School Choice and Privatization in Education: An Alternative Analytical Framework

Neoliberal reformers have emphasized the role that market mechanisms can play in reconfiguring the public sector. In education, reformers argue that consumer choice and school competition can lead to more effective and efficient public education systems. Debates over education policy have highlighted the question of whether or not parental choice of schools represents a form of privatization - a question reflecting the tension over the extent to which schools should be directly subject to market forces. This analysis demonstrates that these debates in education are argued largely around supply-side issues important in other sectors undergoing privatization. A comprehensive review of debates in areas such as telecommunications, security/defense, and health care in indicates that neoliberal reformers and their critics are focused particularly on the ownership of the means of production or provision. In that regard, reformers contend that private managers are better positioned to administer public assets in the interest of the public good, even if the means of production/provision such as schools are still technically owned by the "public." However, this thinking, drawing from other sectors, neglects the counter-dynamic in education: the way education is provided can determine its nature as a public or private good. The concluding discussion suggests that this dynamic is most apparent not in ownership, but in modes of control, where educational decision-making is privatized, and the purposes of education are individualized. This analysis demonstrates that debates over the issue obscure the unique patterns that characterize the growing influence of private interests in education.