When funds are wasted, when state and federal mandates hamstring local education budgets, or when onerous collective bargaining agreements squeeze school finances, even a generous amount of taxpayer money evaporates by the time it reaches the classroom. School bureaucracy is a notorious consumer of education dollars. Of the many ways to tackle the problem of money management in the schools, the most promising may be competitive contracting. Increasingly, public schools are turning to the private sector for services such as busing, building maintenance, and cafeteria service. Some schools are even contracting for instruction and management.
Examples are already easy to find in Michigan.
The Mt. Clemens school district in Macomb County is turning management of one of its schools over to the private, for-profit Edison Project. The nation's largest school cafeteria services firm handles meals for students in at least two dozen Michigan districts. Central administrative tasks such as payroll, insurance, and worker's compensation, are often reduced when a contractor handles management and operations. In the area of cost control, savings through competitive contracting in other states are extensive and well-documented. Several studies comparing in-house and contracted cleaning services found savings to be as low as 13 percent and as high as 50 percent for contracted service.