Doing It Themselves

Indeed, it's remarkable how many cheap private schools manage to do more with less. In Uttar Pradesh, one of the poorer Indian states, for instance, Oxford University's Geeta Kingdon has found that private, unaided schools are about twice as cost-effective as government schools, achieving better results in math and comparable results in reading at half the cost. The explanation lies in basic market forces. Competition forces these schools to work effectively. It also produces greater accountability.

In India, teachers' unions are so powerful that educators are almost never fired or transferred for transgressions. And parents are powerless. "At government schools, parents won't even be allowed into the compound, let alone to meet a teacher, but in private schools, in most cases, they have parent-teacher associations," says Parth Shah, president of New Delhi's Center for Civil Society and coordinator of India's School Choice Campaign—a program that promotes vouchers to allow poor kids to attend private school. "Parents feel they have a right to ask a question of a private school."

This higher standard is on view at Priya Adarsh School, another low-cost private operator in northeast Delhi. Here the principal—keen on keeping customers—watches his teachers on a closed-circuit television while he pecks away at a spreadsheet on his desktop PC. The standards aren't perfect, of course; when NEWSWEEK visited, the camera caught one teacher whacking a pupil with a ruler. But at least every teacher was in his or her classroom teaching, and every student was sitting at a desk and paying attention.

Skeptics decry this "at least they're trying" argument. In many regards the cheap private schools are substandard—with poor infrastructure, high teacher-student ratios and poorly qualified instructors—even if they are better than state schools. R. Govinda, head of the department of schools and nonformal education at New Delhi's National University of Educational Planning and Administration, says embracing cheap private schools is defeatist. "I'm not ready to settle for a substandard alternative," he says. "Comparing them is like comparing two people who are drowning. One is drowning in 20 feet of water, the other is drowning in 30 feet of water. Does it make a difference?"

Other opponents, both in India and elsewhere, argue that ceding the educational field to private players will put an end to any hope of an equal education for all. A study based on a survey of parent satisfaction published earlier this year by researchers at Columbia University found that relying on private markets can undermine educational equity and universal access. Furthermore, it argues, private schools strive for superior quality only where they compete with government schools; otherwise they offer "lower-quality, second-chance" educations to children without any other option. "There is no reason to assume that private markets will necessarily improve the quality of education," the study concludes.

School-choice advocates respond that it is a fantasy to suggest public education is providing a quality education to all. "You can't compare the reality of private education with some myth of what public education has been like," says Tooley. At least cheap private schools are responsive to parents, and the more parents who choose this route, the better private schools will get, thanks to increased capital, higher demand, more competition and economies of scale. "These are [now] small cottage industries," says Tooley. "They're mom-and-pop stores. There are thousands and thousands of them. Some of them are beginning to consolidate, and you're getting small, embryonic chains."