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Marion Can Do!
Dave Claborn , President
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The Business of Education
04-24-2006 8:40 am
It's no secret, certainly not in this community, that Whirlpool just bought Maytag. How that merger shakes out remains to be seen, but we are hopeful it will mean good things for Marion and Ohio with our track record of turning out world-class laundry appliances. The Whirlpool-Maytag merger is only the latest in a string of corporate mergers as companies find ways to bring greater efficiencies to their operations in the wake of global competition. What often happens as these economic forces play out is some people are squeezed out of the merged organization, but they often use the talents they've honed in the big organization in a smaller or start-up company that grows and fills a niche in the economic mosaic. We've seen it happen numerous times locally. All around Marion you can find former Marion Power Shovel employees engaged in a variety of roles. They work in engineering companies, fabrication plants, real estate development, among other pursuits. The skills they developed making huge machines have been transferred into other occupations that fit better in today's marketplace. It's the way a free market economy works. Yes, there can be hardships, such as displaced workers who may be too old or too one-dimensional to easily transfer to another vocation. In today's economy, it's not wise to become complacent or to stop learning.
Which brings me to the business of learning. If Whirlpool and Maytag can find efficiencies in a merger, why do we need five public school systems in this county, or 612 statewide? Wouldn't our public school systems benefit from economies of scale, similar to the private sector, by looking at, say, county-wide school systems? And while we're at it, why is it that in most other forms of governance a representative democracy works best, but in education, schools are dependent in large measure on direct public votes for the dollars they need? Is there a more efficient way to run schools than the balkanized approach wenow employ, where school systems bounce from fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis, and kids and their teachers wonder if good programs will survive year to year? The answer is, yes, there is. A number of other states have figured out how to run schools more efficiently. Maryland, for example, has county school systems where budgets are set by county boards of education and taxes are levied by elected county officials. Since those representatives are elected, the public has its say, but funding is evened out and more reliable than the system in place here. Educators can focus on education. There are broader career tracks for talented teachers who don't have to leave one system and move to another to advance professionally. The end result? Better educational outcomes. And better education translates into better jobs and higher incomes for the population at large.
If Ohio wants to staunch the outflow of its talented people--if we want to be competitive in the global environment, we need to start thinking strategically and stop propping up old systems of governance that may have worked a century or two ago, but today are outmoded and expensive--both in dollars and human capital. Education and economic development are tied at the hip. If we want the benefits of economic progress, we need to pay attention to the business model for our educational system.
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