In a globally austere policy context, state financing of public services has been positioned as perennially "in crisis" with private intervention a positive solution. There is a general assumption -- in education policy and practice -- that philanthropic donations can be a solution to reduced public funding of schooling. While much…

Drawing upon a long-term study of venture philanthropy and public schools in Australia, this paper focuses on Teach For Australia (TFA) as a major component of a venture philanthropic network, one that builds critical infrastructures and connections between non-government organisations and the state, creating a product pipeline into public…

This dissertation explores the complex dynamics and conflicts surrounding the privatization of public school services in New Jersey. Through detailed case studies of multiple New Jersey towns, this dissertation examines how local school districts, grappling with funding challenges, consider outsourcing educational support professional roles to cut…

In Anglophone countries, narratives of public schooling tend to emphasise generic hopes about schooling as central to the idea of a public good, including fostering community, delivering equality and protecting broad notions of democracy. However, as public systems become more open to privatised logics, these hopes sit alongside fears for the…

Neoliberalism is a pro-capitalist ideology that cycles money and power to the elite class by deregulating or privatizing the public sphere and is fueled by economic exploitation and oppression. This dissertation examines the neoliberal construct at work in the privatization of Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) from an ethnographic lens using the…

A school-focused commercializing process over 100 years in the making has been turbo-charged by the rise of data-collecting digital educational platforms and a pandemic that has forced widespread use of distance learning. Alex Molnar and Faith Boninger explain how advertising to students creates what John Dewey would call "mis-educative…

Privatization of education has become a prevalent global trend, representing a significant shift from viewing education as a public good to considering it as a private commodity. This transformation is closely tied to the modernization of the state under the principles of neoliberalism. A comprehensive analysis, as presented in this book using…

Controversy is intensifying with the rapid spread of charter schools and their domination of the education reform agenda. As charter enrolment increases in the USA, inequities in education worsen. This article contributes to the debate on contemporary education policy by critically examining charter issues from the US literature and stakeholder…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to systematically analyze the neoliberal challenges and problems facing public schools in the particular Hong Kong context. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a systematic and critical analysis on the history and socio-political context of Hong Kong's school policies and practice as well as the official…

This paper uses Anderson's notion of 'imagined community' to argue that how people think about the publicness of their school system provides insight into the functioning and flourishing of communities, societies and nations. We focus on the privatisation of public schooling in Alberta, Canada and Northern England to highlight tensions between the…

The gradual restructuring of the political economy of Turkey after the 1980s has changed the positioning of the middle class and the importance of its social, economic, and cultural capitals. In particular, lowering the quality of public education through systematic privatization and Islamisation has constituted a significant threat to this class'…

The past two decades have marked tremendous growth in the number of public schools that are privately operated and, in a growing number of cases, also privately owned. Known as education management organizations (EMOs), these are private companies or organizations that are rapidly expanding their market shares of the public education sector,…

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…

In response to growing pushback to decades of privatization and disinvestment in high-poverty communities of color, elected officials and business leaders in the United States have turned to 'community-engaged strategies' to advance education reform. This qualitative case study of a California school district, the Oakland Unified School District,…

Marketing in schools has a new twist, and teachers are at the center. Corporate firms, particularly those producing education-technology products, have contracted with teachers to become so-called brand ambassadors and micro-influencers. Scant research, however, has examined these brand ambassador arrangements, leaving policymakers uninformed…