Frank Adamson, an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies at California State University in Sacramento, wrote this paper for UNESCO.
He asks: Who wins? who chooses?
State responsibility in the United States
This third issue, state responsibility, starts with the acknowledgement that the pursuit of market-based approaches in the United States has exacerbated inequity and segregation in many contexts. A different course for public education provision could include investing in full-service community schools. According to J4J Alliance, these schools would have engaging, culturally relevant and challenging curriculum, educator roles in professional development and assessment design and use, and wrap around supports such as health and other care for students needing those services. Overall, the U.S. case provides an important and instructive example that other countries should examine before scaling up similar education approaches.
This brings us to a final international point about policy, politics, and influence. While the GEM Report does call attention to the myriad actors and political acrimony that divides opinion on the role of markets and governments in education, the report does not go far enough in naming the power asymmetries in terms of finance and access of different constituencies (e.g., technology companies and venture capital funds having orders of magnitude more resources and policy influence than civil society). To that end, I would add a third question to the report – Who chooses? Who loses? And who benefits? – to interrogate how non-state actors derive profit from the education sector and to help us remember that students should remain the recipients of our education expenditures and resources.
And, of course, who benefits?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“There is an inherent conflict of interest between the universal right to education and the goal of increasing profit.”
As privatization has expanded, there has been more interest in pursuing profit than providing quality education. It explains the roughly 1 billion federal dollars that have been wasted on schools that quickly folded or never opened in the federal charter schools program. Investors see “free money” as opportunity to profit. The fact they are supposed to be providing better education is not their primary goal. Why would any government believe that business people are qualified to deliver a better education than trained educators? It is a neoliberal myth that failing privatization has debunked. Billionaires and corporations have failed to deliver a quality education unless students are hand picked. A basic premise of business is to deliver profit over quality. This results in an ever lowering bottom line, For a education business this means larger class size, few support staff and shabby, unsafe physical plants.
Vulnerable students require investment. The neediest students require substantial investment with smaller classes, access to social services in school buildings. libraries and support services from trained professionals. Education should always put the students and their needs first. It is the collective responsibility of states and local communities to prepare our young people to become responsible citizens and help prepare them for their future endeavors.
“A basic premise of business is to deliver profit over quality.” I wouldn’t call that a basic premise of business. It only works for products like education, vitamins, snake oil, et al products whose quality & results cannot be easily or accurately defined and measured.
There’s no discussion of trade offs or risks of privatization in ed reform. None.
It’s all win/win cheerleading. Any voucher, any charter, any privatization scheme of any kid if greeted with exactly the same enthusiasm and promotion.
They want to dismantle a universal public system and pitch it in the trash and there is no discussion at all about any possible downside or risk of that.
Americans will find out what the downsides and risks were only after the privatization project is completed, because that discussion is barred in the echo chamber.
But they will find out. Too late to get the public system they had back, but once the project is complete and it’s completely privatized all the cheerleading in the world won’t conceal the downsides.
I just hope the engineers are held accountable. This is what they created. They wanted deregulated, (often, and increasingly) for profit systems with no transparency and no accountability. They invented this “governance” in the think tanks and university departments and echo chamber orgs. The privatized systems are 100% the creation of ed reform. I just hope they have to own it.
It’s really amazing to read within the echo chamber because I don’t even think they’re aware of the anti-public school bias that infuses all of their work.
Kyle Rosenkrans
KyleRosenkrans
·Apr 19
Happy to join
MichaelPetrilli
in making this argument, based upon rigorous scientific evidence that charters help kids and don’t hurt districts.
Look at the language. Charter schools are “kids” and public schools are “districts”
Just… wow. There are no public school students in ed reform. There are “districts”. The only students in this “movement” attend charter and private schools. Public school STUDENTS no longer exist. They don’t do any advocacy or work on behalf of our kids because they think public schools are “buildings” with no students in them.
Ed reform, in line with their rigorous standards for open debate and a range of views, asked a series of full time, paid charter school advocates whether there should be more charter schools and fewer public schools.
100% of the charter advocates said “more charters”. Case closed.
Now – how quickly can they dismantle all the public systems and replace them with private ones before the public catches on that this has been the goal all along?