The private sector has been assigned a leading role in the construction of a global knowledge economy (GKE), and public-private partnerships (PPPs) have been portrayed as the silver bullet that will solve many problems in public education. However, recent research has raised concern about side effects of this mode of operation. It is becoming increasingly evident that PPPs have a crucial role in the privatization and economization of the education sector on a national level and in the context of the emerging global education industry (GEI). This article collects and analyzes the characteristics of GEI with reference to the research context of expanding public-private networks in the field of German public education. It further explores how private actors came into a prominent position in public education by laying out a set of economically shaped knowledge politics and network strategies that prompted a dynamization of the field of education including education policy. Remarkably enough, core aspects of GEI highly resonate on a national scale. Taking a view on the consonances enables us to estimate the impact of those networks and open up for considering the consequences for public education.