This paper examines school choice reforms in one key state, within the broader context of public education and privatization. Choice advocates describe the public nature of charter schools in terms of access, funding, choice, and effects. Critics see charter schools as precursors to more market-based reforms such as vouchers. In reviewing the…

This paper draws on the metaphor of the enclosure, a forceful reconfiguration of shared space that occurred in early modern Europe, as a model for describing the current drive for privatization of education. It examines the metaphors embedded in current school transformations and contrasts the conception of democracy held by current advocates of…