Privatization

Many politicians at the state and national level have an overarching goal of privatizing public schools, which is another part of the education reform agenda. Privatization encompasses school choice, charter school expansion, or private school vouchers.

Proponents of privatization argue that public schools have too much bureaucracy, which impedes innovation and progress. They often see schools as a business, with the idea that creating competition will increase efficiency and improve performance. The problem with the idea of business/profit being a primary driver of education because it often leads to the needs of individual students taking a back seat to profit-driving measures. In addition to that, it’s the efforts of education reformers that are causing many public schools to have a perceived lack of innovation.

Charter School Expansion

Private School Vouchers

More information about privatization:
Charter Schools: Finding out the Facts: A study from the Center for Public Education that notes that charter schools do not outperform public schools
21 Myths about Charter Schools
Why Schools Aren’t Businesses: The Blueberry Story
Top 10 Reasons School Choice is no Choice
New Report Shines a Light into the Charter School Black Box
Report Shows Charter Schools Make Money for Private Businesses
Florida gave Charter Schools Millions Before they Closed
Florida policymakers trying to privatize entire state public school system
Charters lift some kids, but what about the ballast
A scandal that’s exposing ugly truths about the school privatization agenda
Florida’s Charter Schools, Unsupervised
A dozen problems with charter schools
Charter schools are cheating your kids: a report revealing fraud and mismanagement within some charter schools
An example of what charter school expansion is doing to traditional public schools
Privatization of Public Education – an early article from EdWeek about the for-profit charter school movement