Baltimore schools have begun their second year of a controversial $133 million contract with Minneapolis-based Education Alternatives Incorporated, a private, for-profit firm now managing nine of the city's most troubled schools. Sylvan Learning Systems, a for-profit company, administers the Chapter 1 tutoring program at six other schools. The…

This paper presents the most notorious decentralization and privatization policies of education delivery included in the 1995-2005 education reform plan and briefly explains some of the factors justifying their existence, potential success, and possible limitations. It also examines the capacity of a privatization strategy, contracting…

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…

Summarizes a study that examined principals' leadership in three private schools and its implications for decentralized public schools. With the increase of charter and privatized managed schools, principals will need to redefine their leadership styles. Private schools, as decentralized entities, offer useful perspectives on developing school…

Changes in Russian education are described: one-third of children are being educated at home; state universities face dwindling financial support; private institutions are being established; freedom of curriculum design has replaced uniform pedagogical processes; and new forms of higher education are emerging. (SK)

Examines international origins, national intentions, and local interpretations and actions of the recent education decentralization movement in Argentina, focusing on three provinces. Discusses the international policy environment in which privatization, deregulation, and decentralization have flourished. Both material capacities and symbolic…

Resources for higher education in the Arab states have depended on the overall economic situation of the countries in the region, and the economic growth of the region has been disappointing over the years. Of the 16 countries of the region, 7 had a negative average annual growth rate during the period 1960 to 1994, and 3 countries had an average…

Discusses three worldwide policy trends--privatization, revitalization, and decentralization--and their impact on economic development and extension education. (SK)

This book examines the decentralization and privatization of schools in Chile. It analyzes whether the introduction of market mechanisms in the supply of, and demand for, schools enhances educational performance. The text discusses the microeconomic assumptions underlying the proposition that elementary and secondary education could function as a…

Explains key issues and forces that shape organization and management strategies of educational decentralization, using examples from Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Nicaragua, and Spain. Core decentralization issues include national and regional goals, planning, political stress, resource distribution, infrastructure development, and job…

Compares trends toward privatization and marketization of public education in socialist mainland China and capitalist Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of China. Discusses policy shifts on the mainland toward decentralization, diversified educational services, and reduced government funding, and Hong Kong's efforts to promote…

Traces the development of Dutch educational policy since the compromise of 1917, by which private and public schools were given equal financial support. Examines the extent to which neoliberal reforms of the 1980s brought about radical changes in the Dutch education system, focusing on increased autonomy, freedom of school choice, privatization,…

Implications of two trends in Australian higher education are considered. These trends are shift to a fee-for-services system in which the government pays less of the cost of higher education; and move toward deregulation, with elimination of centralized planning and emphasis placed on institutional response to student demand. (MSE)

This paper focuses on the role of the World Bank and its subsidiaries in promoting the neoliberal educational reforms of privatization and decentralization globally and in El Salvador. Neoliberalism is first defined as a sociopolitical philosophy that supports concepts such as the free market, market-driven education, and the use of a voucher…

Sweden's newly deregulated university system, characterized by increased privatization and performance-based funding, is compared with a model of "responsive regulation" characterized by a cooperative regulatory relationship. Developments and actions during the first few years of reform are also analyzed in this context. Suggestions for…