Vietnam has made remarkable progress over the past two decades in its transition to a market economy resulting in numerous changes to both its social and economic institutions. It is a nation at peace focusing on economic development and integrating into the world economy. Although the tragic events in Vietnam's history cannot be forgotten, the…

Key legislative objectives for the US Federal educational policy over the past several decades relied heavily on quasi-market strategies (such as school rating, school closure, the contracting out of schools) as central levers in "reforming" public schools. Using financial data on 11 national for-profit firms contracting with schools and…

Public and higher education have fallen prey to forces of commercialization, privatization, and market considerations that undermine civic and critical learning while devaluing young people as a referent for a democratic and just future. This article criticizes this position and makes a case for reclaiming such vital institutions as fundamental to…

Using Latin America as a broad context and drawing on evidence from some of its most heavily indebted states as cases, this paper considers the example of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and education as a means of exploring the question of whether poverty reduction strategies of the Bretton Woods Institutions (the World Bank and the…

This paper analyzes the relationship between neoliberalism and school restructuring in Chicago. I provide an account of the ideological foundation of neoliberal education policies as well as an account of their development and implementation in the city. Additionally, I analyze Chicago's newest education agenda, Renaissance 2010. Passed into law…

Private schools were very prosperous in Shanghai during the Republican period. Shanghai Municipal Educational Bureau adopted a pattern of indirect management, especially attaching importance to normalizing and guiding the mechanism for operating a school by taking the basic measures for the registration administration. Meanwhile, appropriate…

Sociologists exploring educational injustice often focus on socio-economic segregation as a central measure of injustice. The comprehensive ideal, furthermore, has the idea of socio-economic integration built into it. The current paper argues that socio-economic segregation is valuable only insofar as it serves other, more fundamental values. This…

Public cuts in financial support have hurt public colleges and students. The author argues that the fault lies in part with the colleges themselves. Many public-university administrators are incapable of convincing political and business leaders of the need for financial support because they are no longer fully convinced themselves. They have…

Given the vacuity of political metaphors in the USA, most Americans might assume neoliberalism and neoconservatism to be at odds with one another. This article argues to the contrary. Neoconservatism has provided a solution to a crisis in neoliberalism--the crisis of how to manufacture the public's support for an agenda that was so decidedly…

This article discusses how the private management of public schools, charter schools, home schooling, and virtual schools is impacting the art education of students. In a growing number of locations throughout the U.S., education has been taken out of the public realm and recast as a consumer product by various private school choice programs. The…

In 2004, India's Congress Party wrested control of parliament from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. I present below an interview conducted with Professor Krishna Kumar, Delhi University, the new Government's choice for Director of the National Council of Educational Research and Training. Professor Kumar discusses the ways that…

Today, American education faces a crisis. It is not too extreme to say that public education hangs in the balance. Anyone who has read the history of American education knows that there have always been critics. But they did not want public education dismantled. They wanted it to be better. Today, however, there are critics who believe that public…

Privatization is a spectrum along which public institutions operate. As the share of public investment in their operations declines, institutions are increasingly required to function in the competitive marketplace and so become increasingly privatized. In this article, former University of Wisconsin System President Katharine C. Lyall and…

This article reflects on the historic tensions of education under capitalism, arguing that they have been exacerbated in our era of neo-liberal globalisation. Government drives for greater "accountability" and "effectiveness" are a blinkered response to the threefold global crisis we face: poverty and debt; a collapse of the…

Supplemental Educational Services, mandated by NCLB as an option for students in low-performing Title I schools, has just completed its fourth implementation year, and a number of solid research reports on the Federal program are now available. This commentary reviews the political background to the out-of-school tutoring program, the for-profit…