A major new financial phenomenon has appeared within the social services arena, with corresponding legislation poised to change how social services are delivered and who delivers them. While different programs use different terms--including, for example, Pay for Success (PFS) or Results-Based Financing (RBF)--the umbrella term encompassing all…

Betsy DeVos, the new U.S. secretary of education, is a strong proponent of allowing public education dollars to go to private schools through vouchers, which enable parents to use public school money to enroll their children in private schools, including religious ones. Vouchers are advanced under the rubric of "school choice"--the…

Because higher education serves both public and private interests, the way it is conceived and financed is contested politically, appearing in different forms in different societies. What is public and private in education is a political--social construct, subject to various political forces, primarily interpreted through the prism of the state.…

Responds to an article on school choice by suggesting that much more is known about the politics of issues related to school choice and privatization than the article reveals, partly from what has occurred with educational vouchers and charter schools in the United States and partly from lessons learned from voucher plans in other countries. (SM)

What exactly is globalization, and how often does it manifest itself? What spheres of human activity does it affect, and how does it affect them? What implications does this phenomenon have for education systems and for educational planning? This booklet examines what globalization implies for the context in which education-sector work is carried…

Lessons drawn from the experience of other countries make it clear that school voucher plans increase inequality without making schools better. Privatization reduces the public effort to improve schooling since it relies on the free market to increase achievement, but increases never occur. (SLD)