Never bet against self-interest.
Simple enough, but what does this statement mean?
In any human interaction, each individual will have a set of intrinsic needs that will bias and shape the manner in which they act in any and every scenario they enter. Boil it down and you will reach these concepts – “this is my bottom line” or “beyond this point there can be no further discussion” or “this is my must have.” Every conversation contains these concepts, although many conversations do not push far enough to expose them.
In our undergraduate days, we learned about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Maslow conceived of the lower four sets of needs as “deprivation needs.” When aspects of these needs are not satisfied, the individual is motivated to take action to satisfy the need. Hunger spurs action to find food and thirst the action to find water, just as feeling cold spurs the action to find warmth and endangerment the action to feel physically safe. When the physiological and safety needs are met, an individual has the opportunity to be motivated to fulfill the needs for “love and belonging” and “esteem.” Self-actualization is different – it is not a deprivation need, but a need to become the person the individual aspires to be.
It is with interest and frustration that many of the contemporary issues that face us today should exist on the plane of community welfare or doing what is best for others without prejudice but fall quickly to the “bottom line.” Opportunities to show respect for others and their points of view and to engage in consensual problem-solving to0 frequently dissolve into conflicts with “no conversation necessary.” The outcome is defined by self-interest.
So, let’s examine the players in the issue of school choice and how they are influenced by their needs.
Who are the self-interested players of school choice? In the first rank are the parents. Parents who demand the right to choose how their child will be educated face off with parents who are committed to a traditional neighborhood school for their children. In the second rank are the educators. Charter and alternative education providers who find the opportunity to create an elective and selective schooling oppose school boards and teachers who are committed to traditional or reformed public schools. These players are engaged at various need levels, ranging from moral choice and “inalienable rights” to tradition and family loyalty to job security and livelihood.
Parents typically begin with higher motivational characteristics. Choice parents embraced self-actualizing growth needs early in the campaign and interlaced a lot of esteem issues. Gradually, as recent and ongoing studies that are indicating that charter and choice have a significant effect upon the achievement of disadvantaged, urban children but little effect upon the achievement of advantaged children, their self-interest is sliding toward esteem and belonging. Initial interests of public education parents lay in esteem and belonging to the community of their school-life that they knew as children. As the conversation continues, traditional parents have migrated toward safety needs.
Another and distended rank of self-interested players includes taxpayers and social reformers. Taxpayers who live in the school neighborhood and understand that a decline in the reputation of the community school lowers local property values have a vested interest in this discussion. Typically, these folks do not have children in school and are viewed as protestors against change. Taxpaying property owners strive to protect their economic self-interest, which is a safety need, with a small helping of community development, which is belonging.
A smaller number of players are the reformers who initially saw charter schools as a strategy for improving education for disadvantaged, urban children. They have been joined by new realists who understand that the value added nature of public education cannot be abandoned but must be reformed to accommodate 21st century problems. Reformers struggle with the data and the difficulty of empirically proving their point of view. Without empirical data proving which source of education is better in causing children to learn, reformers will raise their motivation to self-actualization and toil on to create better schools.
A last rank of players includes the politicians and national political-financial interest groups. Choice is not necessarily partisan, but more commonly is a Republican initiative for divesting Democratic policies and entitlement programs. In my state of Wisconsin, the Governor and his Republican majority are committed to forcing school choice options, initially in all urban and large enrollment communities, and indubitably in all schools. For the Governor, the question of choice is not open to discussion. His political strategy and maneuvering is thoroughly funded by conservative, Republican money, such as The Heritage Foundation.
It may be best to characterize the motivational needs of politicians and financiers as base. I recall a Wisconsin legislator’s guidance to newly elected state representatives when he said, “Now that you are elected, your job is to be re-elected.” Campaign rhetoric is abandoned. Securing election leads to party strength and incumbency leads to party dominance and once dominant a party enacts policies that will ensure the likelihood of continued dominance. This is not self-actualization, but a basic, physiological need.
A second need of politicians is to influence governance while you can because when you have power you can enact your will with the realization that the pendulum will swing and another politician will hold your seat at some time in the future. Motivation may be to construct something new or to deconstruct what the opposition has created. Regardless of the homage to citizen freedoms or relief from government or an improved life, politics is about the exercise of power and in the final analysis seldom is able to rise above deprivation needs.
How will the dance be played out? Interestingly, we will not ask children how they wish to be educated, even though many of them are of an age and intellect when they can constructively contribute to that question. And, the dance will not be decided by parents acting in their perception of the best interests of their children. Taxpayers will always be present and never satisfied with the level of any taxation. Reformers come and go with the times and with the latest fad of reforms.
Public education remains a political melody to be played by politicians using the instruments of power. Without exception, their self-proclaimed interest is not in educating children but in determining the management of education. Just examine how many candidates for office stand for educational improvement. “Elect me and I will ….” What’s that all about, Maslow?