The charter school movement is prepared to expand at rates once unimaginable. Yet, a glaring hypocrisy exists in the movement that education and political leaders seem eager to ignore. The charter school movement stakes its very effectiveness and value on increased levels of accountability and measurable student achievement results; but it fails…

Introduced to the British education system under the Education Act 2002 and later enshrined in the New Labour government White Paper "Higher Standards, Better Schools for All" (DfES, 2005), the Academies policy was set up to enable designated under-performing schools to "opt out" from the financial and managerial remit of Local…

The University of California at Berkeley now delivers more to the public of California than it ever has, and it does this on the basis of proportionally less funding by the State government than it has ever received. This claim may come as a surprise, since it is often said that Berkeley is in the process of privatizing, becoming less of a public…

New "governance" reforms entailing shifts toward privatization have permeated the public sector over the last decade, possibly affecting workplace-based attainments. We examine the consequences of this reform for African American men, who during the civil rights era reached relative parity with whites. We analyze race-based inequities on one…

In this article, we examine the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as an example of a unique node within larger policy networks composed of new policy entrepreneurs (e.g., venture philanthropists, think tanks, private "edubusinesses" and their lobbyists, advocacy organizations, and social entrepreneurs). These new policy…

How might Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy (PESP) communities in the UK, Europe, Australasia and elsewhere go about researching the implications of neoliberalism and increasing privatisation of Education for the entitlements of young people to a common, comprehensive, high quality, equitable Physical Education (PE)? Our analyses suggest that…

Early in 2011, the Government initiated a consultation on the potential sale of the Public Forest Estate in England. This proposal leads to vociferous negative public reaction and the consultation was withdrawn and an Independent Panel established. This paper reviews the arguments as to the options and appropriate institutional arrangements for…

The author founded Greater Newark Charter School in 2000 at a time when charter schools were little more than a nuisance to the traditional public school establishment. Just two years earlier, when first learning about charter schools, he recalls questioning the necessity for "new" schools when so many operational public schools were in…

The privatisation of state education in a variety of ways has introduced a range of risks to school governance and management which have not previously existed in the public service. State-funded education is in danger of losing its standing on the moral high ground as a public good delivered almost exclusively by individuals committed to ethics…

In this article we firstly set out the facts about the current stage of capitalism, the Immiseration stage of neoliberal capitalism in England. We note its relationship with conservatism and neo-conservatism. We identify increased societal inequalities, the assault by the capitalist state on its opponents, and proceed to describe and analyse what…

This research brief details some of the prominent ways that individuals, companies, and organizations secure financial gain and generate profit by controlling and running charter schools. To illustrate how charter school policy functions to promote privatization and profiteering, the authors explore differences between charter schools and…

In "The Convergence of K-12 and Higher Education," two leading scholars of education policy bring together a distinguished and varied array of contributors to systematically examine the growing convergence between the K-12 and higher education sectors in the United States. Though the two sectors have traditionally been treated as…

Philanthropies and private foundations are increasingly acting as key nodes of the policy assemblages through which neoliberal and neomanagerialist policies are entering the field of education in Italy. In a country where public school 'ineffectiveness' and 'resistance to innovation' are taken for granted nowadays, policy…

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…

This paper explores the social justice implications of two, "linked", governance developments which have been instrumental in reshaping many education systems throughout the world: the "privatising" and "globalising" of education (Klees, Stromquist, & Samoff, 2012). We argue that such education governance…