Describes the long-term effort to build leadership and strengthen the movement for economic justice. The effort involved working with community organizations and unions already organized around a local issue to link local issues with global economics. The focus on economic justice work led to working with groups that had been marginalized under…

A variety of perspectives exist on the evaluation of Japan's educational reform of 2002, which has evolved since the 1980s. However, thus far, little attention has been paid to the emerging influence of civil society on educational policies and practices. This paper shows that the origin of the current educational reforms can be traced to reports…

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…

The merits of a marketplace model for public education have been among the most prominent themes in education policy discussions over the last two decades. Advocates of market approaches to education reform contend that creating a market in educational services will foster competition among providers and thus spur delivery of better services at…

Efforts to infuse market forces into public education are based on the supposition that these forces can improve student outcomes. This assumption does not consider the politics of implementation. This article examines state-initiated school privatization and reveals factors that influence translation of theory to practice. The cases depict what…

With some exceptions, a liberal version of neoclassical economics dominated public policy in the United States from the New Deal through the 1970s; and in many other countries as well. However, beginning in 1980, there was a visible sea change that brought conservatives and public choice economists to power. Ronald Reagan was elected President of…

Supplemental Educational Services, mandated by NCLB as an option for students in low-performing Title I schools, has just completed its fourth implementation year, and a number of solid research reports on the Federal program are now available. This commentary reviews the political background to the out-of-school tutoring program, the for-profit…

Western governments appear increasingly dissatisfied with the rising costs and apparent static performance of their education systems. This dissatisfaction has been manifested in a critical re-examination of the near-monopoly of publicly provided schooling. Elsewhere in the public sector, privatization and competitive tendering have been…

This article reads the educational implications of "intellectual property" that are found in the double meaning of "property", as the word refers to an economic right and a quality of being. It briefly visits the seventeenth-century origins of this double concept of intellectual property (IP), with particular attention paid to…

This article analyzes Chicago's new Renaissance 2010 school plan to close public schools and reopen them as choice and charter schools. Grounding the analysis in participatory research methods, the authors argue that Chicago's education accountability policies have laid the groundwork for privatization. They furthermore argue that Renaissance 2010…

As public schools in countries like the UK, USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand continue to suffer from the damaging effects of poorly conceptualized educational reforms, educators struggle to come up with alternatives with which to reclaim schools. While acknowledging the situational, contextual and temporal differences between these…

The authors of the articles in this issue have provided a descriptive, analytic view of the politics of privatization, not a normative one. They have elected to view privatization more as a basic tool of government, with both uses and limitations, than strictly as an issue of ideology. Through their examination of the nexus between privatization…

Offers tips for higher education institutions on navigating the relationship with a privatized student housing developer: don't assume the project costs nothing, do understand the difference between your goals and the developer's, do create a feasibility study, don't treat every relationship the same, do put the student first, and don't forget the…

Discusses why, with budget crunches and enrollment increases, privatization is a viable option for higher education administrators needing affordable student housing. (EV)

Suggests principles for making decisions about outsourcing, privatizing, or contracting school services: know your costs, specify results within the request for proposal (RFP), and face reality and focus on the mission. (EV)