In discussions of education reform, standardized testing, teacher evaluation, and the current charter school debate, competition is often mentioned as a great motivator. It is, when it comes to business. Those who praise competition as the answer to school reform, such as Scot Lehigh in his column “The charter school bargain,’’ take for granted the flawed belief that education is an “enterprise’’ and the students are “its . . . product’’.

It’s time we challenge that argument and remember that education is a complicated and messy, but beautiful, endeavor, and that students are human beings, not test scores or products on an assembly line.

Liz Hegarty

Dedham