Springer The Retreat from Public Education: Global and Israeli Perspectives

In recent decades the pendulum is swinging away from the idea and ideals of public education, and a new ethos increasingly takes over the shrinking public space of education. In the 1980s markets were elevated to social and economic icons, becoming a new secular faith. Privatizing public education became a credible policy in many countries and there have been an increasing number of attempts to restructure and deregulate state schooling. Global trade agreements foster domestic and international trade in education services treating education as a commodity to be sold and purchased, and many countries adopt various forms of market-related practices in education. These are not neutral, technical, managerial changes in the production and delivery of public education. They transform education in ways that have profound social and edu- tional consequences. To justify the introduction of market reforms in education public schools and educators are being defamed and accused of a series of vices, such as inef?ciency and laziness. We must be reminded that public education, i. e. , mandatory publicly ?nanced schooling, that was introduced in Austria as early as in 1874 and spread to other countries, was considered the most progressive movement of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Public schools were established to make education univ- sally available to all children, free of charge, and have been recognized as gateways to opportunity (Kober, 2006). From the Back Cover This book provides a critical analysis of the implementation of market ideology and practices in education. The social and educational consequences of the most characteristic market-practices, such as parental choice and the involvement in schools of for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, are examined via the prism of both modern democratic theory and the discourse of rights. It is argued that current social forces, such as globalization and the preeminence of postmodern and multicultural ideologies, changed both the role of government and of citizens in democracy, paving the road for the introduction of markets in all public spheres. The book examines the Israeli case-study of the rise and decline of public schooling, offering a unique opportunity to appreciate the centrality of public schools in the process of nation-building and the erection of democracy. The conclusion is that markets in education defy the democratic purposes of public schools, and violate children's right to quality education.