The Road Ahead for International Schools: Relevance or Private Purpose?

In my view, international schools are moving with accelerating momentum along a dangerous trajectory. Our schools are at risk of becoming the stereotype of exclusive schools for the rich, geared toward preserving privilege. To be sure, a large number of parents have always used independent schools in the U.S. for exactly this purpose, but schools have always tried to maintain something of a social agenda--the "public purpose of private education" that Al Adams wrote about more than a decade ago.

As wealth becomes simultaneously greater, more concentrated and more polarized, the risk isn't that we will see the dreaded barbell effect go viral, but that our schools will be ever more in the business of delivering private goods that serve private purposes; in effect, becoming even more like the country clubs that many already resemble in physical plant. This may be a good short term survival strategy for individual schools, but it is disadvantageous for the larger society and, I believe, will in the long run lead the demise of the sector.

The antidote isn't in funding a larger financial aid budget, though that would help even as it contributes to the barbell, but rather in answering the question of what public purpose--opr social good--your school produces or serves. This isn't about income diversity per se. As private schools were of course have to sell our product at retail and attract enough paying customers to stay open. But, as schools rather than clothing stores, we should refine (or find) our social purpose. What's you answer?