2007; 40; 118 originally published online Jun Education and Urban Society R eforms using choice and competition to leverage change in education Keywords: school choice; school marketing; family information; competition; charter schools School Informational Responses in a Competitive Local Education Market
Author’s Note: The author gratefully acknowledges financial support from the SpencerFoundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, through the Advanced StudiesFellowship Program at Brown University. The author wishes to thank Carl Kaestle, JohnModell, and the other faculty and fellows at Brown, who offered helpful comments on thiswork. Of course, the author is responsible for all data, statements, and views, as well as anyerrors, presented in this article.
Marketing SchoolsConsumer Goods and CompetitiveIncentives for Consumer InformationChristopher LubienskiUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Effective school-choice plans depend on the quality of information availableto families. Examining the promotional materials provided by differentschools in a highly competitive and diverse urban area tells us not only aboutthe quality of that information but also how schools respond to competitiveincentives. This analysis outlines an economic theory of goods as a frame-work for understanding information, focusing on the essential “search,”“experience,” and “credence” qualities of promotional materials. The infor-mation made available to families through commercial-style materials chal-lenges the notion of parents making reasoned choices based on institutionaleffectiveness. Instead, more emotional themes and images dominate schoolmarketing strategies, with implications for ethnic and socioeconomic sortingwithin diverse but competitive climates. Promotional strategies suggest thatcompetition is creating an environment in which, rather than responding toincentives intended to improve education for more disadvantaged students,schools are instead attracting better performing students through theirmarketing campaigns.
Keywords: school choice; school marketing; family information; competition;charter schools
Reforms using choice and competition to leverage change in educationare indeed changing the ways in which schools operate, as was
intended by reformers. Although not necessarily “privatization,” this “mar-ketization” of schools has generated competitive climates that, in many
instances, present school leaders with a new set of incentives to shape andguide their decisions on school management (Whitty & Power, 2000). Inthese contexts, schools need to attract sufficient numbers of students (andthe funding that accompanies them) to survive and succeed. So getting infor-mation to prospective consumers about the effectiveness of their programswould appear to be important. And schools in competitive climates areincreasing their efforts around promotion and marketing (Lubienski, 2005).But we know little about the propensity for competitive forces to producegood information useful for consumers trying to weigh the relative advan-tages of different schools. What types of information are different types ofschools providing as they compete with each other? The answer to this ques-tion speaks to the appropriate role of government and markets in educationalchoice systems.
Schools in a number of areas are operating in more marketized environ-ments and are increasingly responding with marketing strategies not unfa-miliar to the higher education sector (Kirp, 2003). In fact, the economiclogic underpinning competition-based reforms predicts organizations on thesupply side will seek to satisfy consumer demand by providing better prod-ucts or services. Certainly, competition in K-12 systems is intended to elicita number of desirable responses from schools—increased achievement,improved efficiencies, and greater responsiveness to families. Although pro-motional activities are by no means ends in themselves, they do indicate adesire on the part of administrators to assume a more consumer-friendly ori-entation, and the specifics of individual marketing strategies suggest muchabout schools, their self-perceived relative strengths (and weaknesses), andpositions within a local market. The problem is that although we know thatmarketing is becoming one of the most prominent features of competition-oriented school provision, we know little about the actual issues, informa-tion, and intentions of promotional activities, and even less about theimplications of such activities for public education (Lubienski, 2005). Thisanalysis of school marketing in a competitive, racialized education marketindicates that rather than simply offering information on school effective-ness, marketing may instead be targeted more toward particular audiences,suggesting a degree of selectiveness on the part of schools in competitiveenvironments.
This study examines the issue of the political economy—that is, theappropriate and optimal roles of government and markets—of consumerinformation through an economic lens on competitive incentives, organiza-tional responses, and school marketing. First, after a brief examination ofthe issues emerging in the literature on education marketing, I introduce an
economic theory of goods that offers a useful framework for examining thecontent of promotional messages. Rather than a static model of consumer-driven provision, this framework assumes a more dynamic relationshipbetween supply and demand, where marketing serves as a conduit for con-veying both consumer and producer preferences within competitive educa-tion markets. In the subsequent section, I describe the concept of localeducation markets in outlining an examination of school marketing thatcuts across public and privately administered school sectors in a competi-tive and diverse urban area. The analysis suggests that the form and contentof promotional strategies are shaped largely by a school’s position within acompetitive market hierarchy. The information made available to parentsthrough competitively driven, commercial-style materials does little to sup-port the idealized model of rational parents choosing schools based on insti-tutional effectiveness. Instead, the concluding discussion highlights theprimary role of emotional themes and images in marketing strategies andconsiders the implications of such strategies for public education withindiverse but competitive climates.
Whereas schools in this study generally declined to provide prospectiveparents with “hard” information in their promotional materials, but actuallyembraced themes that lend themselves to ethnic and economic sorting, theanalysis of marketing materials highlights two significant findings abouteducation markets and schooling. First, promotional strategies suggest thatschools are operating in an environment where competitive incentivesintended to improve education for the most disadvantaged students areinstead inducing some schools to avoid such students, targeting better per-forming students in their marketing campaigns in order to improve theschool’s market position. Second, promotional information indicates thatschools in more deregulated environments are treating education as a type ofconsumer good that typically requires external, nonmarket regulation for theprovision of useful consumer information. Together, these findings highlightthe need for regulation in order for markets to work effectively in education.
A Theory of Goods
There are many arguments for school choice, such as the professionalempowerment of teachers, family-values concerns for elevating parentalprerogatives in education, and civil rights claims about equitable access fordisadvantaged students, for instance. However, the most prominent per-spectives see choice as a way of inducing improvements in education by
leveraging competition to change the incentive structures in which schoolsoperate. The ultimate objectives will be seen in student achievement and con-sumer satisfaction, according to this line of thinking (Miron & Nelson, 2002).But activity around intermediary goals such as organizational reform and cur-ricular innovation will indicate how schools are responding to competitiveincentives in changing their organizational behavior. Although evidence onthe larger objectives such as student achievement is really just emerging, itis largely contested, usually along ideological lines (e.g., Howell & Peterson,2004; Krueger & Zhu, 2004a, 2004b; Peterson & Howell, 2004). However,there is a growing consensus that cuts across conflicting perspectives on thenotable impact competition is having on at least one of the intermediarygoals: the increasing use of marketing by schools to attract students.
Indeed, the notion of marketing is central to—albeit understated in—anymarket-oriented reform agenda for education. The concept operates on theunderstanding that the relationship between producers and consumers isdynamic and that certain informational activities on the part of serviceproviders can lead to a better “fit” for families. In that regard, marketing isa process of producers engaging and positioning themselves in the market—typically including such activities as product development, pricing, andadvertising.1 In the K-12 education sector, price strategies are not veryprominent, and many inherent structural factors preclude a high rate of prod-uct development or process innovations: for instance, the inability of inno-vators to protect and profit from their efforts, disincentives toward risk, andcommonly held assumptions about the appropriate activities of schools(Brown, 1992; Lubienski, 2003). Of course, some would criticize the rise ofpromotional efforts as superficial, manipulative, or wasteful—and possiblydetrimental to the goals and values of public education (Bird, 1999;Bradsher, 2002; Marchand, 1998; Schlosser, 2001; Tirole, 1988). However,as others have suggested, that schools are undertaking marketing efforts notonly demonstrates that famously unresponsive institutions are reacting tocompetitive pressures by assuming a consumer orientation, but also suggeststhe emergence of a process that requires schools to define their mission andpriorities (Harvey & Busher, 1996; Kates, 2001; Lehman, 1999; Savoye,2001; e.g., Brouillette, 1999; Center for Education Reform, 2000; Gifford,Phillips, & Ogle, 2000; Lehman, 1999; Mackinac Center for Public Policy,1999a, 1999b; Maranto, Milliman, Hess, & Gresham, 1999; Sack, 2002).
Yet, these conflicting perspectives are largely speculative, at least whenit comes to marketing in the K-12 sector. In fact, probably due to the recentemergence of this phenomenon, the research literature in this area is rela-tively thin. By far the most developed research on school promotion comes
from overseas, where choice-type reforms have gone further in reconfigur-ing the educational system (e.g., Lumby & Foskett, 1999; see also Davies& Ellison, 1997). (Most of the work published on school marketing in theUnited States is of the “how-to” variety, e.g., Holcomb, 1993; Kowalski,2000; Lober, 1993.)
Still, insofar as marketing indicates that schools are taking on a consumerorientation, it is useful to consider what exactly is being consumed. Ofcourse, theorists and others have debated the “public good” and “privategood” aspects of education for some time, because the way we address thatissue informs how education should be provided (Brighouse, 2000; Halchin,1999; Labaree, 1997, 2000; Levin, 1987; Lubienski, 2000; Smith, 2003).However, if we step away from the question of whether education should betreated as a consumer good and note that it is in fact being positioned exactlyas such in competitive environments, it is important to consider howcompetitive forces are causing schools to conceptualize the service that theyprovide, especially relative to one another. This is particularly true as markettheory elevates information about consumer goods as a central considerationin rational-choice models for the decision-making process that parents areexpected to participate in with school-choice plans. Furthermore, under-standing how schools are characterizing the service they provide, relative toone another, speaks to the appropriate role of market and nonmarket forcesin supporting the goals of public education.
Because philosophical debates about the public- and private-good essenceof education do not really help us understand what is happening—for betteror for worse—in competitive education markets, this analysis turns instead toan economic typology of consumer goods. Inasmuch as choice reforms posi-tion schools along the model of private-style firms, the literature on industrialorganization suggests different kinds of (or, more accurately, different quali-ties in) goods and services and outlines the implications that these qualitieshave for the types of information that producers and providers will offer topotential consumers (Kalra & Goodstein, 1998; Masters & Sanogo, 2002;Nelson, 1974; Tirole, 1988). The differences in goods are indicated by thetypes of marketing associated with them and are significant in that differenttypes of goods require different levels of nonmarket (often government) inter-vention in order to guarantee adequate levels of consumer information so thatmarket mechanisms may function effectively.
In this framework in Table 1, goods and services with “search” qualitieshave aspects that can be assessed by consumers prior to purchase (ingredients,durability, etc.). Examples of such goods would be clothing that consumerscan try on or produce for which “freshness” can be easily detected. In these
cases, consumers have informational parity with producers, so providerstend to use direct or hard information—evidence that is “usable” or “action-able” for consumers in making comparisons between options—on aspectssuch as price, effectiveness, and availability in marketing these goods andservices. Thus, because competition is an effective force for generating use-ful information on search goods and services, the production of usable con-sumer information is typically best left to market forces.
On the other hand, “experience” and “credence” qualities are not asreadily apparent to consumers. Experience qualities are those that can beassessed only after a purchase (taste, long-term fit, etc.). For instance,books, entertainment, and prepared or canned food are said to have experi-ence qualities. Likewise, goods or services that have credence qualitiesinvolve aspects that might never be fully assessed (e.g., the effects of somemedicines or the impact of a gasoline additive on a given engine). Suppliersof goods that have primarily experience or credence qualities are positionedto capitalize on informational advantages over the consumer. With no
Table 1A Typology of Consumer Goods
Search Goods Experience Goods Credence Goods
Characteristics Qualities that are Qualities not readily Qualities that areapparent, can be apparent not apparentjudged relative to Quality can be judged Quality that can nevercomparable options only after purchase be fully known or
Quality can be judged appreciatedbefore purchase
Marketing Marketing based on Marketing based on Marketing based on“hard/direct” “soft/indirect” “soft/indirect”information: indicators information: emotion; information: emotion,of quality, price inclusion in affinity which can obscurecomparisons, groups imperfections andingredients, asymmetries ofconvenience information
Implications Consumer information Lack of prior State intervention oftenoften left to market information can lead necessary to mandateforces to diminishing quality, information for
unless repeat purchases consumersoccur; branding
Examples Produce, clothes Books, entertainment, Octane in gasoline,restaurant, canned food effect of medicine
reason to do otherwise, they often forego promotional efforts that use hardinformation in favor of less actionable information—emotional appeals,branding efforts, or appeals to the loyalty of affinity groups.
Thus, when left to their own devices, competitive market incentives mayfail to force organizations that provide experience or credence goods togenerate useful information from which a rational consumer can makeinformed decisions. In these cases, state intervention is necessary to com-pensate for market failures. For instance, government regulations regardingnutrition labeling, contraindications for pharmaceuticals, and licensing cer-tain services can be justified when important qualities of a good or serviceare not apparent or may even never be known to prospective consumers (atleast until it is too late). Unforeseeable and undesirable consequences areseen to outweigh the usual admonition of caveat emptor, thereby generat-ing widespread acceptance of state regulation in these areas. Although thereare some experience and credence goods without state regulation, thesetend to be in consumer markets where other aspects—repeat purchases andproduct branding, for instance—give consumers opportunities to punishbad providers at relatively little cost. However, in instances where there aresubstantial costs associated with selecting products (opportunity and searchcosts), switching providers, or other substantial consequences for unfortu-nate decisions, external intervention is more often justified.
Theories and policies informing school choice generally assume a ratherstatic view of the consumer–provider relationship, where providers respondto consumer preferences. This analysis, on the other hand, notes the need toenvision a more dynamic interaction between supply and demand, as orga-nizations not only respond to consumer preferences but also shape thosepreferences when they promote the service that they are offering. And theway those services are marketed indicates something important about (a)the nature of the good that is consumed, (b) the types of information thatare being made available to consumers and, thus, how consumption is con-ceptualized, and (c) the nature of the market for this good, which has strongimplications for the appropriate political economy of a given sector. In thatregard, it is helpful to understand the specific types of goods or qualitiesthat are being used to market educational services. If the types of informa-tion offered by schools in competitive environments embody search char-acteristics, then it would appear that competition is generating the types ofinformation consumers need to make rational decisions between schools. Ifthe information promotes schools on more emotional appeals, then thetheory suggests the possibility that nonmarket (i.e., state) intervention isnecessary to compel organizations to offer actionable information.
School Informational Responses ina Competitive Local Education Market
This study draws from an analysis of schools in a highly competitivelocal education market (LEM). Although an abstraction, the LEM is a use-ful concept for understanding how schools and other educational organiza-tions are responding to competitive incentives in that it helps us understandnot only how educational organizations respond to consumer demandbut how they develop competitive strategies in response to each other. AsHesketh and Knight (1998) note, “if the workings of educational marketsare to be understood, clusters of geographically close schools need to bestudied.” Thus, for the present purposes, LEMs can be considered largely interms of geographical proximity, where different schools are situatedwithin policy and physical infrastructures that allow them to compete for acommon pool of potential students. That is, students are free to choose froma range of schools, with either the proximity or the availability of trans-portation options making those choices real for students. Furthermore,although a K-12 education market is really a quasi-market in that the gov-ernment subsidizes schools and consumers, key elements of choice andcompetition bring important market-style dynamics into play (Whitty,1997; Whitty & Power, 1997). Thus, LEMs are enabled by policies allow-ing students to choose from a range of schools, and the per-pupil fundingthey bring with them provides schools with the incentive to compete fortheir patronage.
Although the specifics of these attributes (and thus the level of competi-tion) will vary between LEMs, in order to understand the role of competi-tion in producing information for consumers, this analysis examines one ofthe most competitive education markets in the country, where (a) policiesprovide students the ability to cross district and sector boundaries and(b) demographic changes have led to an oversupply of seats—with fiveschools closing in recent years—causing different schools to consciouslyengage the competitive market. Situated near the western shore of Michigan,the small metropolitan area of Holland has witnessed a remarkable rise incompetition, according to various researchers (Horn & Miron, 2000;Lubienski, 2005; Rofes, 1998). Centered on a town of about 35,000, thecentral district straddles two counties with a combined population of morethan 340,000 people. The metropolitan area covers all or parts of five publicschool districts in two counties. Michigan allows students to choose toattend school outside their home district, including those in adjacent coun-ties, space permitting. And Michigan’s charter school program (public
school academies), one of the strongest in the nation, has put particularlycompetitive pressures on schools in this area, with a higher proportion ofcharter schools than even the District of Columbia.
Altogether, there are 40 schools in the K-12 range in Holland. Two ofthose were excluded from this analysis because they are specialized schoolsfor at-risk children and therefore do not compete with the other schools. Ofthe remaining 38, 23 are public schools from three different districts (6 sec-ondary, including 2 high schools and 4 middle-level schools); 12 are private(including 9 that belong to religious school associations and 3 that are inde-pendent); and 3 are charter schools, 2 of which are run by a for-profit edu-cation management organization.
Using Sandström and Bergström’s (2002) framework, this LEM wouldappear then to be one of the most competitive in the nation, based on theproportion of students in independent schools, with all students havingoptions of at least switching within the public sector as well. However,although charters were intended to provide competition for public schools,one unintended consequence in Michigan is that they often competedirectly with private schools, offering a “private-style,” but tuition-free,education for families already in the private sector (Bracey, 2002; Horn &Miron, 2000).
And it appears that structural and policy factors are having an impact inincreasing the level of competition between different types of schools.According to data from the area (county-level) intermediate school district,when charters first arrived on the scene a decade ago, private schools heldabout 18.5% of student enrollment in the area. Although the immediateimpact of charter school competition was apparent in the sudden decreasein public schools’ share of the market (see Table 2), continued growth of thecharter sector came at the expense of private schools’ market share.
These dynamics are further evident in entry-level grades in the differentsectors. Kindergarten enrollment has declined substantially for both HollandChristian and Holland public schools in recent years while growing in localcharter schools and surrounding districts (see Table 3).
Thus, competition has risen significantly over the last decade since theintroduction of charter schools and open enrollment, changing the nature ofschooling in the area. As a local superintendent noted,
Holland Christian Schools, St. Francis de Sales School and other privateschools in the area joined with Holland Public Schools in a cooperative,neighbor-to-neighbor manner to open the doors of education to the childrenof this community. Competition was limited to the athletic field, and supporting
the education and responsible citizenship of every student was a priority. . . .The rules have changed. . . . This change in philosophy has resulted in ashift from the general community commitment for a traditional, broad-based,long-term support for public education to a new individualized era of a market-driven, limited scope, short-term promotion of educational ‘consumerism.’2
The local Christian schools’ superintendent concurs, observing that hisassociation of six schools had a cooperative relationship with the localpublic schools before the arrival of charter schools but now increasinglysees these former allies as adversaries (personal interview, May 2003). Onthe other hand, charter school officials believe that competition has forcedlocal public schools to strengthen programs in order to stem the loss ofstudents. Although schools did not report (nor do they advertise) program-matic responses to competition, the growth of marketing budgets in the areain recent years—upwards of $120,000 for the local Christian schools and a
Table 2Market Share Trends for Public, Private, and Charter Schools
% District Schools % Private Schools % Charter Schools
similar amount for the central district—indicates an emphasis on marketingas a strategic response to competition (Lubienski, 2005).
Data and Methods
Background information on the racial/ethnic, socioeconomic, and acad-emic characteristics at schools was collected from the National Center forEducation Statistics’ (NCES) Private School Universe Survey and CommonCore of Data (CCD) and from Standard & Poor’s School EvaluationService, which contracts with Michigan to produce comprehensive school-level data. To better understand local competitive dynamics and dimensions,researchers conducted open-ended interviews with school administratorsfrom a stratified random sample of 10 schools and associations (district andreligious school offices), including 4 with public school administrators, 2with charter school officials, and 4 with private school administrators.Participants were asked about their competitors, the effects of competitionon enrollment and curricula, and their marketing strategies. Researchersalso visited schools for several open-house events.
The primary data for this study, however, are the promotional materialsfor the schools in the area. Material that would normally be offered toparents of prospective students was collected from all schools, with theexception of one small, independent, religious-sect school (for a participa-tion rate of 97.4%). Schools provided a variety of materials, including pam-phlets, videos and CD-ROMS, booklets, annual reports, links to Web sites,refrigerator magnets, and admission packets. In all, 107 materials weregathered.
To understand these data, this analysis drew from media studies inadapting a framework for content analysis, holding to a fourfold distinctionbetween indications of context, content, target audience, and productionvalues (see Hesketh & Knight, 1998). Each of these categories includesmultiple items built around pertinent subthemes (see the appendix), with atotal of 85 items that were used to code materials for this study. For eachschool, researchers noted the presence or absence of different types ofinformation. Because of the low-inference nature of most items, interraterreliability was very high (95.71% agreement using consensus estimate; seeStemler, 2004). Data were thus arranged for analysis by column and rowpercentages to determine the frequency of use of different types of promo-tional information within and across different types of schools.
When looking simply at the raw numbers of occurrences of differenttypes of information in promotional materials, certain themes begin toemerge, shedding some light on what schools believe will be important toprospective clients. Table 4 shows which types of information were mostand least likely to be used, in general. Information on organizational inputssuch as instruction and academics, student characteristics, academic facili-ties, and human resources were used quite frequently, as were raw outputssuch as test scores. However, most of that information was provided in theannual reports required of public schools in the sample and appeared rarelyin other materials. Symbols and logos and information on academic facili-ties were the most frequently used items that were not required of schools.On the other hand, very little emphasis was placed on the instructionalinnovations in schools, the value-added effects, sports facilities, or admis-sions issues (because most schools are undersubscribed).
To understand how governance structure enables or predisposes differ-ent types of schools to use different information, the frequency with whichdifferent types of information were used by each school was calculated forall noncharter public, charter, and private schools. Table 5 lists the eightmost frequently employed items for each school type.
Public schools tend to be relatively active in providing information onissues of organizational outputs and student characteristics. However—with the exception of logos and mottos, and information on facilities—mostof this information was available only in the annual reports required by thestate. Public schools are less active in promoting themselves through other
Table 4Most and Least Frequently Used Information
Much Activity Little Activity
+ Achievementa – Athletic facilities+ Instruction and academicsa – Instructional innovation+ Symbols/logos – Value added+ Student characteristicsa – Financial assistance+ Academic facilities – Patriotism+ Human resources – Entrance exams+ Other parental concerns (e.g., – Interviews with applicants
types of information that are also of interest to prospective parents (acade-mic programs, extracurricular activities, and other themes such as commu-nity and patriotism). Private schools are not bound by these reportingrequirements and consequently stressed different types of information inseeking to attract students. Although they are less likely to use informationon organizational inputs and outputs, private schools employ a relativelystrong emphasis on more emotional themes such as community, religiousvalues, and patriotism. Charter schools offer more commercialized materi-als in which they choose not to employ the information required of publicschools in their annual reports. They are more likely to stress academicprograms and themes, often in differentiating themselves from (perceptionsof) public schools or equating themselves with private schools: charactereducation and morality, safety, uniforms, patriotism, and their tuition-freenature. And although there are distinct differences between school types, itis also worthwhile to note areas of overlap. The use of logos and mottos wasrelatively prominent in the promotional materials of all types of schools,especially with private schools, and slightly less so for charter schools.
Discussion
Perhaps the most notable pattern emerging from the data involves thedifferences and commonalities in the promotional materials across sectors.The most direct or “hard” information is typically available in the annualreports that the public schools are required to produce. Outside of that for-mat, public schools tend to focus on less substantive appeals through such
Table 5Most Frequently Used Information, by School Type
Public Charter Private
Student characteristicsa Instruction Logo, mottoTest scoresa Test scores TuitionHonors, accreditationa Honors, accreditation Religious symbolsParent involvementa Safety Personal imagesInstructiona Logo, motto CommunityRetention ratea Personal images Religious themesFacilities Tuition free Parent involvementLogo, motto Uniforms/dress code Human resources
devices as logos, or to capitalize on the advantages of superior facilities.Private schools gravitate heavily toward symbolic or emotional appeals—as one private school official noted, they “have to sell to the heart, not to thehead” (personal interview, May 2003). These schools typically used directinformation only around issues of tuition and human resources. Informationabout tuition affordability is critical for these schools to counteract com-petition from tuition-free charter schools that seek to market a comparableeducational experience.3 Likewise, human resource information on teach-ing (advanced degrees, class size) is important for the more establishedreligious schools to demonstrate legitimacy and competency of their non-certified teaching staff. Charter schools, as the new player in the area, aremore likely to mix direct information with appeals to other parental con-cerns on nonacademic issues and thereby juxtapose themselves with publicschools (or common perceptions of problems in public schools). The localindependent charter high school was established by parents to offer acollege-prep option in the area, and emphasized its academic orientationand student achievement. However, this and the for-profit charter schoolsalso played heavily upon concerns for safety, order, and discipline.
In fact, when considered within and across different sectors, it appearsthat most schools do not market their services in ways that would indicatethat education in competitive environments exhibits substantial search qual-ities. Hard information available from public schools was typically thatwhich was required in annual reports; other materials tended much moretoward “softer,” more emotional appeals. Likewise, materials from privateschools relied heavily on symbols and themes. Charter schools were mostlikely to use direct information on school processes or outcomes, but theseschools represent less than 8% of the sample, and even these schools reliedheavily on more emotional selling points having to do with images andsymbols. Perhaps most important, although there was some mention of rawtest scores for some of the schools, there was essentially no effort to informprospective parents about a school’s actual effectiveness. That is, althoughachievement test scores may fulfill a role as proxy information for the hypo-thetical rational consumer seeking to find the most effective schools, theyprobably tell that consumer more about who attends the school rather thanwhat value-added effects the school has for current or future students. Fromthe information provided, it is not clear whether schools are producing orattracting “better” students, but the emphasis on marketing to particulartypes of students suggests that schools sense incentives to do the latter.
Indeed, in view of the types of information used to sell school services,parents are left with an inconsistent and uneven knowledge base from
which to make reasonable judgments about the relative merits of differentschools. Assessments of actual school effectiveness depend largely ontransparency for consumers to make fully informed choices. But schoolprocesses are necessarily opaque, with schools enjoying informationaladvantages over consumers (Brown, 1992; Cobb, 1992; Hill, Pierce, &Guthrie, 1997; Walberg & Bast, 2003). Surrogate information provides adegree of translucency for consumers positioned to make a rational choice.Yet, these advantages occur in uneven social landscapes, where schoolscompete to enhance their relative status. Consequently, schools have incen-tives to capitalize on informational advantages in playing to preferred con-sumers, whose patronage would enhance a school’s position in the market,through allusions to (if not actual evidence of) the things that they mayvalue: orderliness, safety, symbols connoting prestige. Schools have disin-centives to empower consumers with better, more actionable information.
Although this may be expected, it may also be dangerous. In a racial-ized context such as Holland, schools may play upon prejudicial attitudesregarding not only what makes a good school but also what type ofstudent would attend one (and thus how a parent would know which is a“good” school). Traditionally a mostly White community, Holland has seen asubstantial influx of Hispanic/Latino families in recent decades, now repre-senting more than 20% of the population according to U.S. census data, butconstituting about one third of the students enrolled in Holland public schools(White students currently make up a bit more than one half the enrollment).
Although one might think that parents are choosing other options for supe-rior organizational effectiveness, even the best information available does notsupport this assumption. Consider the following examples (see Table 6).
Table 6 demonstrates that local elementary charter schools are growing,largely by attracting fewer minority students and fewer economically dis-advantaged students than the closest neighboring public schools. This isdespite the fact that test scores are very comparable—and not substantiallysuperior—to neighboring public schools. (That is, the public schools havedone a comparable job despite the fact that they are working with studentswith fewer English skills and higher rates of poverty—suggesting superioreffectiveness.) It is important to note that the public school district providespromotional information in both English and Spanish and advertises in theSpanish-language newspaper. The charter schools do not.
Similar dynamics are evident with the personal images used in the mar-keting materials. All schools have promotional materials that include rep-resentations of students or teachers. The materials from charter schoolssignificantly underrepresent Hispanic students, who make up 13% to 25%
of the enrollment at area charter schools but do not appear in any of thehuman images in these materials. The local private schools have almostno Hispanic students, which is reflected in the images in their promo-tional materials, but Asian American students (about 1.5%-3% of localprivate schools) are disproportionately represented in marketing efforts—for example, constituting 15% to 30% of the students in different promo-tional videos. This suggests the possibility that different types of studentsrepresent differing levels of value for schools in competitive markets (seeBall & Gewirtz, 1997; Rothstein, 2004). Although some have advancedcontrolled choice as a way to promote integration, competitive incentivesmay induce the opposite effect.
Implications
Although reformers often speak of the market model for education, thereare, in fact, different types of markets. The quasi-market that is emerging inK-12 education in the United States and elsewhere is often guided by theblunt application of what has become known as market theory—consumerchoice, competition between organizations. But nuanced differences betweendifferent types of consumer markets are important, as are the peculiaritiesof public sectors such as education (Lubienski, 2005). Specifics of marketstructure guide the political economy of different sectors, where essentialconsiderations such as number of providers, ease of entry, and consumerinformation indicate the appropriate role of market and nonmarket forces inoptimizing the production and distribution of a good. Without taking intoaccount such factors, the introduction of market forces into a previously
Table 6Intake and Test Scores at Comparison Schools
Vanderbilt Eagle Crest PineBlack River Holland Charter Van Raalte Charter Creek
Holland Charter High High Elementary Elementary Elementary ElementaryDistrict School School School School School School
nonmarket sector can have unpredictable and sometimes detrimentalconsequences.
As noted earlier, the types of qualities that a good exhibits informs therole of nonmarket interventions to guarantee adequate information to con-sumers of that good. Quite often, markets themselves generate the infor-mation necessary for consumers to make reasoned decisions. But certaingoods and services produce informational asymmetries between consumersand producers, giving sellers an advantage in a world where the buyer mustbeware. These are more typical in goods and services based upon (a) sub-stantial technical expertise or (b) where production processes are largelyobscured from consumers’ oversight. For instance, medical care entailsboth of these attributes, where a high degree of expert knowledge is essen-tial and consumers typically do not inspect how medicines are manufac-tured or how a magnetic resonance imaging machine operates. In suchcases, consumers must trust providers.
In fact, many goods and services exhibit the characteristics. As Walbergand Bast (2003) note, markets often develop corrective mechanisms forthese asymmetries over time: “The presence of asymmetric information isnot uncommon in the marketplace, and it is routinely overcome by experi-ence, producer reputations, guarantees and warranties, and personal andpublic sources of information” (p. 65). Advertising is a primary source ofthis information:
Producers themselves provide vast amounts of information. . . .[A]dvertising enables consumers to choose wisely among the manyvehicles produced by car and truck manufacturers. Car companies spendhundreds of millions of dollars a year on advertising to distinguish theirproducts from those of competitors. This advertising routinely reports onawards and rankings issued by such third parties as Road and Driver andJ. D. Power and Associates. (pp. 65-66)
(Of course, advertising can also be used to obscure—few would argue thatpolitical advertisements tell us much that is useful.)
Education depends on some level of technical expertise. To an evengreater degree, however, the production processes in education are difficultto observe. Evidence of organizational effectiveness in schools is not clear,even with sophisticated research techniques, and furthermore is difficult toconvey to parents. If markets cannot correct for these informational imbal-ances between providers and consumers, then the use of market mecha-nisms to produce or distribute public goods can be problematic: “There aredangers in the simplistic introduction of competition into areas of human
services. In these areas the consumer’s knowledge is usually limited; it ismore difficult for parents to evaluate education than, say, a can of beans”(Etzioni, quoted in Cobb, 1992, p. xi). Therefore, markets often need exter-nal regulation in order to operate effectively.
The question, then, is whether education markets self-correct infor-mation asymmetries through competitive incentives. The weight of theevidence from this case does not appear to lend support to that hope. InHolland, promotional information appears to suggest that schools in com-petitive environments market their services largely as a credence good,where, in lieu of hard evidence, consumers are left to choose betweenoptions simply on beliefs or presumptions. Relying on word-of-mouth isalso likely to exacerbate inequities in access because social networks tendto be homogeneous. Understandably, families (along with researchers) havedifficulty discerning institutional effectiveness (as distinguished from, say,family background or peer effects). In such cases, competition is not gen-erating the information consumers need to make reasoned choices (in fact,most hard information typical of search goods in this case comes from gov-ernment-required reporting). Furthermore, education does not really lenditself to the “experience” that comes from repeat purchases. Although thereare constant opportunities in a place such as Holland to choose anotherschool, there are also substantive costs associated with switching schools—costs borne by the students. Indeed, without qualities that are obvious toconsumers, promotional efforts for credence goods may compete to furtherobscure imperfections and may further tilt informational advantages awayfrom consumers by elevating style and symbols as primary determinants ofchoice. “Branding” and marketing to “affinity groups” are more commonpractices with credence goods, but such dynamics should cause some con-cern in a sector devoted to open access and integration (see Gee, 2001).
Credence goods typically require some sort of external, nonmarket inter-vention in order to provide consumers with useful information. This is oftendone through government regulation and requirements—consumer labels,Environmental Protection Agency mileage ratings, and so forth. Consumerscan also be protected through nongovernment organizations such as con-sumer advocacy groups, ratings services, or professional organizations.However, these often depend on government oversight or enforcement ortake on quasigovernment functions such as licensing or professional stan-dards. But competition alone does not always generate the incentives nec-essary for a rational consumer model to operate effectively. Althoughextramarket interventions (state requirements, accreditation) can serve tohelp generate some information for parents, the competitive incentives thatencourage credence-type marketing strategies are still very much in play.
1. The focus here is on informational strategies: what are often described as “advertising”but would be more appropriately termed “promotional efforts” in the current case. The termsare used somewhat interchangeably here, keeping with common usage.
2. Superintendent’s letter to the board of education, February 12, 2001.3. Explicit price competition between private schools appears to be rather rare. One school
was advertising discounts for families first enrolling, but denominational differences appearedto preclude the possibility that families were switching between private schools.
References
Ball, S. J., & Gewirtz, S. (1997). Girls in the education market: Choice, competition and com-plexity. Gender and Education, 9(2), 207-222.
Bird, W. L. (1999). “Better living”: Advertising, media, and the new vocabulary of businessleadership, 1935-1955. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Bracey, G. W. (2002). The war against America’s public schools: Privatizing schools, com-mercializing education. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Bradsher, K. (2002). High and mighty: SUVs—The world’s most dangerous vehicles and howthey got that way. New York: Public Affairs.
Brighouse, H. (2000). School choice and social justice. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Brouillette, M. J. (1999, Fall). Public schools exchange monopoly power for marketing
prowess. Michigan Education Report, 99. Retrieved July 10, 2003, from http://www.educationreport.org/print.asp?ID=2195
Brown, B. W. (1992). Why governments run schools. Economics of Education Review, 11(4),287-300.
Center for Education Reform. (2000). Charter schools today: Changing the face of Americaneducation. Washington, DC: Author.
Cobb, C. W. (1992). Responsive schools, renewed communities. San Francisco: ICS Press.Darby, M., & Karni, E. (1973). Free competition and the optimal amount of fraud. Journal of
Law and Economics, 16, 67-88.Davies, B., & Ellison, L. (1997). Strategic marketing for schools: How to harmonise market-
ing and strategic development for an effective school. London: Pitman.Gee, J. P. (2001). Identity as an analytic lens for research in education. In W. Secada (Ed.),
Review of research in education, 2000-2001 (Vol. 25, pp. 99-125). Washington, DC:American Educational Research Association.
Gifford, M., Phillips, K., & Ogle, M. (2000). Five year charter school study: An overview. Arizonaeducation analysis. Phoenix, AZ: Goldwater Institute, Center for Market-Based Education.
Halchin, L. E. (1999). And this parent went to market: Education as a public versus privategood. In R. Maranto, S. Milliman, F. Hess, & A. Gresham (Eds.), School choice in the realworld: Lessons from Arizona charter schools (pp. 19-38). Boulder, CO: Westview.
Harvey, J. A., & Busher, H. (1996). Marketing schools and consumer choice. InternationalJournal of Educational Management, 10(4), 26-32.
Hesketh, A. J., & Knight, P. T. (1998). Secondary school prospectuses and educational mar-kets. Cambridge Journal of Education, 28(1), 21-36.
Hill, P. T., Pierce, L. C., & Guthrie, J. W. (1997). Reinventing public education: How con-tracting can transform America’s schools. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Holcomb, J. H. (1993). Educational marketing. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.Horn, J., & Miron, G. (2000). The impact of charter schools on public and parochial schools:
Case studies of school districts in western and central Michigan. Kalamazoo: WesternMichigan University, The Evaluation Center.
Howell, W. G., & Peterson, P. E. (2004). Uses of theory in randomized field trials: Lessonsfrom school voucher research on disaggregation, missing data, and the generalization offindings. American Behavioral Scientist, 47(5), 634-657.
Kalra, A., & Goodstein, R. C. (1998). The impact of advertising positioning strategies on con-sumer price sensitivity. Journal of Marketing Research, 35(2), 210-224.
Kates, W. (2001, August 29). Public schools respond to competition with marketing efforts.Associated Press. Retrieved on September 3, 2001, from the www:asbj.com/extra/extra.html
Kirp, D. L. (2003). Shakespeare, Einstein, and the bottom line: The marketing of higher edu-cation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kowalski, T. J. (Ed.). (2000). Public relations in schools (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.Krueger, A. B., & Zhu, P. (2004a). Another look at the New York City school voucher exper-
iment. American Behavioral Scientist, 47(5), 658-698.Krueger, A. B., & Zhu, P. (2004b). Inefficiency, subsample selection bias, and nonrobustness:
A response to Paul E. Peterson and William G. Howell. American Behavioral Scientist,47(5), 718-728.
Labaree, D. F. (1997). Public goods, private goods: The American struggle over educationalgoals. American Educational Research Journal, 34(1), 39-81.
Labaree, D. F. (2000). No exit: Public education as an inescapably public good. In L. Cuban &D. Shipps (Eds.), Reconstructing the common good in education: Coping with intractableAmerican dilemmas (pp. 110-129). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Lehman, J. G. (1999). And now a word from our sponsors—Your local public schools.Midland, MI: Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Levin, H. M. (1987). Education as a public and private good. Journal of Policy Analysis andManagement, 6, 628-641.
Lober, I. M. (1993). Promoting your school: A public relations handbook. Lancaster, PA: Technomic.Lubienski, C. (2000). Whither the common good? A critique of home schooling. Peabody
Journal of Education, 75(1), 207-232.Lubienski, C. (2003). Innovation in education markets: Theory and evidence on the impact
of competition and choice in charter schools. American Educational Research Journal,40(2), 395-443.
Lubienski, C. (2005). Public schools in marketized environments: Shifting incentives andunintended consequences of competition-based educational reforms. American Journal ofEducation, 111(4), 464-486.
Lumby, J., & Foskett, N. (Eds.). (1999). Managing external relations in schools and colleges.London: Paul Chapman.
Mackinac Center for Public Policy. (1999a). Privatization in education (No. MPR1999-03).Midland, MI: Author.
Mackinac Center for Public Policy. (1999b, January 18). Public schools step up marketing.Michigan Education Report. Retrieved December 1, 2000, from http://www.mackinac.org/article.asp?ID=1587
Maranto, R., Milliman, S., Hess, F., & Gresham, A. (1999). Do charter schools improve dis-trict schools? Three approaches to the question. In R. Maranto, S. Milliman, F. Hess, &A. Gresham (Eds.), School choice in the real world: Lessons from Arizona charter schools(pp. 129-141). Boulder, CO: Westview.
Marchand, R. (1998). Creating the corporate soul: The rise of public relations and corporateimagery in American big business. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Masters, W. A., & Sanogo, D. (2002). Welfare gains from quality certification of infant foods:Results from a market experiment in Mali. American Journal of Agricultural Economics,84(4), 974-989.
Miron, G., & Nelson, C. (2002). What’s public about charter schools? Lessons learned aboutchoice and accountability. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Nelson, P. (1974). Advertising as information. Journal of Political Economy, 81(4), 729-754.Peterson, P. E., & Howell, W. G. (2004). Efficiency, bias, and classification schemes: A
response to Alan B. Krueger and Pei Zhu. American Behavioral Scientist, 47(5), 699-717.Rofes, E. (1998). How are school districts responding to charter laws and charter schools?
Berkeley, CA: Policy Analysis for California Education.Rothstein, R. (2004). Class and schools: Using social, economic, and educational reform to
close the Black–White achievement gap. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.Sack, J. L. (2002). Charter pioneers force public school officials to modify operations. Education
Week, 21(32), 18-19.Sandström, F. M., & Bergström, F. (2002). School vouchers in practice: Competition won’t
hurt you! (Working Paper No. 578). Stockholm: Research Institute of Industrial Economics.Savoye, C. (2001, April 26). Feeling heat of competition, public schools try advertising.
Christian Science Monitor Electronic Edition. Retrieved April 26, 2001, from http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/2004/2024/text/p2015s2001.html
Schlosser, E. (2001). Fast food nation: The dark side of the all-American meal. Boston:Houghton Mifflin.
Smith, K. B. (2003). The ideology of education: The commonwealth, the market, and America’sschools. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Stemler, S. E. (2004). A comparison of consensus, consistency, and measurement approachesto estimating interrater reliability. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 9(4).Retrieved March 5, 2004, from http://PAREonline.net/getvn.asp?v=9&n=4
Tirole, J. (1988). The theory of industrial organization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Walberg, H. J., & Bast, J. L. (2003). Education and capitalism: How overcoming our fear of mar-
kets and economics can improve America’s schools. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press.Whitty, G. (1997). Creating quasi-markets in education: A review of recent research on
parental choice and school autonomy in three countries. In W. L. Boyd & J. G. Cibulka(Eds.), Review of research in education (Vol. 22, pp. 3-47). Washington, DC: AmericanEducational Research Association.
Whitty, G., & Power, S. (1997). Quasi-markets and curriculum control: Making sense of recent edu-cation reform in England and Wales. Educational Administration Quarterly, 33(2), 219-240.
Whitty, G., & Power, S. (2000). Marketization and privatization in mass education systems.International Journal of Educational Development, 20, 93-107.
Christopher Lubienski is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Organizationand Leadership at the University of Illinois, where he is also a fellow at the Forum on theFuture of Public Education. His research interests center on market mechanisms in educationand the political economy of schooling. Recently, he has been focusing on schools’ organiza-tional responses to competitive local education markets, particularly in school marketing. Hiswork has appeared in the American Educational Research Journal (2006), the AmericanJournal of Education (2005), Phi Delta Kappan (2005), and Educational Policy (2006). Theresearch for this article was conducted while he was a postdoctoral fellow in the AdvancedStudies Program at Brown University
