In Anglophone countries, narratives of public schooling tend to emphasise generic hopes about schooling as central to the idea of a public good, including fostering community, delivering equality and protecting broad notions of democracy. However, as public systems become more open to privatised logics, these hopes sit alongside fears for the future of 'publicness'. Through analysis of participant interviews in four education systems in Canada, England, New Zealand and Australia, this paper shows that these fears emerge from the specific nature of privatisation evident within specific contexts. Our argument is that while hopes remain in common, parochial policies and histories inform particular fears about how public school systems are losing their 'publicness'. There is evidence of a 'cruel optimism' among participants as they try to hold onto their belief in the good of publicness, even as their institutions become hybridised by creeping privatisation.