Most "systemic" reforms try to align different public education segments via mandated goals, tests, curriculum frameworks, and teacher certification methods but fail to eliminate political, contractual constraints that create fragmented, unresponsive schools. Contracting, alternative form of public education governance building on…

Contract management of school maintenance and operations is a growing trend. In-house departments need to be prepared to justify their positions. Describes a Texas school district's request for proposal for contract management and includes the specifications for bidding with comments about the wording of the document. (MLF)

At a low-income elementary school in Miami Beach, children learn for themselves, not to impress others. Guided by a privately developed instructional package, the school has embraced such tradition-smashing reforms as teacher-coaches, cooperative learning, whole-language and whole-math curricula, computer-assisted instruction, small classes, and…

Presents a country-by-country analysis of investment opportunities in Latin American telecommunications. Concludes: Brazil and Mexico are the major focus of interest and expectations; wireless and cellular are expanding rapidly; the expansion of regulatory reform, as promised to the World Trade Organization (WTO) should foster necessary monopolies…

For-profit college-admissions counseling and college-preparation companies are expanding, and existing test-preparation centers are planning to begin offering admissions-counseling services. One company envisions a national chain. Some educators welcome the trend, while others feel the commercial enterprises may take an inappropriate approach to…

The Australian state of Victoria has adopted a privatization approach to human services that is destroying the infrastructure of community services. Without a dynamic community services core, it is difficult for social citizenship to flourish. (SK)

During its 1993 session, the Michigan legislature enacted two statutes for the organization and operation of public school academies, Michigan's name for charter schools. A circuit court judge declared the charter schools were unconstitutional. In response, the legislature amended its original enactment. Traces the short but curious history of…

Responds to an article on school choice by suggesting that much more is known about the politics of issues related to school choice and privatization than the article reveals, partly from what has occurred with educational vouchers and charter schools in the United States and partly from lessons learned from voucher plans in other countries. (SM)

Explains why private companies and schools doing business with one another may be harmful to students. Problems uncovered from a decade of commercialization in the classroom are discussed as are issues of for-profit companies seeking to take over the operation of public schools, and one attempt to impose legislation to curtail commercialism. (GR)

In this article, the author analyzes public education, and whether America can survive without it. There is a deep sense in which the phrase "public education" is redundant: Education is public, above all in a democracy. To think of it any other way is to rob it of its essential meaning. For education is an essential public good addressed to young…

We argue that the privatisation of education needs to be understood through an ethical lens, and suggest a broad framework through which privatisation policies and practices might be ethically audited. These policies and practices it is suggested are creating new ethical spaces and new clusters of goals, obligations and dispositions. Whatever the…

The landscape of educational privatization is changing. The authors examine the rise of specialty service providers in four areas of K-12 educational services and products and the impact of these changes.

Charter schools are one form of decentralizing public education by shifting power into the hands of school stakeholders by providing them with more "voice" in day-to-day decisions. However, the increasing involvement of educational management organizations (EMOs) as managers of charter schools raises new questions about the influence of school…

The author discusses some of the ways in which certain elements of conservative modernization have had an impact on education at multiple levels. He points to the growth of commodifying logics and the audit culture that accompanies them. In the process, he highlights a number of dangers currently being faced. However, he urges us not to assume…

Like many other U.S. cities, Philadelphia experienced a prolonged period of deindustrialization and job loss during the second half of the 20th century. As in other northern cities, the process of suburbanization went hand in hand with white flight, increased racial segregation of the city and its schools, and increasingly inadequate funding of…