Microsoft's new project: Building a better high school

The School of the Future employs the corporate jargon of the future, like Microsoft's "competency wheel," a pie chart of strengths that "stakeholders" should possess. When a committee of educators failed at wheel-based planning, Microsoft decided to assign the task to Lominger, the private company that handled Microsoft's own wheel. Microsoft also had a hand in developing the building's design, which abandons straight hallways, desks and a cafeteria for flexible space, workstations and faux-urban street corridors (replete with faux-urban street signs). Mary Cullinane, Microsoft's "technology architect," talks about how the design coheres to the company's ideal of "continuous, adaptive, relevant learning." And it does. It also looks like the bastard child of a shopping mall and a corporate campus.

According to Microsoft's David Driftmier, general manager of worldwide education strategy, the company sees itself as playing an "enabling role" in education. "We're not an education company. We're a software company. Technology is what we know." Besides, he added, "it's not about the technology; it's about the people that use the technology."

Greg Butler, director of worldwide K-12 education strategy, seconded that notion. "Part of our corporate mission is to enable people and corporations to develop their potential. It's to our benefit to produce people that can work in companies like ours."

It is nearly impossible to find a critic of the School of the Future. Part of this is due to simple misinformation: Many Philadelphians -- even education activists -- wrongly assume that Microsoft is paying for the school's building costs. Yet even when they learn the terms of the deal, they tend to associate Microsoft's foray into public education with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has invested $600 million in the creation of small schools. Just last month, the Indianapolis Public Schools announced that it had received $1.3 million from the Gates Foundation to convert its five traditional high schools into 21 small academies, part of a $11.3 million package that also envisions the creation of 10 new high schools (public, private or charter) in the metropolitan area. New York City's small-schools bonanza (27 high schools, 14 middle schools and 11 sixth-to-12th-grade schools) is backed with $58 million from the Gateses.

The Philadelphia project has no ties to the Gates Foundation, but small schools and integrated technology are trends that the Gates Foundation has popularized. The Gateses have unquestionably done marvelous things for students -- provided computers, trained faculty to teach with computers, reduced class size. And in the process, they've spread the idea of specialized academies and encouraged a market-based approach to school construction. District CEO Vallas' driving passion -- many small neighborhood schools that offer kids a free-market choice of where they go -- is vintage Gates.

But the question, as always, is who actually gets to choose. The independent group Research for Action, which released a report on the effects of privatization in Philadelphia last May, has found that citizens have been closed out of decisions surrounding partnerships.

"There's very little public input about which companies come to Philadelphia and why, and to which schools they'll be assigned and for what they'll be held accountable," said RFA's Eva Gold. "Our concern is that given that public education is a public institution, there should be public dialogue and discussion about these issues, with the public playing a role."

"The district is using the small-schools language, but what's the real definition of 'small schools'? Community control, community involvement in decision making ... It's sort of the opposite of what the district is trying to do," Eric Baxon, executive director of the Philadelphia Student Union, told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

And then there's the tricky issue of the transfer of capital from the public to the private sector. "Can we afford to have a company extracting a profit from a profoundly and chronically underfunded school district?" asked Paul Socolar, who edits the Philadelphia School Notebook, a quarterly grass-roots education publication. "And when a company gets a contract to do something the district hasn't done well, shouldn't we figure out when and how to transition back to having the school district do the job and thereby keep all that money in the local economy?"

The privatization of education management is here, and it's not going away. The urgent conditions that led to the 2001 state takeover make Philadelphia a special case. But communities around the country would be wise to watch their local school boards carefully as they struggle to respond to the challenges of high-stakes testing and the increasing pressure to provide more for students with less public money. You can bet that Microsoft already is. In fact, the company has already had meetings with Chicago-area educators interested in their own School of the Future.

Story finder (3 ways to search Salon)

Search terms:

Salon the Web

Salon Directory (browse by topic)