A private organization (Education Alternative, Inc.) is presently managing nine Baltimore public schools; Christopher Whittle's Edison Project is planning similar public school management projects; a private consulting company (Public Strategies Group) recently took charge of the Minneapolis public schools. Goaded by concerns about accountability…

Explores the financial and administrative autonomy granted to selected colleges in Punjab, Pakistan. Analyzes the rationale and organizational structure of the privatization scheme. Describes a pilot study of two autonomous colleges, focusing on participants' reactions to implementation problems. Autonomy is not working as intended, and negative…

Israel has recently seen the growth of a movement demanding greater parental choice and more diversity in public schools. This article examines the state-supported TALI (or reinforcing Jewish studies) schools, focusing on a study analyzing the motives behind parental choice and the effects of choice on the social and cultural composition of…

About 1,500 schools nationwide pay an estimated $200 million in federal funds to private enterprises claiming to provide better literacy instruction than the disappointing Title I results of the past 34 years. Programs run by Kaplan Inc., Success for All Foundation, Sylvan Learning Systems, and Reading Recovery Council are described. (MLH)

Introduces a series of articles about Canadian educational policy issues, comparing British and Canadian policymaking milieus during the 1980s. All the papers address wide-ranging attempts to reconstruct notions of commonness alongside concessions to, and celebrations of, linguistic and cultural plurality in an uncertain, postliberal world. This…

During the early 1970s, over 150 school districts and several states contracted with private companies to deliver instruction, and the Nixon Administration initiated a vast privatization field experiment in Texarkana. None of these performance contracting experiments significantly improved instruction. Instead, they raised issues of staffing,…

The management of school systems by for-profit private contractors is one alternative method of school reform. This document describes some private-management plans and examines some of the central issues. The arrangements between public school systems and three private contractors of education are described--Education Alternatives, Inc. (EAI),…

Explores inherent tensions between the substance of school board reform and the ideology of governance reform. New Orleans's unique culture of privatization has historically constrained grass-roots involvement in educational reform. A recent exception is a highly motivated, parent-based Education Issues Committee that successfully overhauled the…

States that the increasingly unrestricted growth of competition places national public institutions of education under escalating pressure. Notes that creeping privatization is passing more costs of education onto the citizen. Argues that this internationally subversive process is seldom critically addressed but is instead dominated by a high-brow…

Analyzes the relationship between educational development and Malaysia's sociopolitical and economic context. Under the Vision 2020 rubric, liberalized educational policies are leading to a more democratic, privatized, and decentralized educational system. Curricular revisions stressing basic skills, moral values, and individual development are…