The Public School Advantage

The Public School Advantage PDF Author: Christopher A. Lubienski
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022608907X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 299

Get Book Here

Book Description
Nearly the whole of America’s partisan politics centers on a single question: Can markets solve our social problems? And for years this question has played out ferociously in the debates about how we should educate our children. From the growth of vouchers and charter schools to the implementation of No Child Left Behind, policy makers have increasingly turned to market-based models to help improve our schools, believing that private institutions—because they are competitively driven—are better than public ones. With The Public School Advantage, Christopher A. and Sarah Theule Lubienski offer powerful evidence to undercut this belief, showing that public schools in fact outperform private ones. For decades research showing that students at private schools perform better than students at public ones has been used to promote the benefits of the private sector in education, including vouchers and charter schools—but much of these data are now nearly half a century old. Drawing on two recent, large-scale, and nationally representative databases, the Lubienskis show that any benefit seen in private school performance now is more than explained by demographics. Private schools have higher scores not because they are better institutions but because their students largely come from more privileged backgrounds that offer greater educational support. After correcting for demographics, the Lubienskis go on to show that gains in student achievement at public schools are at least as great and often greater than those at private ones. Even more surprising, they show that the very mechanism that market-based reformers champion—autonomy—may be the crucial factor that prevents private schools from performing better. Alternatively, those practices that these reformers castigate, such as teacher certification and professional reforms of curriculum and instruction, turn out to have a significant effect on school improvement. Despite our politics, we all agree on the fundamental fact: education deserves our utmost care. The Public School Advantage offers exactly that. By examining schools within the diversity of populations in which they actually operate, it provides not ideologies but facts. And the facts say it clearly: education is better off when provided for the public by the public.

The Public School Advantage

The Public School Advantage PDF Author: Christopher A. Lubienski
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022608907X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 299

Get Book Here

Book Description
Nearly the whole of America’s partisan politics centers on a single question: Can markets solve our social problems? And for years this question has played out ferociously in the debates about how we should educate our children. From the growth of vouchers and charter schools to the implementation of No Child Left Behind, policy makers have increasingly turned to market-based models to help improve our schools, believing that private institutions—because they are competitively driven—are better than public ones. With The Public School Advantage, Christopher A. and Sarah Theule Lubienski offer powerful evidence to undercut this belief, showing that public schools in fact outperform private ones. For decades research showing that students at private schools perform better than students at public ones has been used to promote the benefits of the private sector in education, including vouchers and charter schools—but much of these data are now nearly half a century old. Drawing on two recent, large-scale, and nationally representative databases, the Lubienskis show that any benefit seen in private school performance now is more than explained by demographics. Private schools have higher scores not because they are better institutions but because their students largely come from more privileged backgrounds that offer greater educational support. After correcting for demographics, the Lubienskis go on to show that gains in student achievement at public schools are at least as great and often greater than those at private ones. Even more surprising, they show that the very mechanism that market-based reformers champion—autonomy—may be the crucial factor that prevents private schools from performing better. Alternatively, those practices that these reformers castigate, such as teacher certification and professional reforms of curriculum and instruction, turn out to have a significant effect on school improvement. Despite our politics, we all agree on the fundamental fact: education deserves our utmost care. The Public School Advantage offers exactly that. By examining schools within the diversity of populations in which they actually operate, it provides not ideologies but facts. And the facts say it clearly: education is better off when provided for the public by the public.

Redefining Asia Pacific Higher Education in Contexts of Globalization: Private Markets and the Public Good

Redefining Asia Pacific Higher Education in Contexts of Globalization: Private Markets and the Public Good PDF Author: Deane E. Neubauer
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137559209
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 186

Get Book Here

Book Description
This edited volume addresses the dynamic global contexts redefining Asia Pacific higher education, including cross-border education, capacity and national birthrate profiles, pressures created within ranking/status systems, and complex shifts in the meanings of the public good that influence public education in an increasingly privatized world.

Public Vs. Private

Public Vs. Private PDF Author: Robert N. Gross
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190644575
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Get Book Here

Book Description
Americans choose from a dizzying array of schools, loosely categorized as "public" and "private." How did these distinctions emerge, and what do they tell us about the relationship in the United States between public authority and private enterprise? Challenged by the rise of Catholic and other parochial schools in the nineteenth century, states sought to protect the public school monopoly through regulation. Ultimately, however, Robert N. Gross shows how the public policies that resulted produced a stable educational marketplace, where choice flourished.

The Role and Impact of Public-private Partnerships in Education

The Role and Impact of Public-private Partnerships in Education PDF Author: Harry Anthony Patrinos
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821379038
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 116

Get Book Here

Book Description
The book offers an overview of international examples, studies, and guidelines on how to create successful partnerships in education. PPPs can facilitate service delivery and lead to additional financing for the education sector as well as expanding equitable access and improving learning outcomes.

Public Private Partnerships in Education

Public Private Partnerships in Education PDF Author: Susan Robertson
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 0857930699
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Get Book Here

Book Description
'Far from simply being a form of cost sharing between the "state" and the "market," PPP has been celebrated by some, and condemned by others, as the champion of change in the new millennium. This book has been written by the best minds in education policy, political economy, and development studies. They convincingly argue that public private partnership represents a new mode of governance that ranges from covert support of the private sector (vouchers, subsidies) to overt collaboration with corporate actors in the rapidly growing education industry. The analyses are simply brilliant and indispensable for understanding how and why this particular best/worst practice went global.' – Gita Steiner-Khamsi, Columbia University, New York, US This insightful book brings together both academics and researchers from a variety of international organizations and aid agencies to explore the complexities of public private partnerships (PPPs) as a resurgent, hybrid mode of educational governance that operates across scales, from the community to the global. The contributors expertly study the different types of partnership arrangements and thoroughly critique the value of PPPs. Some chapters explore how PPPs, as a policy idea, have been constructed in transnational agendas for educational development and circulated globally, whilst other chapters explores the role and implications of PPPs in developing countries, providing arguments for and against an expanding reliance on PPPs in national educational systems. The theoretical framing of the book draws upon leading theories of international relations to develop a unique perspective on the global governance of education. It will prove insightful for both scholars and policymakers in public policy and education.

Private Equity at Work

Private Equity at Work PDF Author: Eileen Appelbaum
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610448189
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 396

Get Book Here

Book Description
Private equity firms have long been at the center of public debates on the impact of the financial sector on Main Street companies. Are these firms financial innovators that save failing businesses or financial predators that bankrupt otherwise healthy companies and destroy jobs? The first comprehensive examination of this topic, Private Equity at Work provides a detailed yet accessible guide to this controversial business model. Economist Eileen Appelbaum and Professor Rosemary Batt carefully evaluate the evidence—including original case studies and interviews, legal documents, bankruptcy proceedings, media coverage, and existing academic scholarship—to demonstrate the effects of private equity on American businesses and workers. They document that while private equity firms have had positive effects on the operations and growth of small and mid-sized companies and in turning around failing companies, the interventions of private equity more often than not lead to significant negative consequences for many businesses and workers. Prior research on private equity has focused almost exclusively on the financial performance of private equity funds and the returns to their investors. Private Equity at Work provides a new roadmap to the largely hidden internal operations of these firms, showing how their business strategies disproportionately benefit the partners in private equity firms at the expense of other stakeholders and taxpayers. In the 1980s, leveraged buyouts by private equity firms saw high returns and were widely considered the solution to corporate wastefulness and mismanagement. And since 2000, nearly 11,500 companies—representing almost 8 million employees—have been purchased by private equity firms. As their role in the economy has increased, they have come under fire from labor unions and community advocates who argue that the proliferation of leveraged buyouts destroys jobs, causes wages to stagnate, saddles otherwise healthy companies with debt, and leads to subsidies from taxpayers. Appelbaum and Batt show that private equity firms’ financial strategies are designed to extract maximum value from the companies they buy and sell, often to the detriment of those companies and their employees and suppliers. Their risky decisions include buying companies and extracting dividends by loading them with high levels of debt and selling assets. These actions often lead to financial distress and a disproportionate focus on cost-cutting, outsourcing, and wage and benefit losses for workers, especially if they are unionized. Because the law views private equity firms as investors rather than employers, private equity owners are not held accountable for their actions in ways that public corporations are. And their actions are not transparent because private equity owned companies are not regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Thus, any debts or costs of bankruptcy incurred fall on businesses owned by private equity and their workers, not the private equity firms that govern them. For employees this often means loss of jobs, health and pension benefits, and retirement income. Appelbaum and Batt conclude with a set of policy recommendations intended to curb the negative effects of private equity while preserving its constructive role in the economy. These include policies to improve transparency and accountability, as well as changes that would reduce the excessive use of financial engineering strategies by firms. A groundbreaking analysis of a hotly contested business model, Private Equity at Work provides an unprecedented analysis of the little-understood inner workings of private equity and of the effects of leveraged buyouts on American companies and workers. This important new work will be a valuable resource for scholars, policymakers, and the informed public alike.

Public and Private Education in America

Public and Private Education in America PDF Author: Casey D. Cobb
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 231

Get Book Here

Book Description
This title will give students and other readers a clear understanding of the true state of public and private education systems in the United States by refuting falsehoods, misunderstandings, and exaggerations—and confirming the validity of other assertions. This work is part of a series that uses evidence-based documentation to examine the veracity of claims and beliefs about high-profile issues in American culture and politics. Each book in the Contemporary Debates series is intended to puncture rather than perpetuate myths that diminish our understanding of important policies and positions; to provide needed context for misleading statements and claims; and to confirm the factual accuracy of other assertions. This particular volume examines beliefs, claims, and myths about public and private K–12 education in the United States. Issues covered include categories of public and private schools and variations in academic performance and socioeconomic status therein; controversies surrounding school choice, including school vouchers and charter schools; accountability and assessment of private and public schools; debates about school environment, safety, and curricula; and teacher and administrator quality. All of these issues are examined in individualized entries, with objective responses grounded in up-to-date evidence.

Private Enterprise and Public Education

Private Enterprise and Public Education PDF Author: Frederick M. Hess
Publisher: Teachers College Press
ISBN: 0807772992
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Get Book Here

Book Description
The growth of for-profit providers in the K16 education sector has generated more than its share of controversy. From the emergence of charter schools to post-secondary options like the University of Phoenix, for-profit providers have been lauded for their capacity to serve historically underserved populations but derided for their pursuit of profitwhich, critics argue, is at the expense of the public good. This important volume takes stock of the debate, neither demonizing nor celebrating the for-profit sector, to understand what it takes for for-profits to promote quality and cost effectiveness at scale. Contributors address how policymakers and other education stakeholders can create an environment where the power of for-profit innovation and investment is leveraged to better serve students. The role that private enterprise can and should play in American education needs to be brought to the forefront of reform discussions. Editors Hess and Horn move beyond heated rhetoric to offer a thoughtful and probing analysis that will enable stakeholders to craft a viable future for public education.

Private Markets for Public Goods

Private Markets for Public Goods PDF Author: Carol Graham
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Capitalism
Languages : en
Pages : 408

Get Book Here

Book Description
The authors report on national demographic trends, examine the current living conditions of the aged population, explain the structure of the retirement system, and estimate future budgetary costs of the public programs. They also discuss national debates over the potential reform of public retirement systems.

The Privatization of Everything

The Privatization of Everything PDF Author: Donald Cohen
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620976625
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Get Book Here

Book Description
The book the American Prospect calls “an essential resource for future reformers on how not to govern,” by America’s leading defender of the public interest and a bestselling historian “An essential read for those who want to fight the assault on public goods and the commons.” —Naomi Klein A sweeping exposé of the ways in which private interests strip public goods of their power and diminish democracy, the hardcover edition of The Privatization of Everything elicited a wide spectrum of praise: Kirkus Reviews hailed it as “a strong, economics-based argument for restoring the boundaries between public goods and private gains,” Literary Hub featured the book on a Best Nonfiction list, calling it “a far-reaching, comprehensible, and necessary book,” and Publishers Weekly dubbed it a “persuasive takedown of the idea that the private sector knows best.” From Diane Ravitch (“an important new book about the dangers of privatization”) to Heather McGhee (“a well-researched call to action”), the rave reviews mirror the expansive nature of the book itself, covering the impact of privatization on every aspect of our lives, from water and trash collection to the justice system and the military. Cohen and Mikaelian also demonstrate how citizens can—and are—wresting back what is ours: A Montana city took back its water infrastructure after finding that they could do it better and cheaper. Colorado towns fought back well-funded campaigns to preserve telecom monopolies and hamstring public broadband. A motivated lawyer fought all the way to the Supreme Court after the state of Georgia erected privatized paywalls around its legal code. “Enlightening and sobering” (Rosanne Cash), The Privatization of Everything connects the dots across a wide range of issues and offers what Cash calls “a progressive voice with a firm eye on justice [that] can carefully parse out complex issues for those of us who take pride in citizenship.”