Four key reasons underlie the push for teacher union solidarity in 1998: desire to fulfill Al Shanker's dream of a unified mission, to end union competition, to bolster Democratic Party weaknesses, and to stop privatization. The NEA/AFT merger failed because of conflicting organizational cultures and teachers' gradualist, localist, and…

Public employee unions, especially the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers, are the main political opposition to contracting out by school boards. This paper notes school boards have nowhere to turn for help in maintaining their freedom to contract out and discusses disturbing aspects of the unions' opposition to…

Two systems of metaphors (laissez-faire and communitarian) have set the parameters governing the educational choice debate. Choice proponents argue that markets will make schools more efficient and egalitarian; critics view privatization as fragmenting the body politic. When institutional racism is factored in, privatization appears to further…

During the early 1970s, over 150 school districts and several states contracted with private companies to deliver instruction, and the Nixon Administration initiated a vast privatization field experiment in Texarkana. None of these performance contracting experiments significantly improved instruction. Instead, they raised issues of staffing,…

Discusses whether the alternatives to traditional education that were promoted in the past decade have lived up to their promise of creating a school environment that is conducive to learning for all students, focusing on magnet schools, educational vouchers, privatization and charter schools, and home schooling. (SM)

Discusses the pros and cons of privatization as a way of saving money while improving non-educational operations. Questions about why some services should be kept in-house are addressed, as well as what to look for when considering outsourcing. One school's experience with outsourcing health-care services is highlighted. (GR)

Discusses several market-driven school-choice programs: intradistrict choice, interdistrict choice, privatization, and vouchers. Because of the limited and often contradictory research on the effect of alternative choice programs on student achievement, more research is needed to determine their long-term effect. (PKP)

This article focuses on the extent to which the legislative framework and education-funding models applicable to school education in South Africa post-1994 have, in attempting to address historical inequalities, resulted in a particular form of privatisation of public education. The article sets out the extent of the autonomy available to all…

In coping with the challenges of globalization, various reform measures, in the field of social policy, have been initiated in post-Mao China. Strategies such as privatization, marketization, commodification and societalization have been adopted to redefine the relationship between the state, the market and other non-state sectors involved in…

Information technology plays an increasingly prominent role in the strategic initiatives of higher education institutions. Technology projects are becoming the largest projects on campus, approaching funding levels of bricks and mortar investments. Information systems are viewed as critical in attracting high-quality faculty, staff, and students,…

How much is hegemony and how much is self-determination in the higher education systems in Southeast Asia? This paper argues that while the question of centre and periphery is still relevant to the analysis of international university systems, the analytical frameworks from which it has arisen may lose viability in the long term. Southeast Asian…

Not long after the political transition in 1997, Hong Kong witnessed a spate of top-down education reforms that had been conceived within the neoliberal ideology of economic globalisation. Neoliberalism is particularly pervasive here, because of the underdevelopment of representative politics and of critical, social democratic discourse in…

In this chapter we set out a series of progressive egalitarian policy principles and proposals that constitute a democratic Marxist and ecosocialist manifesto for schooling and teacher education for economic and social justice. This is based on a democratic Marxist theoretical framework (1) and on a structuralist neo-Marxist analysis (2). We also…

This article discusses the limited use of education vouchers in an era of unprecedented growth in school choice. It is divided into two parts: first, a description of the policy, political, and legal barriers that may limit the expansion of large-scale voucher programs is presented. Discussion then shifts to the efforts of voucher advocates to…

During the last quarter of a century, public higher education institutions have found themselves buffeted by a perfect storm. This storm has led to discussions about the privatization of those institutions, which has implications for their ability to improve, or at least maintain, their quality and their accessibility to students from all…