One of the claims asserted by advocates of the privatized school choice model is that Traditional Public Schools (TPSs) have failed in their efforts to ameliorate social inequalities for underserved populations. School choice models that support privatization and competition are typically associated with the idealization of market efficiencies, as…

Throughout the 20th century, community-owned and operated public schooling was viewed in the United States as an essential mechanism for advancing the country's democratic ideals, institutions, and economic interests. But the first decades of the 21st century have witnessed a historic shift away from this commitment to public schools, as federal…

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…

This article outlines different forms of education privatization operating globally, examines their prevalence within the United States, and analyzes whether student marginalization and segregation occurs at the local level. We analyze six U.S. districts with higher saturation levels of charter schools, the most predominant type of privatization…

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…

Educators and policy observers are keeping a close eye on two controversial experiments in private management of public schools now unfolding in the western Michigan city of Muskegon Heights and in the Detroit-area community of Highland Park. Citing chronic budget woes in the communities' low-performing school districts, Gov. Rick Snyder of…

While past annual "Profiles" reports have focused on either for-profit EMOs (education management organizations) or nonprofit EMOs, this is the first annual "Profiles" report to cover both categories in a single report which allows for easier comparisons. The 2010-2011 school year marked another year of relatively slow growth in the for-profit…

The way in which private schools use rhetoric in their communications offers important insights into how these organizational sites persuade audiences and leverage marketplace advantage in the context of contemporary educational platforms. Through systemic analysis of rhetorical strategies employed in 65 "elite" school prospectuses in…

The task of this article is to carry out a synthetic analysis of the concept of the "educational marketplace" as it is used in the popular discourse of education reform so as to unpack what has become a commonsensical idea in American politics. It is a conceptual framework that has opened an ever-expanding sovereign space in the American state for…

Recent reforms in England's education system have been justified on the grounds that other countries have pursued similar approaches to education reform. Many such policies that by-pass or otherwise diminish meso-level institutions demonstrate a commitment to the idea of devolving authority to local actors. The current reforms in England and…

Over the past three decades, educators have faced an increasing variety of reform proposals that can best be contextualized as efforts to commodify and privatize public education. While supporters of market-based reforms attempt to place these proposals within education theory, they are in reality firmly entrenched in neoliberal economic theory.…

This paper reviews existing literature to identify the changing nature of the Australian education policy field. Through this analysis, it is argued that an international paradigm of testing, propagated by comparative performance data, disseminated by multinational agencies and non-government organisations, is leading to a global audit culture,…

Each year, under the federal program called Supplemental Educational Services (SES), the Baltimore City Public School System (City Schools) pays educational vendors millions of public dollars to tutor thousands of its poorest students in its lowest achieving schools. Established in 2002 by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, SES was created to…

This study evaluates the impact of the privatization of education services in the Philadelphia School District, using an interrupted time series design. The sample observes 88 middle-grades schools, beginning with the 1996-97 school year, and finds that, by 2006, four years postintervention, the achievement growth rate of schools run by…

"Impact of For-Profit and Nonprofit Management on Student Achievement: The Philadelphia Intervention, 2002-2008" examined whether shifting from traditional district management to management by a for-profit or nonprofit organization improves student achievement. The study analyzed data on six cohorts of elementary and middle school…