Although there are claims that neoliberalism has not only commandeered the agenda and actions of universities and colleges but also become identified with the work of academic professionals, there is little empirical evidence to show that neoliberalism has infiltrated the work of faculty. This qualitative field work investigation of three…

Examines how public school system structure influences both education spending and student performance in California. Finds considerable support for the public-exchange model predicting that greater competition improves student performance. Higher spending and market power probably leads to lower student achievement in fourth and eighth grades.…

This document examines the implications and feasibility of school-voucher programs for the California education system. Following the executive summary and introduction, section 2 describes privately provided voucher programs, specifically: the Educational CHOICE Charitable Trust (Indianapolis, Indiana); The Children's Educational Opportunity…

In this 9-week unit, students compare and contrast goods and services and discuss economic activities that occur in cities, sorting them into the production of goods or the provision of a service. Students examine how people use money to purchase goods and services. Wants are defined in terms of trade-offs or choices that must be made. Job…

This publication presents 13 papers selected from a conference on school choice, which was designed to shed light on what is meant by school choice, what proposals are being advanced to achieve choice, and how various sections of the community view the issue. Following a preface and a list of participants in the conference, an essay by Christopher…

This lesson asks 12th grade students to imagine that they are special assistants to the Undersecretary of Commerce for a foreign country who must answer a letter from a U.S. company planning to move its manufacturing operations overseas. The lesson also asks them to design a business brochure that will convince the company to come to their…

The opportunity to increase private company revenues and the pressure to minimize losses within a public school district's cafeteria and general funds have propelled the emergence of private food-service-management companies (FSMCs). This paper presents findings of a study that examined privatization of school food services and its effect on the…

To help public schools experience free-market competition, Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander and President Bush propose parental choice among private, parochial, and public schools, supported by public financing for program design and tuition grants. Sidebars highlight church/state separation concerns and school choice experiments in…

An international research team examines California's system of postsecondary and higher education. In particular, the examination seeks answers on how California maintains educational quality, access, and equality while working with the market and the state in developing educational solutions to political, social, and economic problems. Part 1 of…

The effectiveness of state enterprise zone programs was examined by using a hypothetical-firm model called the Tax and Incentives Model-Enterprise Zones (TAIM-ez) model to analyze the value of enterprise zone incentives to businesses across the United States and especially in the 13 states that had substantial enterprise zone programs by 1990. The…