In "Rules for a Flat World", Hadfield argues that although the world is becoming increasingly connected and faster paced due to leaps in technological innovation, the prevailing legal systems -- established by governments and run almost exclusively by lawyers -- have not kept pace. They are increasingly proving ill suited for and…

Frenkiewich and Onosko (2020) maintain that American public education has functioned as a pillar of democracy and a force for progress for most of the twentieth century, but they worry that a major turn to school privatization in recent years will undermine the democratic mission and vision of public schooling and harm society as well. The authors…

This is a perilous time for the dream and promise of education. With Betsy DeVos heading the Department of Education, some states are already making moves to privatize education. Arizona is promising $5,000 per child for parents to spend as they like. What kind of private school charges only $5,000? I worry about the kind of education that…

Kappan's editor talks with Queensland University researcher Anna Hogan about the rapid growth of commercial activity in Australia's schools and in school systems around the world. Private businesses have always sold textbooks, classroom tools, and other goods and services to public schools, and many teachers are happy to purchase and use them,…

The Trump administration represents less a break from the Bush and Obama administration education reforms than an expansion of those reforms. I argue that academics have been complicit in these reforms through the depolitization and privatization of their scholarship and their adherence to a technological framework of knowledge production,…

In Trump's America, the profession of education is under attack. The privatization of public schools and the deprofessionalization of professional teachers has become even more dire than in the past. In this article, the authors discuss the need for preparing future teachers to embark on their careers in such an inhospitable time. They believe…

This paper builds on previous research (Ball, 2012, Ball & Junemann, 2012) to explore some aspects of the embodiment of policy. The author draws on Larner and Laurie's (2010) work on technocratic expertise and how, as she puts it, "privatisation ideas and practices are transferred in embodied forms," and in particular her argument…

The challenge posed by for-profit educators to the existing system is a real one that is not likely to go away any time soon and is, in fact, likely to intensify. Brian Etheridge describes Gary Bell's essay as a thoughtful exegesis on how we came to this point. He roots his narrative in the explosion of the profit motive, citing several instances…

Gary Bell's essay, "The Profit Motive in Honors Education," raises important questions about the future of honors education--questions that will have the greatest impact on honors students. The voices of those students are not typically included in discussions about the funding and administration of honors even though they have crucial…

This response discusses the complexity of racial segregation in U.S. cities today and an emerging education movement for equity and racial justice. Racial segregation has been and continues to be a potent, and contested, strategy of containment, subordination, and exploitation, but African Americans have also, out of necessity, turned racial…

England for the foreseeable future is stuck with a one-track government that knows only the crisis measures with which Margaret Thatcher responded to the 1970s crisis of capital accumulation. Deregulation of all public services with privatization of provision on the contracting-out state model is seen as the solution to every problem and is a part…

In order to counteract some serious misconceptions in Gary Bell's essay "Honors for Sale," Benjamin Moritz opens this essay with inspirational stories of students who overcame disadvantages to complete their college education The first and most fundamental problem the author notes in Bell's essay is the assumption that privatization and…

In this article, Brent Beal, and Heather Olson Beal respond to comments made about their article: "Rethinking the Market Metaphor: School Choice, the Common Good, and the National Football League," appearing in this issue of the Journal of School Choice. Comments were made by Vitteritti, Houck, Coulson, Bast, and Merrifield. In their…

Today powerful philanthropies exercise considerable influence over U.S. educational policy. Referred to as venture philanthropies (Scott, 2009; Saltman, 2010), foundations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation, have emphasized high-stakes accountability and…

This commentary explores the so-called global "crisis" in education and the corresponding pressures and moves to "reform" education, and in particular, public education. The myths underpinning and driving these developments are examined. Supposed problems with (public) education and proposed solutions are explored. The…