During the period of 1981 to 2015, the total population of Black students in CPS plummeted from close to 240,000, 60% of all CPS students, to 156,000 or 39% of CPS. This paper documents how despite their decreasing numbers and percentage in the system, the vast majority of Black students remained isolated in predominantly low-income Black schools…

Historically, teachers unions have played a special role in strengthening democratic cultures, and they are urgently called on to do so again. What is needed now more than ever says Kahlenberg, is a "social justice unionism" that goes beyond the narrow self-interest of members in bargaining for better wages and benefits to also engage in…

The United Kingdom Coalition Government has introduced a series of market-based reforms to the English higher education system. These come on top of a number of similar policies going back to the early 1980s. Together, these take English higher education closer to an economic market than any other major public system. Taking the period as a whole,…

Honors has specifically and historically done a commendable job of tailoring education to the special needs and challenges of the most intellectually and academically capable young people, the future leaders and innovators of society, but the introduction of an imperative to make money threatens to corrupt the whole enterprise. For this reason,…

Drawing upon socio-ecological and critical educational theory, this article examines neoliberal educational reforms through a theoretical framework of "commons" and "enclosure." Neoliberal reforms should be regarded as enclosures because they seek to privatize education for profit accumulation, foreclosing the possibility of…

Today powerful philanthropies exercise considerable influence over U.S. educational policy. Referred to as venture philanthropies (Scott, 2009; Saltman, 2010), foundations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation, have emphasized high-stakes accountability and…

More than 20 years into the implementation of public charter schools, the U.S. experience can inform policymakers and others about how to achieve the best possible results through charter school policies. This paper describes the history and current state of the charter school movement, presents a conceptual model of the charter school system, and…

In 1999, the Province of San Luis (Argentina) approved the creation of the so-called 'Escuelas Experimentales Autogestionadas' (SelfManaged Experimental Schools) inspired by the US charter schools, but with important differences. This article explores the circumstances under which the project was dismantled and abandoned prematurely. The study…

Amid the growth of charter schools, autonomous schools, and private management organizations, an increasing number of urban districts are moving toward a portfolio management model (PMM). In a PMM, the district central office oversees schools that operate under a variety of governance models. The expansion of PMMs raises questions about local…

In this article, I examine the practice of outsourcing physical education (PE) lessons to external sports organisations. I draw from ethnographic research conducted with two primary schools in New Zealand to illuminate how outsourcing interconnects with the privatisation of education. Using Foucault's notion of government, I demonstrate how…

The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "Education Policy." Contents include: (1) Legislative Sessions Constrained by…

Published annually since 1985, the Handbook series provides a compendium of thorough and integrative literature reviews on a diverse array of topics of interest to the higher education scholarly and policy communities. Each annual volume contains chapters that discuss salient dimensions of scholarly and policy inquiries on topics pertaining to…

Over the course of the 1980s and 1990s, the contours of neoliberalism took shape, as individual corporations implemented new strategies seeking to shift the frontier of control in their favor and increase their profits. Their actions began to shape the political and economic practices of both major political parties, and the orientation of…

This article deals with the issue of privatisation(s) in the field of education. In doing so, it focuses on three distinct, although interrelated, processes currently being experienced in the Italian education system: (a) the widening of the spaces for private schooling; (b) the ongoing privatisation of policy and the related blurring of the…

The higher education system in Flanders is characterised by tight regulation and a tradition of excluding private providers from the sector. However, as in other European countries, the Belgian public sector has been confronted with the principles of New Public Management (NPM) and trends of liberalisation and privatisation. The same goes for the…