for all students?  If a student is motivated and able to work on their own, this program caters to their skills and learning preferences. This school might not be for everyone—but it could work well for some kids and serve to guide the more self-motivated students.

A particular quote stood out to me, from the leader of these Knowledge Schools, a Mr. Ledin:

Many schools would be horrified to be likened to IKEA, but Mr Ledin goes one better. “We do not mind being compared to McDonald’s,” he says. “If we’re religious about anything, it’s standardization. We tell our teachers it is more important to do things the same way than to do them well.”

So– quality doesn’t matter in education, but standardization does?  Wow! While reading the article, I wondered how long we would last as educators if quality mattered less than uniformity.  Isn’t our whole focus in education on “doing things well” and ensuring that students learn by personalizing their education?
I wonder what the Swedish accountability system for evaluating student success looks like. This school chain might be doing something right, as a large number of their students go on to further studies… or is it that only self-motivated students do well in such a system? The Kunskapsskolan are getting students in their schools who were very successful in other schools.  I wonder if such a system would work here?  We might not need to wait too long.  The Kunskapsskolan model is seeking to spread to other countries.  I guess time will tell if standardization, over quality, works for all students.