Because higher education serves both public and private interests, the way it is conceived and financed is contested politically, appearing in different forms in different societies. What is public and private in education is a political--social construct, subject to various political forces, primarily interpreted through the prism of the state.…

Stanford education professor Martin Carnoy examines four main critiques of how international test results are used in policymaking. Of particular interest are critiques of the policy analyses published by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Using average PISA scores as a comparative measure of student achievement is misleading…

Six ways of viewing educational adequacy, the financial implications of these six definitions, and the political and economic bases for utilizing particular concepts of adequacy in the context of an American-style democracy are considered in this document. According to the definitions, educational adequacy can be measured in terms of the amount of…

The political economy of education treats education as a factor shaped by the power relations between different economic, political, and social groups. Specific topics discussed include the economic value of education, education as an allocator of economic roles, education and social class, education and income distribution, and education and…

Addresses the question of why there is a decrease in college participation by blacks and whether this indicates that American society is becoming more racist. It explains how low expectations about going to college can negatively affect secondary school performance and how government policies contributed to those expectations. (GR)

In the 1960s and 1970s, steady economic growth helped the Costa Rican government expand its education system rapidly. The 1979 oil shocks, the U.S. 1981-82 recession, and other factors ended this prosperity and exposed the fragility of Costa Rica's late 1970s debt-financed development. To restore economic growth, new economic policies were…

Traditional Marxist approaches to the state relegate superstructural institutions like the school to a minor role in the process of social change. More recent theories like those of Gramsci, Althusser, and Poulantzas raise the state and the class struggle in the state apparatuses to a much more prominent position: superstructure, including the…