Hidden markets: the new education privatization

Abstract

Privatization is a key feature of global education policy in the twenty-first century. It is a growing policy trend, in one form or another, in countries with very diverse cultural and political histories and economic positions. Indeed the spread of privatization in education is isomorphic with the form of capital it represents -the transnational corporation. The fast and massive expansion of private-sector participation in public-sector education is driven of course from both sides of the exchange relation, supply and demand. Privatization is attractive to governments and to multi-lateral agencies as 'solutions' to the 'problem' of public-sector reform (with the promise of increasing productivity, introducing innovations and reducing costs) and is a new (and relatively safe) profit opportunity for capital (large and small) particularly at a time when other areas of business activity are in recession. Public services markets involve huge expenditures, and governments are usually reliable payers. In education, the incursion of private providers is evident now across sectors, and through all aspects of assessment, curriculum, pedagogy and organization. Given this the odd thing is that so little attention has been given to privatization within the sociology of education. With a very few exceptions and the occasional rhetorical aside, most research in the sociology of education continues with business as usual with the effect of rendering invisible the processes of privatization of state education and their effects on and in schools, colleges and universities.

The Performing School: The Effects of Market & Accountability Policies

“…The state, for 1 See, for example, Ball, 1998;Ball and Youdell, 2008;Burbules and Torres, 2000;Daun, 2004;Falabella, 2007;Maroy, 2004;Whitty, Power, and Halpin, 1998;van Zanten, 2002. 2 However, it is important to note that these are solely general policy trends; the combination of these policies and their aims, extensions and philosophies vary significantly between countries.…”

Growth and performance of fully online and blended K-12 public schools

“…The unique flexibility inherent in online schools creates an ideal opportunity for for-profit and nonprofit EMOs to broaden their market share. Virtual and blended schools represent a disruption of the educational status quo, because they compete with their brick-and-mortar counterparts using low-cost business models-absence of brick and mortar facilities, limited number of teachers and other services essential to traditional school settings (Ball, Thrupp, & Forsey, 2010). Virtual and blended schools are also exempt from many rules that generally govern traditional brick-and-mortar schools, allowing for students learning from home and teachers working out of a school site or home office (Greenway & Vanourek, 2006).…”

Introduction

“…The increased influence of these organisations in Australian education mirrors experiences in the USA and UK, where non-government organisations are wielding increasing influence over policy development and enactment processes (Ball and Junemann 2012;Medvetz 2012;Reckhow 2013). The rise of think tanks and edubusinesses is symbolic of new and complex forms of governance, characterised by the formation of new policy networks and communities of expertise, new transnational policy discourses and new knowledge flows (Rizvi and Lingard 2010;Ball 2012).…”

“…Tracking the influence of any organisation in any policy ecology is notoriously difficult (WeaverHightower 2008), as evidenced by a proliferation of attempts in recent years to map and problematize relationships and channels of influence in evolving policy networks (e.g., Ball and Junemann 2012). Indeed, seeking to understand the ways think tanks exert influence is not only complicated by the challenge of defining think tanks, but also by the blurring of relationships between think tanks and other policy actors such as universities, governments, private donors, philanthropies, media outlets, politicians, and many more.…”

“…Our interest lies, therefore, not only in understanding how think tanks and edu-businesses seek to exert influence on governments, but also in how various 'cross-pollinations' between think tanks, edu-businesses and governments work to influence all aspects of the policy cycle, from agenda setting and generation of research and ideas for policy, through to policy text production, policy implementation and evaluation (Ball 2012). As several papers in this issue suggest, both think tanks and edu-businesses are flourishing in Australian policy because these organisations are successfully responding to new logics and conditions of possibility for governance, in which 'the restructured state' is being re-positioned as simply one actor amongst many in new polycentric networks (see Ball and Junemann 2012).…”