Although for-profit colleges and universities have had a long history in the United States, they have garnered significant attention only in the last decade. In the early 20th century, career colleges existed primarily in urban areas to provide training for specific trades or professions--plumbing, restaurant management, art and design,…

The PISA project has steadily increased its influence on the educational discourse and educational policies in the now 70 participating countries. The educational debate has become global, and the race to improve PISA-rankings has become high priority in many countries. For governments the PISA-test is a high-stake test. Governments are blamed for…

Information Resource Management - State University System of Florida (IRM-SUS) is the primary collector and provider of data concerning state universities that is used to make sound education policy decisions. The office provides technical assistance to those using the information, state and federal reporting support, those supplying information,…

According to many analysts, after the dot-com, housing and financial bubbles, the next bubble to burst may be that of higher education and especially business education schools. Given this possible scenario, there are two ways one might interpret the current crisis in education, accompanied by two proposals for addressing the problems. According…

The author reports on the reigning economic calculus that helps to drive constant expansion and poor utilization of space on many campuses. The author states that colleges could charge for utilities, which might encourage departments to save energy. Most American colleges do not charge for space--in part because doing so would raise the hackles of…

Education to meet labour market demands and employer needs is a key priority in New Zealand's education policy. Government agendas for language and literacy education align with global discourses that link economic productivity to quality control, standardisation and proceduralisation through close regulation and funding. Yet, the interviews…

Neoliberal governments consider global business competitiveness to be thwarted by costly bureaucratic regulation and programme duplication. In an effort to downsize the costs of operating a state, the governors now streamline job training functions via a coordinated workforce and economic development effort known as sector strategies, with…

This paper examines ways educational leaders engaging with doctoral research have worked for students' participation in education systems. Twenty-four interviews were conducted with educational leaders of schools, colleges, and districts in England and the US doing doctoral research. The findings reveal that the leaders identify US and English…

This is a dissertation in three essays. The first essay traces changes over time in three factors that drive students' sensitivity to changes in tuition prices and presents an argument that these factors have changed differently for access to higher education and choice among alternative institutions. The essay explores the application of a…

In this article, the authors argue that educational technology is chiefly and increasingly being used as a tool for the privatization of education and the commodification of people by way of top down evaluative structures put in place by governments in collusion with neoliberal interests. This analysis began as a study that sought to illuminate…

Around the mid-2000s a crisis discourse emerged in educational policy-making in the EU and in Sweden. Using the EU and Sweden as empirical references, this article explores how this crisis discourse has been and is employed by politicians and NGOs. Discourse Institutionalism is used as an overall theoretical framework focusing on how the crisis…

In this timely interdisciplinary volume, William Watkins has brought together leading scholars and activists to address some of the most urgent issues facing public education. What is underneath and behind the language of choice, efficiency, and improvement in current neoliberal discourse? How will urban and poor populations be affected? Will…

Over the past several decades, schools have faced increasing pressure to "partner" with businesses, both to be seen as responsive to the business community and out of the hope that partnerships would help make up budget shortfalls as states reduced public funding for education. Often, school-business partnerships are little more than…

In this article, the author stresses the danger of losing the concept of education in favour of lower notions of instruction and training. By "training" he means a process that suggests the acquisition of skills and the enhancing of performance capacities. By "instruction" he means learning facts and new information--the results of retention. Too…

This article examines the extent of neoliberalism's influence within US community colleges during the last decade. It argues that such influence is changing non-profit, publicly funded community colleges into consumer colleges, serving the needs of corporations and "customers" at the expense of civic responsibility. Educating 46% of all…