The public is given to believe that schooling problems are most likely to be solved by more funding and better parenting. Issues such as accountability, cost-effectiveness, and customer convenience are often invisible at the local level. Schooling failures and shortcomings are reported only if their disclosure is inevitable or some intrepid reporter digs them out. Individual parents or others who draw attention to issues that officials find distasteful frequently find themselves isolated and characterized as uninformed, misled, or irresponsible. Even when there is widespread sentiment about a schooling issue, consumers may have little influence.
Schools act to diffuse opposition to their policies.
Committees formed to discuss school issues are typically organized by schools and stacked to suit their purposes. Parent and community participants are added or removed at the pleasure of the schools. Meetings are orchestrated so as to propagandize and pacify rather than make substantive changes. In the educational partnership, educators view consumers as the junior partners. ECA Independence With an ECA acting as voice for local consumers, tenor of the relationship between schools and consumers can be much different.