performance oriented reforms in public education
TRANSCRIPT
AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIVERSITY SYSTEM
Charlestown, West Virginia
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the
Requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
In
POLITICAL SCIENCE
By
Benjamin Donald Mason
Department Approval Date: 2013
The author hereby grants the American Public University System the right to display these contents for educational purposes. The author assumes total responsibility for meeting the requirements set by United States Copyright Law for the inclusion of any materials that are not the author’s creation or in the public domain.
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© Copyright 2013 by Benjamin D. Mason All rights reserved.
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DEDICATION I dedicate this first to my lovely wife, whose selfless devotion to truth and goodness continues to inspire me. It is my honor to share this journey with you. Then to my children and children’s children, may the systems of men fail to extinguish your desire to seek after the great ends for which we were made. That we may one glorious day witness the sun set upon the sacred cows of our time.
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ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS
FROM PUBLIC TO PRIVATE: PERFORMANCE ORIENTED REFORMS IN PUBLIC
EDUCATION
By
Benjamin D. Mason
American Public University System 2013
Charles Town, West Virginia
Professor Rob Mellen Jr., Thesis Professor
Since the arrival of a new political economy in the 1980’s, the Federal policy toward
education has changed dramatically. The goal of this research is to identify some of the key forces
that underlie this change. The research included a context analysis of influential communications
on educational policy, to include two pieces of legislation as well as other non-governmental policy
assessment documents. Also analyzed are the relational aspects of a few of the emerging
institutional entrepreneurs that champion reform efforts in favor of a more privatized model of
educational governance. The findings indicated that a particular economic grammar is being
imposed upon educational policy that is granting access to new organizational forms, creating a
public-private nexus that is altering the mechanics of power. This paper recommends three steps
that can be taken for those who oppose such a nexus: change the grammatical structure that
underlies the debate, expand the scope of the conflict, and acknowledge the need for cautious
adjustments to educational institutions in the wake of a globalizing economy.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................... 1
About this Research ........................................................................................................................................ 1 Problem Description....................................................................................................................................... 2
Purpose of the Research ............................................................................................................................... 3
Hypothesis and Research Questions ........................................................................................................ 3
Intended Audience .......................................................................................................................................... 3
Limitations of the Research ........................................................................................................................ 4
II. BACKGROUND .................................................................................................................................................... 5
New policy environment................................................................................................................................ 5
III. LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................................................................................... 7
Drivers of Reform ............................................................................................................................................. 7
New Public Management theories............................................................................................................. 8
Subset of globalization and neo-liberal economics ........................................................................... 8
Outgrowth of scientific management ...................................................................................................... 9
Components of federal management reforms .................................................................................. 10
New Public Management applied to public education ................................................................... 11
Federal role in educational reform efforts ........................................................................................ 11
Emergence of new actors ........................................................................................................................... 13
Philanthropic wing ...................................................................................................................................... 14
Corporate charter school wing ............................................................................................................... 16
Power structure: dynamic interchange ............................................................................................... 16
IV. METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................................................. 19
New Public Management terms in educational policy ................................................................... 19
Goals 2000: Educate America Act, 1994 .............................................................................................. 20
No Child Left Behind, 2001 ....................................................................................................................... 21
Forum on Educational Accountability, 2007 ..................................................................................... 22
ESEA Blueprint for Reauthorization, 2010 ......................................................................................... 23
Benchmarking for Success, 2008 ............................................................................................................ 24
The Next Generation of Assessments, 2010 ....................................................................................... 25
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TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued)
National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2012 ..................................................................... 26
Power structure of educational reform ............................................................................................... 27
Secretary of Education power links ....................................................................................................... 28
Common Core Standards power links ................................................................................................... 29
California Charter Schools & NEA power links .................................................................................. 31
Achievement First, foundations, & venture capital power links ................................................ 32
New School Venture Fund power links ................................................................................................ 33
V. ANALYSIS .......................................................................................................................................................... 37
Adoption of concepts and values in policy communications ....................................................... 37
New grammar creates new structural forms ..................................................................................... 38
Bipartisan nature of reform efforts ........................................................................................................ 39
Triangulation of corporate capital, higher education, federal policy ....................................... 40
Absence of clear public values .................................................................................................................. 40
Obscuring public & private distinctions ............................................................................................... 41
VI. RECOMMENDATIONS .................................................................................................................................. 43
Change the syntax: define the alternative ........................................................................................... 43
Expand the conflict ........................................................................................................................................ 44
Recognize the need to change................................................................................................................... 45
VII. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................................... 47
Summary ........................................................................................................................................................... 47
Further Research ........................................................................................................................................... 48
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................................... 49
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LIST OF TABLES & FIGURES
1. K-12 Grants from Old and New Foundations. 2. Frequency of NPM terms in policy, positions papers, speeches. 3. Secretary of Education power links 4. Common Core architect power links 5. California Charter Schools & NEA power links 6. New York City Public School System & Foundations power links. 7. New Schools Venture Fund, Foundations, & Capital power links. 8. NSVF director breakdown
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INTRODUCTION
It is often said that democratic governments are a reflection of their people; that the image
of the civil structure is an outgrowth of the linguistic, historical, and collective conscience of those
that have established and maintain it. So, too, do schools reinforce the existing patterns of social
structure.1 Since the end of World War 2, the processes of economic globalization have been
stretching the fabric of this social structure, reorienting values toward an economic mode of being
previously unknown to American society. These new values are forged within an ideological shift
that is beginning to manifest within our economic, political, and, finally, educational institutions. As
new wine requires new wineskins lest the old should burst, the new ideas of economic
transcendence requires new mechanisms lest the existing ones ossify and rupture. As the social
order continues to polarize in the face of the reformation of values, neo-liberal policies are seen as
an apolitical solution to the politicization.2 Reform efforts aim to introduce the managerial concept
into all facets of the social structure. In so doing, the civil government continues to adopt the
business mentality, particularly because “so many businessmen have gone into government.” 3
As a result, our understanding of government and business and our relationship to them both is
being altered, as well as many of the organizational structures that operate within it.
About this Research
The intent of this paper is to demonstrate a relationship between the Federal government’s
adoption of specific managerial reforms and educational policy, and to place it within a larger
context of a new political economy associated with globalization. Currently, policy discussions
about education, and the federal government’s role in it, are confined within parameters that often
1 Michael B. Katz, “Class, Bureaucracy, & Schools: The Illusion of Educational Change in America,” (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), 122. 2 David W. Hursh and Joseph A. Henderson, “Contesting global neoliberalism and creating alternative futures,” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 32, (May 2011), 171. 3 Charles Wright Mills, The Power Elite, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), 347.
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hinder thoughtful discourse. In locating the stream of educational reform within a larger current of
a changing political economy, it is hoped that in viewing these parameters more clearly, policy
makers, business and academic leaders, as well as families and religious institutions can form
responses that address immediate needs while focusing on long term settlements.
Problem Description. Performance measurement has become one of the most dominant
organizational initiatives in the public sector within the last 30 years. Public officials, responding
to sluggish economic conditions and political pressures from constituents, began to incorporate
market based mechanisms as a solution to these realities. The desire for more efficient, equitable
allocation of delivery services within the Federal government has given birth to divergent
institutional patterns that allow managers to operate based on performance indicators. In short,
the Federal government has taken a more business-like approach to its day to day operations and
there appears to be no abatement of this trend in the foreseeable future.
The market based reformed movement has introduced a new vocabulary into the traditional
bureaucratic network and with it the development of institutional assessment parameters that help
quantify the effectiveness, and necessity, of a particular public service. Public services are now
seen in terms of a business transaction, where aspects of the process are measured and
bench-marked for optimum performance. Citizens are viewed as customers and feedback
mechanisms are created to hold agencies accountable.
Market based reforms are affecting public policy toward public schooling as well. Outcome
based accountability with national standards, voucher programs, and the increase of charter
schooling are reflective of the practices being utilized in New Public Management reforms.
Measuring student achievement has become the core tenet of the school reform movement, with
both the proponents and detractors of public schooling adopting the NPM vocabulary.
At the state level well-funded education companies and philanthropic organizations are exerting
pressure on policymaking and legislation that open new avenues of funding and control over school
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districts. Proponents of these measures have claimed that reforming the bureaucratic traditional
schooling model is necessary for American citizen’s to remain competitive within the globalizing
economy and that assessment objectivity will replace the instability that permeates the subjective
political process.
Purpose of the Research. To examine the drivers of new public management theory within
the realm of federal educational reform and determine how the traditional power structure of
education is altered by allowing a more prominent role for corporate and non-governmental
interests.
Hypothesis and Research Questions. The hypothesis that will be tested in this research is
that in adopting the grammar and logic of corporate efficiency methods, the federal government is
altering the power structure of the educational establishment, perpetuating a trend toward the
privatization and corporatization of K-12 public schooling. Do the managerial reforms known
collectively as New Public Management (NPM), when applied to public education obscure the
distinctions between public and private objectives by conceding power to corporate and non-
governmental interest? Does this phenomenon alter the political power structure so as to create a
crisis of accountability?
Intended Audience. This research is written for those who are interested in the dynamics
of word usage and influence and how it relates to federal educational policy. Families and religious
leaders concerned about the future prospects of democratic governance as well as educational
methods may find an interest in these pages.
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Limitations to the Research One of the greatest limitations to this research is the scope of the data that needs to be
collected in order to make balanced judgments. Though certain conclusions can safely be drawn
from samples of data, it is difficult, even counterproductive to make too sweeping of a
generalization based on occurrences that are happening in one part of the country but not
necessarily in another. In order to capture a more complete view of the relationships involved in
educational reform, a more exhaustive treatment of how non-governmental sources leverage funds
to implement change would be necessary; however this is outside the scope of this essay. It is also
limited in how influential relationships are to be quantified. Tracking the donors of funds and their
recipients certainly confers an influence, yet presenting data that demonstrate, to everyone’s
satisfaction, the significance of this influence is often difficult to obtain.
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BACKGROUND
In order to assess the influence of public management reforms specifically within public
education and the role of the federal government in achieving this object, these institutional
adjustments need to be contextualized within a larger, more general trend toward private
management. In addition, major policy initiatives, to include legislation and positions papers, will
be examined to demonstrate how key business management terms have been adopted to establish
a public-private framework.
New Policy Environment
Since the late 1970’s there has been a paradigmatic shift in public administration in terms
of how social services are to be delivered to the population that supports them. With the economic
stagnation of the 1970’s, the New Right harnessed the neo-liberal concepts of Milton Friedman to
form a movement that asserted the federal government’s direct involvement in the stagnation as
well as its inability to rectify the situation. Seeking a tighter grip on budgetary control, de-
regulation and privatization were the focus of reforms sought by the new political movement, and
its goal has been to transform civil service into a performance based, entrepreneurial system,
emphasizing efficiency, professionalism, and general distancing from politicization of public
services.4
Inaugurated during the Reagan Administration, many of these managerial reforms have
borrowed concepts from the corporate system. New theoretical frameworks have developed as a
result of incorporating corporate mechanisms, placing a renewed emphasis on measuring outcomes
and marketing results to the citizen, who has now become the customer. With improvement of
service delivery the prime orientation, words such as efficiency, cost effectiveness, and accountability
4 Terence M. Garret and Arthur Sementelli, “Knowledge Production: public management and the market spectacle,” International Journal of Social Economics 39 (2012): 458.
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have entered the vernacular of the public services and with it the internal logic of the corporate
business environment.
Known collectively as New Public Management (NPM), these reforms focal emphasis is on
reducing or eliminating structural distinctions between public and private sectors and the behavior
of public servants are to resemble the manager in a profit driven, investor owned firm. With the
advent of these new managerial practices, new industries have been created as a result of
entrepreneurs seeking the low hanging fruit nurtured in friendly public policy environments.
Aiming at creating market situations for a myriad of governmental activities, to include public
education, new actors are emerging, creating new institutional forms based upon management-
oriented concepts. 5
5 Lance D.Fusarelli and Bonnie Johnson, “Educational Governance and the New Public Management,” Public Administration Management: An Interactive Journal 8.
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LITERATURE REVIEW
New Public Management reforms use the grammar and logic of the corporate marketplace.
By adopting these methods ostensibly to improve service delivery to citizen customers, public
agencies risk changing the nature of the agency itself. In order to examine how managerial reforms
are changing the structure of public schooling it is necessary to survey the drivers of the reform
efforts, as well as placing them within a larger theoretical context of scientific management and
capitalist imagery. Additionally, the basic components of NPM need to be addressed to see how
they are being applied to the schooling environment and how this in turn is allowing non-
governmental entities to emerge as prominent social engineers.
Drivers of reform
The driving forces behind corporate based managerial reforms in the public sector are both
political and economic. Their emergence stems from the powerful criticisms levied by an
intellectual and political faction guided by a market based ideology, which has argued that
monopolistic governmental bureaucracies have contributed to economic stagnation and budget
deficits. The traditional modes of delivery, it was argued, were creating systemic inefficiencies that
wasted taxpayer funds and ultimately restricted corporate and individual freedom. Influential
economist Milton Friedman argued that governmental practices, once enacted, should not be any
less efficient than the private sector.6
This core tenet of neo-liberal economic theory began to permeate policy discussions, and
reflected, in particular, “citizen demands for evidence of program effectiveness.”7 The message
delivered to the people receiving government services was that their needs were justified but that
the existing methods imposed costs on the people it was purporting to help. Privatization of
6 Milton Friedman, “Why Government is the Problem,” Stanford University: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, (1993):8. 7 Robert D. Behn, “Why Measure Performance?: Different Purposes Require Different Measures,” Public Administration Review 63 (September/October 2003): 587.
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services, it was argued, would be the solution. Agencies whose services could not be outsourced to
private firms would be reformed along managerial lines, reflecting a clear shift of focus toward a
competitive enterprise system. Program costs and goals were now perceived within a performance
matrix that measured output and efficiency. The citizen-consumer would be considered within this
new administrative activity.8
New Public Management theories Subset of globalization and neo-liberal economics. One of the underlying suppositions of
neo-liberal thought is the idea that only the market could effectively accommodate the complexities
of modern life.9 The plurality of worldviews and ideas competing for influence within pluralistic
society demands an outlet where differences can be expressed through means that are most
beneficent to the individual. As such, the architects of the neo-liberal ideology constructed a view
of society that placed the economic transaction at the center of all human activity, in essence
subordinating the political apparatus of the state to that of the economic.
The contemporary form of the NPM operates as an amalgam of these notions of efficiency, privatization, and good governance combined with the values associated with professionalism, political distancing, and the marketization and commodification of services.10
This view necessarily calls on federal and state government’s to be less intrusive in the economic
affairs of the nation, so as not to impede the transactions of its citizens. A cadre of think tanks and
specialists has developed around neo-liberal ideas in order to convert them into policy
formulations. These formulations have sought to privatize various aspects of governmental
functions and delivery services, thus creating institutional patterns that begin to resemble private
business. Furthermore, national barriers are also seen as obstacles to be overcome through free
8 Jesus Cambra-Berdun and Jesus J. Cambra-Fierro, “Considerations and Implications on the Necessity of Increasing Efficiency in the Public Education System: The NPM and the Market Orientation as Reference Concepts,” International Review on Public and Non Profit Marketing 3 (December 2006): 43 9 William Davies, “The making of neo-liberalism,” Renewal: a Journal of Labour Politics 17 (2009): 88. 10 Terence M. Garret and Arthur Sementelli, “Knowledge Production: public management and the market spectacle,” International Journal of Social Economics 39 (2012): 458.
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trade agreements and other supranational financial institutions, requiring a diffusion of public
management strategies that work to align business and legal policies. As noted by Commons,
“globalization assumes that the exercise of political authority and bureaucratic power is no longer
constrained by the boundaries of nation states.”11 Also embedded in this assumption is the notion
of fewer impediments for transnational economic transactions. Thus we see that neo-liberal
market reforms necessitate a two- pronged approach: the restructuring of both domestic and
international political forms so as to merge policies amongst intra and inter national civil
structures.
Outgrowth of scientific management. Some scholars have noted that the neo-liberal
based NPM reforms that governments have adopted are an extension of the scientific rationalism
that has motivated public management theory for nearly a century.12 One analysis argues that
underlying grammatical and symbolic shifts in meaning accompany, or as often is the case, precede,
the market transformation of bureaucratic services. 13 Furthermore, they assert that the ubiquitous
nature of market imagery and concepts are so engrained within our society that “a market spectacle
sets the tone, rituals, and terms for this consumer society.”14 The significance of this realization is
immense for those that seek to retard the process of corporate managerial reforms because these
ideas involve a vocabulary, both linguistic and symbolic, that define the parameters of the debate.15
Some researchers argue that the language of performance and scientific evidence is derived from
the social sciences and permeates the educational reform paradigm being promoted by the federal
11 Richard K. Common, “Convergence and transfer: a review of the globalization of new public management,” The International Journal of Public Sector Management. 11 (1998): 441. 12 Sowaribi Tolofari, “New Public Management and Education,” Policy Futures in Education 3 (2005):80; Terence M. Garret and Arthur Sementelli, “Knowledge Production: public management and the market spectacle,” International Journal of Social Economics 39 (2012): 456. 13 Terence M. Garret and Arthur Sementelli, “Knowledge Production: public management and the market spectacle,” International Journal of Social Economics 39 (2012): 467. 14 Ibid, 467. 15 Barbara Schneider and Vanessa Keesler. “School Reform 2007: Transforming Education into a Scientific Enterprise.” Annual Review of Sociology 33 (2007): 198.; Terence M. Garret and Arthur Sementelli, “Knowledge Production: public management and the market spectacle,” International Journal of Social Economics 39 (2012): 467.
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government.16 Furthermore, educational reform along evidentiary lines is located within a larger
scientific intellectual movement.
Components of federal management reforms. Domestic governing institutions at all
levels: federal, state, and municipal have implemented a variety of practices borrowed from the
corporate sector with the goal of improving service delivery, and quantifying performance is one of
the key mechanisms. In the midst of budget crisis and financial hardships, data compilation
systems have developed in order for government entities to legitimize departmental activities.
Public managers are measuring various aspects of their delivery systems, creating various ways to
gauge effectiveness and operational efficiency, not unlike the practices found in the private sector.
From crime statistics in police efforts to test scores in education, data compilation has intensified
greatly, creating a “performance based culture in the public sector”17
Marketization imperatives can be summarized in three key components. The first is to
directly challenge the hierarchical industrial state and do away with its inefficient monopoly on
particular services.18 Second, outsource the delivery of services to private companies and other
non-governmental organizations through competitive bidding practices.19 Its third component, and
perhaps where the corporate stamp is most salient, is the managerial. “NPM aimed at undoing the
hierarchical public administration model and its alleged shortcomings -rigidity, fixation on legal
correctness, and neglect of economic efficiency, by importing private sector managerial concepts
16 Barbara Schneider and Vanessa Keesler. “School Reform 2007: Transforming Education into a Scientific Enterprise.” Annual Review of Sociology 33 (2007): 198 17 Robert D. Behn, “Why Measure Performance?: Different Purposes Require Different Measures,” Public Administration Review 63 (September/October 2003): 586. 18 Hellmut Wollman and Kurt Thurmaier, “Reforming Local Government Institutions and the New Public Management,” 180; Steven Van de Walle and Gerhard Hammerschmid, “The impact of New Public Management: Challenges for Coordination and Cohesion in European Public Sectors,” Halduskultuur – Administrative Culture 12 (2011): 192.; 18 Milton Friedman, “Why Government is the Problem,” Stanford University: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, (1993):2; Sowaribi Tolofari, “New Public Management and Education,” Policy Futures in Education 3 (2005):82. 19 Hellmut Wollman and Kurt Thurmaier, “Reforming Local Government Institutions and the New Public Management,” 180.
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and tools in public administration.”20 One of the aims of infusing the public services with private
managerial concepts is to minimize the political aspect of public service and focus on the economic.
This effectively creates a cleavage in public services, where political leaders and managers perform
a specific role.21 Moreover, as noted in an essay on managerial values, the focal emphasis on NPM
tends to reduce or eliminate altogether the structural distinctions between public and private
sectors so that the behaviors of public managers resemble that of managers in profit driven,
entrepreneurial, investor owned firms.22 Public service agencies, now being benchmarked against
private businesses, are ushering in the logistical structures common to these private businesses.
NPM applied to Public Education
Since the post Civil War period, particularly in the wake of the societal dislocations caused
by the Industrial Revolution at the turn of the century, bureaucracy was seen as a means by which
order could be brought out of chaos. As mentioned in the introduction, schooling reflects the
character of the social order, and that educational bureaucracies were erected in concert with the
proliferation of industrial and governmental bureaucracies are testament to this fact. As Koliba
noted, “the progressive movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries gave rise to
the creation of bureaucracies as the most efficient means of organizing society. Thus, our school
systems were modeled after manufacturing plants.”23
Federal role in educational reform efforts. Beginning in the 1960’s with President
Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, the federal government began to take a more prominent role in
20 Hellmut Wollman and Kurt Thurmaier, “Reforming Local Government Institutions and the New Public Management,” 180. 21 Ibid, 180. 22 M. Jae Moon and Peter deLeon, “Municipal Reinvention: Managerial Values and Diffusion among Municipalities,” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (July 2001): 327. 23 Christopher Koliba, “Democracy and Education: Schools and Communities Initiative,” University of Vermont (May 2008). http://www.uvm.edu/~dewey/articles/Democonc.html
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educational reform.24 Aimed primarily at helping the poorest children in grades K-12, The
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was made law in 1965 and allocated substantial
federal funds toward this effort.25 Subsequent reauthorizations of the ESEA contributed federal
funds toward smaller programs within schools to help children of particular demographics and
with unique needs to be more fully integrated into the school environment.26 However, it wasn’t
until the Reagan Administration in the early 1980’s when educational reform efforts would begin to
adopt the language of performance and quantifiable standards. Policy frameworks were created
that asserted wholesale changes would be necessary to remedy the “rising tide of mediocrity” that
threatened the very survival of the nation.27
In pursuit of neo-liberal privatization goals of various aspects of governmental services, an
argument was created that the greatest educational need was to decouple schooling from the
government as much as possible.28 Numerous think tanks began developing position papers that
proposed new methods of school governance that could alleviate the perceived inadequacies.29
These reform options include: decentralization, Distance learning, vouchers, and school choice,
each of which are linked, in varying degrees, to managerial concepts borrowed from the private
sector. 30 With education being one of the central tasks of modern government, especially at the
state and local levels, it is conceivable that governments will continue to adopt privatization
24 Tirozzi, Gerald N. and Gabriela Uro. "Education Reform in the United States: National Policy in Support of Local Efforts for School Improvement." American Psychologist 52 (1997): 242. 25 Ibid, 242. 26 Ibid, 242. 27 “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform,” National Commission on Exellence in Education, (1983). 28 Milton Friedman, “Why Government is the Problem,” Stanford University: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, (1993):8; Sowaribi Tolofari, “New Public Management and Education,” Policy Futures in Education 3 (2005):84. 29 Kevin Kumashiro, “When Billionaires Become Educational Experts,” Academe 98 (May 2012): 11. 30 Paul T. Hill & Josephine Bonan, “Decentralization and Accountability in Public Education,” Rand Institute 1991; Institute for Defense Analysis, “Distance Learning: Part of the National Performance Review Initiative on Education,” (Sept. 1995); Isabell Sawhill and Shannon Smith, “Vouchers for Elementary and Secondary Education,” The Brookings Institution. (Aug. 1998); Mark Schneider et. al, “Institutional Arrangements and the Creation of Social Capital: The Effects of Public School Choice,” The American Political Science Review 91 (Mar., 1997); Greg Forster, “A Win-Win Solution: The Empirical Evidence on School Choice,” The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, (April 2013).
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reforms in this area as a means of presenting measureable value to the public.31 Beginning in the
early 1990’s, school superintendents particularly in larger, urban school systems, began to view
private sector management techniques as a credible alternative to the traditional model.32 The
willingness to adopt methods from the private sector signaled also a change in the nature of the
service to be delivered; with a market orientation implicitly re-categorizing the elements of the
structure into a customer - competitor paradigm.33 This in turn creates opportunities for new social
agents to introduce ideas and methods into the system.
Emergence of New Actors
Private funding is playing an increasingly important role in educational reform, as non-
governmental organizations continue to gain influence over programs and methods. Venture
philanthropy groups are proposing the privatization of public school management and advocating
alternative teacher certification programs and charter-school initiatives.34 These organizations are
coalescing around the idea of implementing institutional change, using their wealth, in the form of
grant making, to elevate new organizational forms.35 These change agents seek to “initiate change
that diverges from institutional patterns”36, as well as “actively participate in the implementation of
31 Sowaribi Tolofari, “New Public Management and Education,” Policy Futures in Education 3 (2005): 76. 32 Dennis P. Doyle, “The role of private sector management in public education,” Phi Delta Kappan 76 (Oct. 1994): 128. 33 Jesus Cambra-Berdun and Jesus J. Cambra-Fierro, “Considerations and Implications on the Necessity of Increasing Efficiency in the Public Education System: The NPM and the Market Orientation as Reference Concepts,” International Review on Public and Non Profit Marketing 3 (December 2006): 46. 34 Kevin Kumashiro, “When Billionaires Become Educational Experts,” Academe 98 (May 2012): 11; Josh Shepperd, review of The Gift of Education: Public Education and Venture Philanthropy, by Kenneth Saltman, Radical Teacher 93 (Spring 2012): 46; Janelle Scott, “The Politics of Venture Philanthropy in Charter School Policy and Advocacy,” Education Policy 23 (January 2009): 106. 35 Randy Quinn, Megan Tompkins-Stange, and Debra Meyerson, “Beyond Grantmaking: Philanthropic Foundations as Agents of Change and Institutional Entrepreneuers,” (2012): 1; Julie Battilana, Bernard Leca, and Eva Boxenbaum, “How Actors Change Institutions: Towards a Theory of Institutional Entrepreneurship,” Academy of Management Annals (2009): 68. 36 Randy Quinn, Megan Tompkins-Stange, and Debra Meyerson, “Beyond Grantmaking: Philanthropic Foundations as Agents of Change and Institutional Entrepreneuers,” (2012): 5.
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these changes.”37 As a result, the influence of these new stakeholders is increasing commensurate
to the distance their reform efforts deviates from traditional methods.
Philanthropic Wing. In recent years, scholars have been studying the relationship
between non-governmental foundations and institutional change, noting that the possession of vast
sums of wealth that can bypass the traditional modes of delivery confers a cultural legitimacy that
is attractive to educational and political leaders eager to explore alternatives. 38 In donating large
sums of money toward reform programs, many foundations are engaging in what has been termed
institutional entrepreneurship, creating alliances with federal and state governments, as well as
businesses to initiate systemic reforms.39 One author notes, however, that though philanthropic
organizations such as the Ford and Rockefeller Foundation’s have traditionally sought to support
certain social initiatives, educational initiatives deemed too intrusive by the traditional power
brokers were quickly thwarted by legislative bodies.40 Today’s philanthropy, however,
organizations are looking to implement changes that yield “quicker and more visible
accomplishments” that tend to deviate from traditional institutional power structure.41
Hess has noted that whereas before philanthropists were willing to work within the existing
network by supporting established programs, the new philanthropic community is creating
37 Julie Battilana, Bernard Leca, and Eva Boxenbaum, “How Actors Change Institutions: Towards a Theory of Institutional Entrepreneurship,” Academy of Management Annals (2009): 68. 38 Randy Quinn, Megan Tompkins-Stange, and Debra Meyerson, “Beyond Grantmaking: Philanthropic Foundations as Agents of Change and Institutional Entrepreneuers,” (2012): 2. 39 Ibid, 4; Lance D.Fusarelli and Bonnie Johnson, “Educational Governance and the New Public Management,” Public Administration Management: An Interactive Journal 9 (2004): 120; Stanley N. Katz, “Reshaping U.S. Public Education Policy,” Stanford Social Innovation Review 11 (Spring 2013):24. 40 Stanley N. Katz, “Reshaping U.S. Public Education Policy,” Stanford Social Innovation Review 11 (Spring 2013):25 41Ibid, 25; Randy Quinn, Megan Tompkins-Stange, and Debra Meyerson, “Beyond Grantmaking: Philanthropic Foundations as Agents of Change and Institutional Entrepreneuers,” 4; Lance D.Fusarelli and Bonnie Johnson, “Educational Governance and the New Public Management,” Public Administration Management: An Interactive Journal 9
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pipelines that offer new opportunities outside the traditional school structure and thus avoid
political and public confrontations.42
The leaders of the newly emergent actors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Eli
and Edythe Broad Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation, which combined gave over 540
million dollars toward school reform initiatives in 2009, as illustrated in the chart below.43
Figure 1. K-12 Grants from Old and New Foundations
chart courtesy Sarah Reckhow44
Moreover, substantial increases in monies available from the federal government in the form of the
Race to the Top initiative, has helped to facilitate a convergence of new philanthropic actors that is
42 Frederick M. Hess, “Inside the Gift Horse’s Mouth: Philanthropy and School Reform,” Phi Delta Kappan 87, (2005):134. 43 Dana Goldstein, “Education Reform Philanthropy has Changed Radically Over the Past Decade.” DanaGoldstein.net, May 17, 2011. http://www.danagoldstein.net/dana_goldstein/2011/05/education-reform-philanthropy-has-changed-radically-over-the-past-decade.html 44 Dana Goldstein, “Education Reform Philanthropy has Changed Radically Over the Past Decade.” DanaGoldstein.net, May 17, 2011. http://www.danagoldstein.net/dana_goldstein/2011/05/education-reform-philanthropy-has-changed-radically-over-the-past-decade.html
16
creating new channels of dialogue with policy makers and other educational leaders that did not
exist decades ago.45
Corporate Charter School Wing. In addition to the efforts by philanthropic organizations
to leverage changes in public schooling, corporations have become more prominent in the form of
charter schooling initiatives as a means of bypassing the public school apparatus. Authored by
educational and public policy experts from three major universities, one study based on the charter
school movement in California found that the nation’s largest foundations were funding their rapid
growth.46 Through the grant making process, these foundations were able to elevate the charter
schooling form through strategic donations, seen as investments, “with goals of improving
educational quality and access, producing economic efficiencies, and generating catalytic impact.”47
Furthermore, conditions of funding are increasingly based upon a charter organization’s ability to
achieve scale, or grow.48 One scholar has also noted that tying grant allocation to measurable results
is indicative of a rational approach to investment that aligns “valuable contributors to school
reform.”49
Power Structure: Dynamic Interchange
The alliance between philanthropic foundations and the corporate charter school segment
exhibits an impact on federal education policy that has not been seen before.50 A new
infrastructure is being erected based on interleaving the interests of charter schools and principals’
academies with the educational mechanisms of the federal, state, and local governments.51 As a
45 Kathleen DeMarrais and Claire Suggs, “Critical Contributions: Philanthropic Investment in Teachers and Teaching,” (2012): 9. 46 Randy Quinn, Megan Tompkins-Stange, and Debra Meyerson, “Beyond Grantmaking: Philanthropic Foundations as Agents of Change and Institutional Entrepreneurs,” (2012): 10. 47 Ibid, 10. 48 Ibid, 10. 49 Susan D. Sparks, “Studies Find Funders Giving More to Fewer Groups,” 32 (May 2013): 10. 50 Stanley N. Katz, “Reshaping U.S. Public Education Policy,” Stanford Social Innovation Review 11 (Spring 2013):26. 51 Ibid, 26.
17
result, traditional power players such as teachers’ unions are, as one scholar has put it: “completely
on the defensive.”52 The posture of teachers’ unions in the face of these changes is indicative of how
reform efforts invariably are political in scope. In his book on educational reform, Michael Katz
asserted that: “If radical structural alteration must precede significant pedagogical change, then the
first efforts of school reformers must be directed toward breaking down the bureaucratic form of
schooling and changing the nature of its political control.”53 Facilitating this breakdown are a set
of conditions that emerging actors have been able to exploit. Demarais and Suggs in their
assessment of the effects of philanthropic initiatives on teaching summarize the effects of the
conditions that are allowing institutional entrepreneurs to leverage their wealth:
today these [philanthropic] investments play out in an evolving educational context, shaped in large part by increasing demand for accountability and concomitant shifts in federal policy accompanying the recent federal infusion of significant new dollars . These shifts, which align with the reforms promoted by many education funders, coincide with large funding cuts for education that are the product of constricted state and local budgets.54
It is important to note the relational characteristics between the federal & state governments
and non-governmental entities that promote systemic reforms, such as Achieve Inc. Achieve Inc.
advocates a college and career ready workforce as well as a matrix of assessments and
accountability systems to verify the progress toward this object. On its website it promotes
Common Core Standards through the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and
Careers (PARCC). PARCC is a consortium of states, governed by state educational
commissioners and superintendents, willing to implement measurable reforms that can qualify
for hundreds of million of dollars in disbursements from the federal government.55 In essence,
52 Stanley N. Katz, “Reshaping U.S. Public Education Policy,” Stanford Social Innovation Review 11 (Spring 2013):26. 53 Michael B. Katz, “Class, Bureaucracy, & Schools: The Illusion of Educational Change in America,” (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), 119. 54 Kathleen DeMarrais and Claire Suggs, “Critical Contributions: Philanthropic Investment in Teachers and Teaching,” (2012): 9. 55 Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), http://www.parcconline.org/about-parcc.
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an alternative revenue stream is being created for states implementing educational reforms that
are based on NPM corporate logic.
One common framing of market concepts helps to conceptualize the new logic of the
organizational relationships, which contains three basic elements:56
• customer / competitor orientation
• interjunctional co-ordination of various people and groups within the system
• long term focus & profit orientation.
Each of these interacts within a new mold that seeks to create incentives for the generation of value
for the customer.57 In thrusting this customer – competitor orientation on the educational
paradigm, some have argued that “new state and federal regulations have transferred power away
from teachers, parents and local community members and towards corporate and political leaders
at the state and federal levels.”58 As a result, the influence of traditional stakeholders has been
significantly reduced.59
56 Cambra-Berdun, Jesus. “Considerations and Implications on the Necessity of Increasing Efficiency in the Public Education System: The New Public Management (NPM) and the Market Orientation as Reference Concepts.” International Review on Public and Non Profit Marketing 3 (December 2006):46. 57 Jesus Cambra-Berdun and Jesus J. Cambra-Fierro, “Considerations and Implications,” International Review on Public and Non Profit Marketing 3 (December 2006): 44. 58 David Hursh, “The growth of high stakes testing in the USA: accountability, markets and the decline in educational quality,” British Educational Research Journal 31 (2005): 605. 59 Catherine DiMartino and Janelle Scott, “Private Sector Contracting and Democratic Accountability,” Educational Policy (Nov. 2012), 2.
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METHODOLOGY
The literature review examined the key political and economic drivers of managerial reform in
the public services, as well as summarized the ideological theories that undergird them. The review
also discussed how these NPM theories are being applied to public education, thus creating
opportunities for philanthropic and business actors to develop methods of systemic change to the
educational system.
In order to demonstrate the validity of the concepts outlined in the review, the objective of the
data collection will be twofold. The first will be to examine the grammar of major educational
initiatives articulated by the federal government or other advocacy groups linked to federal or state
agencies. A content analysis will be used on various pieces of written and verbal communication, to
include legislation and policy reports that demonstrate the usage of key neo-liberal, NPM terms.
Once the grammatical aspects of the concepts are established, the second purpose of the data will
be to illustrate the relational structure of a few of the key philanthropic & corporate players in the
new school movement. Utilizing the data mapping software of the award winning online
information technology company known as Muckety, the relationships of influential people and
organizations will be represented in graphical format.60 This data will help visualize how these
specific neo-corporate ideas give birth to real modes of institutional power and also provide a
context from which recommendations for future policies can be derived.
NPM terms in Educational Policy
In this section, several major educational policy communications dating from the early
1990’s will be evaluated for their basic ideological content. In the first part, the main concepts of
each will be outlined and then the second part will present the findings of the quantitative coding of
selective terminology that is essential to the NPM managerial ethos.
60 Muckety LLC. www.muckety.com, founded by Laurie Bennett, Gary Jacobson, and John Decker.
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Goals 2000: Educate America Act, 1994. Signed into law by President Bill Clinton in
March of 1994, the Act developed a framework that established basic educational goals and
assessment mechanisms. For the first time in our nation’s history, national standards were
endorsed and funds made available to state and local education leaders to implement structural
changes in order to meet these standards. Combined with the ESEA in initiatives, programmatic
and funding support was designed to assist leaders in “forging new partnerships” in the transition
to a 21st century educational system.61 This concept is given specificity in Section 308 – State Use of
Funds, where the Federal government provides guidelines to states that opt to receive allotments:
SEC. 308 (F) supporting the development, at the State or local level, of performance-based
accountability and incentive systems for schools;
SEC. 308 (I) promoting public magnet schools, public "charter schools", and other
mechanisms for increasing choice among public schools, including information and referral programs
which provide parents with information on available choices;
SEC. 308 (J) supporting activities relating to the planning of, and evaluation of, projects under
which local educational agencies or schools contract with private management organizations to
reform a school;62
Key NPM terms & concepts:
performance-based accountability
charter schools
private management organizations
61 Tirozzi, Gerald N. and Gabriela Uro. "Education Reform in the United States: National Policy in Support of Local Efforts for School Improvement." American Psychologist 52 (1997): 243. 62 Goals 2000: Educate America Act, H.R. 1804. http://www2.ed.gov/legislation/GOALS2000/TheAct/sec308.html
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No Child Left Behind (NCLB), 2001. Passed in 2001 under the Bush
Administration, NCLB represented the next phase of standards based accountability measures
during the previous reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in the
mid 1990’s.63 In many ways the NLCB Act of 2001 represents the culmination of the reform ethos
which embodies the scientifically based performance management New Public Management
reforms. As one scholar has noted, the federal NCLB legislation “relies largely upon market-based
principles as the mechanism for school improvement.”64 A few bullets from the legislations’
Statement of Purpose section (SEC. 1001) support this view:
• ensuring that high-quality academic assessments, accountability systems, teacher preparation and training, curriculum, and instructional materials are aligned with challenging State academic standards…
• holding schools, local educational agencies, and States accountable for improving the academic
achievement of all students
• distributing and targeting resources sufficiently
• improving and strengthening accountability, teaching, and learning
• providing greater decision making authority and flexibility
• promoting school wide reform and ensuring the access of children to effective, scientifically based instructional strategies and challenging academic content65
In Part F: SEC. 1601 - Comprehensive School Reform- the following purpose is outlined:
• to provide financial incentives for schools to develop comprehensive school reforms, based upon scientifically based research and effective practices66
Continuing under SEC. 1607 -Evaluations and Reports - the federal government is to create a
national evaluation of the reform efforts67 and in SEC.1608 – Quality Initiatives - the public /
private nexus is codified with the following language:
63 Kevin Carey, “Requiem for a Failed Education Policy: The Slow Death of No Child Left Behind,” New Republic July 13, 2012; Barbara Schneider and Vanessa Keesler. “School Reform 2007: Transforming Education into a Scientific Enterprise.” Annual Review of Sociology 33 (2007): 198. 64 Lance D.Fusarelli and Bonnie Johnson, “Educational Governance and the New Public Management,” Public Administration Management: An Interactive Journal 9 (2004): 124. 65 Public Law PL 107-110, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/index.html 66 Ibid.
22
• a public-private effort, in which funds are matched by private organizations, to assist States, local educational agencies, and schools, in making informed decisions regarding approving or selecting providers of comprehensive school reform. 68
Key NPM terms & concepts:
assessments & accountability
distributing resources
flexibility
scientifically based reforms and practices
public-private effort
Forum on Educational Accountability, 2007. This document was created by
a panel of educational experts that specialize in accountability systems and program development.
It maintains that overall the NCLB is a good law, establishing a basic framework for performance
accountability, yet changes were needed to meet the NCLB’s goal stated in Section 1001: “Ensure
that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high quality education.”69
Over 100 organizations signed on to the reforms proposed in the document to include: the
American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association, American Association of School
Administrators, and the NAACP, each of which are significant players within the traditional power
structure. Though their recommendations do not advocate for the privatization of public
education, the need for accountability matrices goes unquestioned. Moreover, their guiding
principles draw upon NPM key terms:
Construct comprehensive and coherent systems of state and local assessments of student learning that work together to support instruction, educational improvement and accountability.
67 Public Law PL 107-110, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/index.html 68 Ibid. 69 Forum on Educational Accountability, “Assessment and accountability for improving schools and learning: principles and recommendations for federal law and state & local systems,” accessed June 26, 2013. www.edaccountability.org
23
Construction, and application of assessment systems
Use multiple sources of evidence to describe and interpret school and district performance fairly, based on a balance of progress toward and success in meeting student academic learning targets.
Improve the validity and reliability of criteria used to classify the performance of schools
and districts to ensure fair evaluations and to minimize bias in accountability decisions. Provide effective, targeted assistance to schools correctly identified as needing assistance.
Key NPM terms & concepts:
Assessments
Accountability
Evidence, performance, learning targets
Targeted assistance (resource distribution)
ESEA Blueprint for Reauthorization, 2010. In 2010 the Obama Administration crafted a
document that outlined a basic reform strategy that outlines goals for creating a world class
educational system. It begins by putting on notice a powerful entity in the traditional power
structure- teachers: “To ensure the success of our children, we must do better to recruit, develop,
support, retain, and reward outstanding teachers in America’s classrooms.”70 It acknowledges the flaws
inherent to the NCLB’s punitive stipulations for failed performance and pledges to offer rewards to
states and districts that show substantive progress and an ability to innovate. Moreover, though
corporate managerial concepts are found throughout the document, it reaffirms the federal
government’s commitment to strengthening the public education system and assisting the states in
developing common core standards. The blueprint consists of 4 areas where the federal
government can play an especially key role:
(1) Improving teacher and principal effectiveness
(2) Providing information to families to help them evaluate
70 U.S. Department of Education, A Blueprint for Reform: The Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, (March 2010): 1.
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(3) Implementing college-and career- ready standards and developing improved assessments
aligned with those standards.
(4) Improving student learning and achievement in America’s lowest performing schools by
providing intensive support and effective interventions.
Key NPM terms & concepts:
Improving effectiveness of educational managers (teachers & principals)
Evaluate
Standards and assessments
Effective interventions (resource distribution)
Benchmarking for Success, 2008. This report was created by the National Governors
Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and a non-profit organization known as
Achieve, Inc., which develops strategies for states to implement Common Core State Standards and
assists states in changing their policies to reflect college and career readiness goals.71 The focus of
this report is to establish a competitive global educations system based on key action points,
summarized as follows:
Upgrade state standards by adopting common core of internationally benchmarked standards.
Ensure that textbooks, digital media, curricula, and assessments are aligned to internationally
benchmarked standards.
Reflect the human capital practices of top-performing nations.
Hold schools and systems accountable through monitoring, interventions, and support.
Measure state level education performance by examining student achievement.72
71 http://www.achieve.org/what-we-do 72 Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring U.S. Students Receive a World-Class Education, A Report by the National Governor’s Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and Achieve, Inc. (Accessed July 25, 2013) http://www.corestandards.org/assets/0812BENCHMARKING.pdf
25
The report advocates a role for the federal government that includes collecting and sharing of data
and to disseminate useful data in order to streamline resources.73 Moreover, it asserts that the
federal government should develop methods to incentivize achievement and grant funds according
to best practices indices.74 Both concepts, it should be noted, are precisely the same as articulated
by President Obama’s ESEA Blueprint for Reauthorization, thus illustrating the grammatical
alignment of federal, state, and non-governmental entities.
Key NPM terms & concepts:
Common core standards
Internationally benchmarked standards
Human capital
Measure, performance, achievement
The Next Generation of Assessments, 2010. In September of 2010, Secretary of
Education Arne Duncan gave a speech given to State leaders attending a conference sponsored by
Achieve, Inc. Secretary Duncan praised the transformational changes taking place in American’s
educational system through the Race to the Top Assessment competition, where 44 states were
awarded some form of federal grant money to implement performance measurement standards,
but that, “Standards and assessments are only the foundation upon which states will construct
high-quality curriculum, professional development.”75 He also lauds the fact that the non-
governmental Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC)
consortium, managed by Achieve Inc., will receive hundreds of millions of dollars in award
73 National Governors Association, “Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring U.S. Students Receive a World-Class Education,” (2008) 74 Ibid, 37. 75 U.S. Department of Education, “Beyond the Bubble Tests: The Next Generation of Assessments,” Accessed August 5, 2013.http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/beyond-bubble-tests-next-generation-assessments-secretary-arne-duncans-remarks-state-l
26
monies from the federal government, which will in turn be distributed to states that implement
their approved assessment and curricular programs.
National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 2012. The NAEP is the largest
continuing nationally represented assessment of student achievement and its results are released
to the public as the “Nations Report Card.” Parents, educational leaders, and policymakers use its
assessments to make determinations about the quality of the educational environment.76 The
NAEP is a congressionally authorized project that is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education.
It’s polices are established by a governing board that consists of members selected from a cross
section of society, to include: governors, state legislators, local and state school officials, educators,
business representatives, and members of the general public.77 The focus of the NAEP National
Report Card is to publish quantifiable data on school achievement and use this data against
prescribed benchmarks in order to identify inefficiencies and thus allocate resources as needed.
A systematic review of the communications for terms and phrases associated with neo-
liberal New Public Management can be coded for further linguistic patterns. Many terms are
grouped according to their implied meaning within the context of the communication. Distinctions
are made between certain concepts, based upon their significance within neo-liberal grammar. For
example, terms such as assess, evaluate, and measure all imply the tabulation of quantifiable inputs,
so they have been coded together. They are distinct, however, from terms such as efficient and
flexible that connotes the procedural mode within which the previous groups’ terms operate.
Improve is a separate category because it is the assumption from which the other categories are
derive their meaning. After all, the whole idea of governmental reform in the NPM context is to
improve the traditional method of delivery; educational reform operates from this same
improvement meme. The final group represents the basic orientation of each of these
76 National Assessment of Educational Progress, Teachers Guide 2013. www.nces.ed.gov 77 U.S. Department of Education, “NAEP Nations Report Card 2012: Trends in Academic Progress,” NCES Publications and Products accessed July 15, 2013. http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch
27
communications, which is to achieve acceptable outcomes and results that are signposts for
educators, parents, and administrators to draw conclusions and formulate future goals. Though
the terms are similar those in the group 1 pairings, they are the end result of the processes that
group 1 terms require. They are, in essence, on two different sides of the equation, thus they are
considered in a different category for our purposes.
Figure 2. Frequency of NPM terms in policy, positions papers, speeches
NPM Related Term I II III IV V Assess, Evaluate, Measure 711 107 64 105 259 Efficient / Flexible 12 4 20 0 0 Improve 477 35 127 4 10 Outcomes /Results 151 34 34 7 94 I No Child Left Behind 2001.
II Benchmarking for Success 2008 III ESEA Blueprint for Reauthorization IV Secretary of Education speech 2010 V NAEP Nation's Report Card 2012
The frequency of terms within each communications illustrates varies based on the length of the
communication. For example the No Child Left Behind Act (item I) is nearly 670 pages in length,
whereas the speech given by Education Secretary Arne Duncan (item IV) is considerably shorter at
a few pages in length. However, two categories standout out as having thematic significance across
all five pieces of communication: the need to improve and assess, evaluate, and measure.
The Power Structure of Educational Reform
Having attempted to establish the frequency of unifying themes found within key policy
reform communications over the last several years, this section will focus on the relational aspects
of the key actors involved in the reformation process. It is worth noting that pointing out that this
exercise is to demonstrate the organizational structure of the advocates of institutional reform.
28
Establishing relationships between people and organizations should in no way be construed as
impugning motives, as associations are not, in and of themselves, indicative an illicit scheme.
Secretary of Education power links. The Obama Administration’s Secretary of Education
Arne Duncan has been, and continues to be, a vocal advocate of school reform.78 He is the former
Superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools and has held Director positions for 3 non-profit
organizations that support systemic reforms to the public school system and career development
programs specifically for the “at-risk” demographic. The New School’s for Chicago organization
receives funds from the Rauner Family Foundation and is dedicated to establishing “tuition free
charter schools” that can compete with public schooling.
Our mission is to radically improve outcomes for children by shaking up the public education system. We do that by focusing on three areas: bringing top-performing charter schools to communities of high need, demanding accountability for all school models, and promoting school choice.79
The Rauner Family Foundation is a philanthropy group based out of Illinois that provides funds for
advocacy groups that promote school reform measures. One such group is Stand for Children,
which “endorsed 14 educational champions – six Democrats and eight Republicans – legislative
races across Illinois. All of them won [2012]”80 The Stand for Illinois director made clear that
educational teams will collaborate in the Illinois General Assembly to work toward reforms, to
include: “longer school days and school years, changes in how teachers are evaluated and paid,
implementation of the Common Core standards, and more school choice in the suburbs,
including charter schools.”81 The figure below illustrates the myriad of influential connections
78 “Fact Sheet: Redesigning America’s High Schools,” U.S. Department of Education, (June 7, 2013). http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/fact-sheet-redesigning-americas-high-schools 79 New Schools For Chicago, http://www.newschoolsnow.org/. 80 “Stand for Children – endorsed candidates sweep elections,” Linda Lutton, WBEZ 91.5 Chicago, March 22, 2012. http://www.wbez.org/story/stand-children-endorsed-candidates-sweep-elections-97524 81 Ibid.
29
between the federal executive branch, philanthropic organizations, and non-profit organizations
that implement the aforementioned goals.
Figure 3. Secretary of Education power links
Source: http://www.muckety.com/9CCDF57D4BE6EECC15C88A2789D6DC63.map
Common Core Standards power links. Described by Time Magazine as one of the most
influential educators in America, David Coleman is the architect for the Common Core Standards
initiative that states are adopting so as to standardize measurable performance data. 82
Additionally, he founded an educational data assessment consulting firm (Grow Network) that was
sold to McGraw Hill Inc., a “leading provider of ratings, benchmarks and analytics in the global
82 Andrew J. Rotherham, "David Coleman: The Architect", TIME Magazine, January 6, 2011
30
capital and commodity markets.”83 Mr. Coleman also has close ties to non-governmental
organizations that play a pivotal role in developing markets for assessment and curricular materials
in large school districts around the country.84 As shown in the illustration below, three highly
influential philanthropic foundations fund a non-profit entity co-founded by Coleman, known as
Student First, which describes itself as a movement to “transform public education.”85 Moreover, it
also displays the relationship between the major philanthropic foundations, the corporate business
community and the educational standards initiatives, such as Common Core.
Figure 4. Common Core architect power links
Source: http://www.muckety.com/7A07F65FEF23D60399ACFB9FC2339599.map
83 McGraw Hill Financial Inc. http://www.mcgraw-hill.com/ 84 Joanne Weiss, "The Innovation Mismatch: "Smart Capital" and Education Innovation", Harvard Business Review Blog, March 31, 2011 http://blogs.hbr.org/innovations-in-education/2011/03/the-innovation-mismatch-smart.html 85 Students First: A Movement to Transform Public Education, “About Us,” http://www.studentsfirst.org/.
31
California Charter School & NEA power links (Figure 5). Two basic relationships are
demonstrated in following graphic. The first is the California Charter Schools Association, which
receives funding from numerous foundations and is also part of a large private trade group
organization. The second is the National Education Association- the country’s largest professional
employee organization, which stands committed to the idea of public schooling and in general
opposes independent charter schooling initiatives on empirical grounds.86 Both relationships find
commonality in a single lobbying firm; however, no clear relationship can be demonstrated that
shows further collaboration toward common goals.
Figure 5. California Charter Schools & NEA power links
Source: http://www.muckety.com/05EFE2196636A1B02323950A115E911A.map
86 National Education Association, “NEA’s Policy on Charter Schools,” http://www.nea.org/home/16332.htm
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Achievement Charter School, Foundations, & Capital power links (Figure 6). The
Achievement First organization is a “high performing network of 22 non-profit, college preparatory,
and K-12 public charter schools” based in the New England area. 87 It promotes a results based
business model to create educational innovation that directly challenges the current public
schooling model. The organization receives funding from three non-governmental foundations that
support charter schooling as a method of educational reform. Moreover, Achievement First
Director Barry Fingerhut is the CEO of a company known as Certification Partners, a “developer and
worldwide distributor of industry-leading IT courseware, certifications, and training solutions.”88
Mr. Fingerhut is also the President of a venture capital firm that seeks “great returns with
promising young companies…who have bootstrapped themselves into the post-startup stage of
early revenue generation.”89 He is also one of the overseer’s at the New York University’s Stern
School of Business. This diagram helps present the relationship between the non-profit
organization and its source of revenue, as well as its reliance upon managerial expertise from the
corporate sector.
87 Achievement First: Public Charter Schools, http://www.achievementfirst.org/ 88 Certification Partners LLC., http://www2.certification-partners.com/ 89 GeoCapital Partners, http://www.crunchbase.com/financial-organization/geocapital-partners
33
Figure 6. New York City Public School System & Foundations power links.
Source: http://www.muckety.com/02F185BD38C92ADE935074761007E808.map
New School Venture Fund power links (Figure 7 & 8). The next two diagrams display
the financial links between several major philanthropic foundations and the advocacy groups like
New Schools Venture Fund (NSVF) and the New Teachers Project- a group who recently sent award
recipients to Washington DC to meet with educational policy makers to discuss various policy
34
initiatives.90 This illustrates the necessity for the educational reformers to develop a teacher
certification program that creates a workforce more open to the idea of performance management
within the charter school context, which is one of the goals outlined in NCLB Section 1001.91
Figure 7. New Schools Venture Fund, Foundations, & Capital power links.
Source: http://www.muckety.com/35C0D9DD8B9607C2ED6B0BD380F87C0D.map
In Figure 8 the relationships are developed further through examining 3 key players
involved in the New Schools Venture Fund. The first is the CEO of the NSVF, Theodore Mitchell,
who is the Director of the Children Now organization which describes itself as “the leading,
nonpartisan, umbrella research, policy development, and advocacy organization dedicated
90 The New Teacher Project, “Fishman Winners Go to Washington,” (August 15, 2013). http://tntp.org/blog/post/fishman-winners-go-to-washington 91 Public Law PL 107-110, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/index.html
35
to…creating national media policies that support child development.”92 Mr. Mitchell is also Director
of New Leaders, a non-profit organization that focuses on “leadership programs [to] develop
talented educators into transformational school leaders”93 Not unlike the New Teachers Project
that receives grant monies from the NSVF, the New Leaders program goals are to develop teacher
managers that will implement testable curricular goals. Moreover, Mr. Mitchell also serves as the
president of Occidental College, a liberal arts and science school based in California.
The second notable figure associated with NSVF is director Brook Byers. Mr. Byers is also a
trustee for Stanford University and former President of a venture capital firm as well as past
director for at least 3 other technology companies. According to FEC documents, Mr. Byers is also a
contributor to numerous Political Action Committees’ that are aligned with the Democratic Party.
The final key player is NSVF director Stephen L. Poizner. Mr. Poizner is also the former
founder and CEO of two tracking companies: SnapTrack Inc. and Strategic Mapping Inc. FEC
documents show that Mr. Poizner contributes to the California Republican Party and was a
fundraiser for John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008.
Examining the connections of these three men to the NSVF organization reveals the
prevalence of business capital management firms and philanthropic groups leveraging their
influence in uniting to a common ideological commitment of transforming the public schooling
system.
92 Children Now, http://www.childrennow.org/index.php/ 93 New Leaders, http://www.newleaders.org/what-we-do/
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Figure 8. NSVF director breakdown
http://www.muckety.com/862F33F53FCB3688A11A6AC887850132.map
37
ANALYSIS
The research collected was organized into two major elements: communicative and
relational. The latter, it will be argued, is only made possible by the former. Conveyed with such
words as efficiency, assessments, measurement, and human capital, scientific ideals - coupled with a
policy framework that invites new organizational forms – facilitate the growth of divergent
processes. Distinctions are obscured as old forms are mingled with the new.
Adoption of Concepts and Values in Policy Communication
Words with specific meanings conjoin to make ideas, which in turn give potentiality to
modes of interaction between people and organizations. A content analysis of a small cross section
of major pieces of communications revealed a subset of specific terms used to articulate a
framework and to insulate this framework from other considerations. As previously stated,
corporate managerial practices are conceptualized using a distinct vocabulary that defines logical
categories of action. In other words, the terms of the debate are often determined by the terms
within the debate itself. The use of NPM terms such as effectiveness, evaluate, outcomes, and
assessment in President Obama’s outline reflect how the vocabulary of the market has helped
establish the parameters of acceptable policy discussion. We see this again in the Forum on
Educational Accountability document. Those who wrote it ostensibly do not advocate wholesale
changes to the public schooling model, yet they borrowed heavily from the NPM vocabulary in
attempting to frame its position, thus tacitly endorsing the evolution of reform along corporate
managerial lines. In adopting the grammar of neo-liberal economic terms, the parameters of the
policy issue are narrowed and the ideas conveyed in the document become essentially a quarrel,
however important, over methods of implementation.
38
The emphasis on performance and evidence represents a semantic change from previous
reform efforts.94 The research shows that the beginning of NPM administrative reforms in
education began in the Goals 2000 Educate America Act in 1994. In Section 308 a channel, albeit
rather modest, was created for private intervention in public delivery methods. This channel was
significantly widened in Part F Section 1608 of the NCLB Act of 2001 under the Comprehensive
School Reform section, where the federal government would incentivize reforms based upon
scientific measures. Assessing and measuring are scientific terms. As previously noted, it is the
vocabulary of neo-liberal economic theory, rooted in scientific rationalism, which has defined the
parameters of the federal policies on education. In essence, the federal government has re-
packaged education and prepared it to be delivered, by states and non-profit corporations, as a
commodity. It is not forcing states or school districts to participate in a tightly controlled,
bureaucratic national school system, or taking schools over in total, as some have argued.95 It is,
however, forcing a very specific thought process upon the people in terms of how they are to view
educational reform. Repetitive sloganeering by federal policymakers, corporate managers, and
philanthropic entrepreneurs, has crystallized these ideas into the collective political consciousness
of the nation and thus limiting proposals to only those that can successfully accumulate the low
hanging fruit and redistribute it as college and career ready adults.
New grammar manifests in new structural forms
Relationships are built within the context of a society’s myths, symbols and ideals. Eugene
Rosenstock – Huessy once wrote that “art, science, law, religion, sports, and education now form the
great rituals and grammar of society.”96 The ideas about education being conveyed in public
94 Barbara Schneider and Vanessa Keesler. “School Reform 2007: Transforming Education into a Scientific Enterprise.” Annual Review of Sociology 33 (2007): 212. 95 Neal McCluskey, “Honey, When Did the Feds Takeover the Kids’ School?” (August 12, 2010). http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/honey-when-did-feds-take-over-kids-school 96 Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, The Origin of Speech, (Norwich: Argo Books, 1981): 91.
39
discourse represent a revaluation of those rituals and grammar. Change is very central to the fabric
of modern life and transitioning from the industrial to the technocratic state has created fissures
where the changes of grammar take place; the results often disturb institutional patterns. The
power structure research reveals these disturbances.
Bipartisan nature of reform efforts. A few conclusions can be drawn from the research.
The first is that the ascendant power that the non-governmental entities are gaining in educational
reform seems to be a bi-partisan phenomenon. The links that were examined in Figure 8 show that
one director donates to the Democrat Party and the other to the Republican Party, however both
share the vision put forth by the New Schools Venture Fund. Moreover, the educational champions
that won elections in the Illinois state legislature in 2012 represented both parties – 6 Democrat &
8 Republican. Finally, though neo-liberal economic theories of privatization tend to be associated
with Republican Party, and were given voice during the Reagan Administration in the early 1980’s,
each subsequent administration has promoted reform along corporate managerial lines. In Figure
3, the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is a registered Democrat serving in a Democrat
administration, yet he articulates a vision that seems more at home, at least intuitively, in the
Republican Party. This indicates that the power of the economic order is at least commensurate to
the political order, much as C. Wright Mills wrote in his seminal work on power structures: “it is not
only that institutions of power have become large scale and inaccessibly centralized; they have at
the same time become less political and more administrative.”97 The bipartisan nature of the
reform movement signals a fundamental shift from political to managerial accountability. This
transition was also noted in study on marketing reforms, where a decrease in political control is
also advocated, claiming for a higher administrative independence and institutional autonomy.”98
97 Charles W. Mills, The Power Elite, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), 306. 98 Jesus Cambra-Berdun and Jesus J. Cambra-Fierro, “Considerations and Implications,” International Review on Public and Non Profit Marketing 3 (December 2006): 44.
40
Corporate capital, higher education, federal policy. The research yields another pattern:
that the advocates of reform have intrinsic connections with venture capital firms, philanthropic
foundations, technology companies, and prestigious universities. In Figure 3 the architect of the
controversial Common Core Standards founded a successful data assessment company. Figure 6
we see that the director of a non-governmental entity that promotes non-governmental education
is also:
CEO of a global information technology firm
President of a venture capital investment firm
Overseer of business school at prestigious university.
In Figure 8, each of the 3 director links that were documented showed a similar pattern.
Thus the basic power structure of the educational reform movement can be summarized as an
interconnected effort on behalf of non-profit corporation’s that receive philanthropic funds to
implement the ideas inculcated in the business schools, and that publicly funded, privately
managed charter schooling initiatives, to include training new managers (teachers), are inextricably
linked to this process. All of this is made possible by federal policies conducive to market based
intervention in areas traditionally considered outside of its purview.99
Absence of clear public values. The triangulation of non-governmental corporate-
philanthropic capital (logic & mode), school (ideas incubated & disseminated), and government
(legal framework codified) are converging toward a common set of neo-managerial values.
However, this creates tension because business and intellect (education) by their very nature have
a different set of common values: “Being dedicated to a different set of values, they are bound to
conflict; and intellect is always potentially threatening to institutional apparatus or to fixed centers
of power.”100
99 David Hursh, “The growth of high stakes testing in the USA: accountability, markets and the decline in educational quality,” British Educational Research Journal 31 (2005): 606. 100 Richard Hofstadter, “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life,” (United States: Vintage Books, 1963): 233.
41
The federal government throughout our history has, in general, protected the local and state
educational networks to develop standards and curriculum in line with local community objectives.
What has been seen traditionally as a means of integrating members of society into a common
vision of social order has been recast result is that benefits and programs are recast as goods and
services, to be standardized, measured, and quantified. As stated in the Literature Review, neo-
liberal economic theory posits a view of society that places the economic transaction at the center
of all human activity. The institutional modes that grow from this presupposition by necessity
subordinate the political to the economic as the logic of the corporate managerial regime infuses
itself as a means of improvement. As Katz has observed, “Technocracy gives priority to the efficient
in terms of time and money, the attainment of intellectual skills, and professionalism.”101
The current model of education made possible by the federal & state framework that support it,
“does not put forward a clear vision of what constitutes an educated person.”102 The absence of
clear values creates a vacuum that allows for the penetration of concepts and methods that were at
one time considered foreign to the educational process. But now, as the government, and the
society that comprises it, adopts the values of business and seeks to remake all aspects of life in its
own image. Whereas the federal role in education was at one time relegated to the margins of
American life, it is now casting a mindset filled with all the symbols and rituals that accompany the
market: assessment, measurement, college and career preparation, and money making.103
Obscuring public & private distinctions. The non-governmental corporate and
philanthropic wings, when linked with the federal policy apparatus, compose a complex association
of influential entities. So intertwined are these relationships that the chairman of an international
NGO recently commented, “inside any important philanthropy meeting, you witness heads of state
101 Michael B. Katz, “Class, Bureaucracy, & Schools: The Illusion of Educational Change in America,” (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), 129. 102 Neil Postman, “Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology,” (New York: Vintage Books, 1993), 186. 103 “Bush’s Education Nonprofit and Corporate Profits,” http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/blog/bushs-education-nonprofit-and-corporate-profits
42
meeting with investment managers and corporate leaders.”104 This acknowledgement of high level
interaction between elected and non-elected entities acting in official capacities to affect the lives of
millions of people should encourage us to examine the reflexive relationship between the theory of
democratic governance and its actual practice. The corporate neo-liberal view that dominates
through the market spectacle today105, leads to a view that as Davies has observed, “…treat
economics and markets as more democratic than democracy itself.”106 Furthermore, as noted by
Scott, these new venture philanthropists that we have discussed are perhaps the greatest influence
upon educational leaders and states departments of education today.107 This raises the question of
accountability: To who are these non-governmental entities accountable to? Are the proper
feedback loops available that local communities can turn to for clarity on perceived
misappropriations?
104 Peter Buffet, “The Charitable Industrial Complex,” The New York Times, (July 26,2013). 105 Terence M. Garrett and Arthur Sementelli, “Knowledge Production: public management and the market spectacle,” International Journal of Social Economics 39 (2012): 461. 106 William Davies, “The making of neo-liberalism.” Renewal: A Journal of Labor Politics 17 (2009: 88. 107 Janelle Scott, “The Politics of Venture Philanthropy in Charter School Policy and Advocacy,” Educational Policy 23 (2009): 107.
43
RECOMMENDATIONS
Accepting educational reform in its current manifestation requires assumptions about the
role of government that, as I have attempted to argue, have changed over the last few decades; for
new grammar precedes new institutional forms, just as political change precedes educational
change.108 Three approaches will be recommended in this section: change the conversation,
expand the scope of the conflict, and admit the need to make changes. While the second is overtly
more political in nature, thus requiring more capital to be expended, all steps should be executed
simultaneously.
Change the Grammar: the Object of Education.
Human interactivity is the product of linguistic structures and memes. Opponents of the
federal government’s policies in support of the neo-liberal approach to educational delivery should
recognize the power with which the grammar of the market has permeated educational policy.
Concepts of growth, scale, and measurable results are indicative of the corporate vocabulary being
adopted by those seeking schooling reform. Political scientist E.E. Schattschneider offers a
particularly insightful view of how political conflicts are defined along word choices:
Political conflict is not like an intercollegiate debate in which the opponents agree in advance on a definition of the issues…the definition of the alternatives is the supreme instrument of power; the antagonists can rarely agree on what the issues are because power is involved in the definition. He who determines what politics is about runs the country, because the definition of the alternatives is the choice of conflicts, and the choice of conflicts allocates power. 109
The objectives of those advocating change can be attained more easily by narrowing the categories
of possible alternatives. Thus it is that neo-liberal reformers have been successful in controlling the
debate by “marginalizing alternative conceptions.”110 Basic questions about education need to be
108 Michael B. Katz, “Class, Bureaucracy, & Schools: The Illusion of Educational Change in America,” (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), 129. 109 E.E. Schattschneider, The Semisovereign People, (United States: Wadsworth Thomson Learning, 1988):66. 110 David W. Hursh and Joseph A. Henderson, “Contesting global neoliberalism and creating alternative futures,” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 32, (May 2011), 171.
44
asked in our society today. Inquiries into the basic presuppositions of education should be
explored, seeking answers to questions such as: what is the purpose of education and for whom
and what end are we to be educated? Is it to be college and career ready as those that stand to
benefit monetarily have asserted?111 An equally important question is what role can and should the
federal government have in creating a framework so that the consensus answer to the ideal in
educational methods can flourish? The guiding concept of the relationship between federal policy
and education, asserts Cambra-Berdun, should be focused on “the requirements of those citizens
who are directly involved, as well as the society as a whole.”112 In other words, competing interests
must be weighed and balanced in light of those requirements. However, it is incumbent that all
parties interested in education reform proclaim their purposes, which leads to the next
recommendation.
Expand the conflict
“The central political fact in a free society is the tremendous contagiousness of conflict.”113
In general, the more powerful elements within democratic society that seeks to implement
change desire to minimize the political conflict, whereas those that are lower in the power
relationship wish to expand the scope of the conflict. 114 The former strive to keep conflicts private,
the latter often pursues a strategy of publicizing the conflict. 115
111 “In Conversation with Secretary Duncan,” New Schools Venture Fund 2013 Summit. http://www.newschools.org/blog/summit-2013-videos It was at the at the 35 minute 10 second mark, Secretary Duncan states:…”the connection between children getting a good education and actually entering the work force…and the goal is not just to get a good education and go to college…the goal is to get a good job.” 112 Jesus Cambra-Berdun and Jesus J. Cambra-Fierro, “Considerations and Implications on the Necessity of Increasing Efficiency in the Public Education System: The NPM and the Market Orientation as Reference Concepts,” International Review on Public and Non Profit Marketing 3 (December 2006), 43. 113 E.E. Schattschneider, The Semisovereign People, (United States: Wadsworth Thomson Learning, 1988), 2. 114 ibid, 3. 115 Ibid, 40.
45
As Carr Thomson of the Burroughs Welcome Fund stated: “Foundations can catalyze on
issue, but larger funds from the public sector are required to carry out major transformation in an
area like education.”116 One of the more contentious aspects of the educational reform efforts has
been the allotment of public dollars towards private charter organizations. It would behoove the
opponents of these reforms to work towards passing legislation that places tighter restrictions on
public revenue being diverted to charter organizations, until further effects can be more clearly
determined and adjustments made accordingly. In order to do so, a grass roots effort needs to form
that retains a tight focus on the need for oversight of any entity that initiates reform with large
sources of wealth; particularly non-governmental sources that seem to operate at a distance from
the parents and communities of the children they seek to educate.
Recognize the need to change.
Modern societies are beset with conditions that invite constant change: “As we embark on
the next millennium, we find ourselves amidst another historical transition period—from
industrialism to the information age.”117 Therefore, “As historical conditions change, so do the
meanings and political consequences of the mechanics of power.”118 The relations between
carriers of power within a society in flux necessarily involve modifications in which some stand to
gain while others lose in varying degrees.
Opponents of the federal government’s policy that promotes corporate involvement in
education need to respond to critics of the existing school model. As stated by one scholar,
“uniformity of the school system, once thought to be a virtue, is clearly a liability in the modern
116 “Benchmarking 2012: Trends in Education Philanthropy,” Grantmakers for Education, http://www.edfunders.org/sites/default/files/benchmarking_2012.pdf 117 Christopher Koliba, “Democracy and Education: Schools and Communities Initiative,” University of Vermont (May 2008). 118 Charles W. Mills, The Power Elite, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), 267.
46
era.”119 As the fabric stretches and reconfigures amidst the globalizing political economy, the
wisdom of large bureaucratic institutions, such as public schooling in its current form, should be
openly debated. Moreover, the claims of society need to be weighed against the needs of the
emerging technocracy, for as Levin correctly asserted: “schooling takes place at the intersection of
two sets of rights, those of the family and those of society.”120 The political institutions in any
society, particularly a democratic one, need to be prepared to resolve any tensions that manifest
between these two points, otherwise severe disruptions threaten the social order.
119 Dennis P. Doyle, “The role of private sector management in public education,” Phi Delta Kappan 76 (Oct. 1994): 128. 120 Henry M. Levin, “The Public-Private Nexus in Education,” National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, (March 2000), 4.
47
CONCLUSION
In the beginning of this essay, two general points were asserted: that democratic
institution’s are an outgrowth of the linguistic, historical, and collective conscience of the people
that comprise and maintain them, and that schools reinforce patterns of social structure. As
industrial economical modes continue to dissolve in the wake of the globalization of capital
markets, new actors are emerging with new ideas of how to revaluate the institutions along neo-
managerial thought processes. This paper has examined how these ideas are affecting the federal
government’s policy on education and how the power structure has changed as a result.
Summary
Analysis of the data reveals that there is underlying grammatical and symbolic shifts in
meaning that accompany the market transformation of public educational policy. There are several
driving forces behind these shifts, each of which are a stream with varying currents that are
subsumed within a larger stream of scientific management philosophy. We have examined the
methods of grammar that have been fused with federal governance in regards to delivering services
to the public it serves, as well as the logic that flows from these methods.
As a result of favorable policies crafted by the bipartisan efforts of the federal government,
new institutional patterns have developed. Though it can be acknowledged that “large-scale,
nonprofit institutions have [always] played a prominent role in civil society in modernity,”121 the
nature of the new transactions commands a return on investment mechanism that the previous
institutions did not possess. All of this presents new questions of accountability in light of an
121 Francesca Sawaya, “Capitalism and Philanthropy in the (New) Guilded Age,” The American Studies Association: Capitalism and Philanthropy, (2008), 203.
48
invigorated private-public action plan that obscures distinctions about what is public, and therefore
subject to democratic controls, versus the non-democratic interests that control private markets.
Thus we risk the continued convergence Domhoff has described as “the integration of corporate
and government institutions.”122 The results of this infusion of the neo-liberal species of economic
values into the political consciousness remains to fully be seen; however, the fact that many of these
reforms often strike us as commonsensical is perhaps a testament to how modern society is
dominated by the symbols and rhetorical devices of the business community.
Further Research
As is often the case, analysis like the one presented in the essay often present more
questions to be considered than solutions to implement. One of the rationales that privatization
proponents use to advance their cause is to cite the necessity of change in light of the increasingly
globalized economy.123 Perhaps we should ask if these are the logical consequences of neo-liberal
globalization. Does modern democratic capitalism, with its insatiable quest for growth and change,
have an inherent bent toward authoritarian solutions?124 Does the logic of the market create such a
spectacle that inherently erodes democratic accountability systems, as some have suggested125?
There are few empirical studies that would support such a conclusion, but perhaps the ability to
quantify and measure this concern is beyond the instruments of the scientific manager.
122 G. William Domhoff, “The Power Elite and the State: How Policy is Made in America,” (New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 1990), 200. 123 David Hursh, “The growth of high stakes testing in the USA: accountability, markets and the decline in educational quality,” British Educational Research Journal 31 (2005): 605-622. 124 Robert Michels, Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy, (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1949), 378. 125 Terence M. Garret and Arthur Sementelli, “Knowledge Production: public management and the market spectacle,” International Journal of Social Economics 39 (2012): 467.
49
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