Education reform policies harvested from neoliberalism, social Darwinism, consumerism, and free-market ideologies have begun to replace the pragmatic progressivism of the pre-World War II era. In this article, I use three federal and state education reform policies and programs--No Child Left Behind Act, Common Core State Standards Initiative, and…

This study reviewed publicly available institutional financial and participation reports at the highest level of athletic competition, National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. Institutions were grouped by NCAA subdivision status, athletic conference, flagship status, football Bowl Championship Series automatic qualifying status,…

The world financial meltdown is causing a reassessment of the strong market ideology that dominated policy making since the days of Reagan and Thatcher. For universities, the issue is not whether to pay attention to market forces--most schools have no choice given that their economic viability depends on some combination of enrollments, sponsored…

Markets have a number of uses. One increasingly important use of markets by politicians is as a means of regulating the supply and distribution of goods and services formerly supplied and distributed by governments on non-market bases. The use of markets as a regulator of higher education is not novel. However, the increased reliance on markets as…

Charter schools have substantial bipartisan support for their expansion. Yet, the bulk of charter school research ascertains that the majority of students in charter schools do not significantly outscore their traditional school peers on measurable indicators of academic performance. Additionally, students in charter schools do not have comparable…

Background: In contrast to the top-down government-designated school choice programmes in many countries, e.g. in the UK and USA in particular, school choice in the Chinese context is a bottom-up movement initiated by parents and is characterised by the payment of a substantial "choice fee" to the preferred school, and by competition by…

This research applies a transaction-focused institutional analysis to compare the value of political capital in different institutional domains of China's market economy. Our results show that the value of political capital is associated with institutional domains of the economy in which agents can use political connections to secure advantages.…

Viewed through a market paradigm, universities can appear as the aggregation of numerous and varied markets. While universities' primary markets focus on teaching and research, they are active in many other markets, most of which support and contribute to their smooth, effective and efficient operation. Using financial and real estate markets as…

China's diversity of minority groups, marked by many languages and cultures, has led to much push and pull experience between homogenising forces and indigenous cultures. This is apparent in its bilingual education programme for ethnic minorities, among which Korean diaspora communities are to be counted. Korean-Chinese people in China have been…

This "crucible moment" in which democratic capitalism finds itself does not call for more government mandates to dictate progressive activism in higher education. Rather, this crucible moment calls higher education on its own initiative to focus on the moral foundation that both democracy and capitalism require. The foundation of democratic…

This study pursues a Habermasian analysis of citizen discussions and of the local public sphere to shed light on renewable energy futures in rural east-central Canada. Using data from group discussions, it pursues an investigation of utterances, validity claims and of discourses. The analysis is supplemented by participant observation of publicly…

In this report the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution presents the results of a self-developed Education Choice and Competition Index (ECCI) along with an interactive application that grades large school districts according to the ECCI. The index is composed of 13 pro choice criteria. The authors present the ECCI as a…

For decades, for-profit educational provision has been tolerated, often grudgingly. In the world of charter schooling, for-profit providers are lambasted and sometimes prohibited. In higher education, for-profit institutions have grown rapidly, enrolling millions of nontraditional students and earning enmity, suspicion, and now investigative and…

Discontent with failed, top-down reform and the immediate prospect of political change have created a rare opportunity to reinvent education policy and to think afresh about how teachers and children should be encouraged to develop their full potential. "The Pendulum Swings" explores alternative, genuinely transformative conceptions of…

Based on some longitudinal studies of private tutoring in twelve cities, towns, municipalities and provinces of China, the paper endeavours to depict demand intensity, articulate market parameters and reflect on policy responses towards the demand-supply mechanism of the vast shadowy educational phenomena at primary and secondary levels. Such…