Research Catalog

Title

Hard lessons : public schools and privatization / Carol Ascher, Norm Fruchter, Robert Berne.

Author

Ascher, Carol, 1941-

Publication

New York : Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1996.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Berne, Robert.
• Fruchter, Norm, 1937-

Description

xi, 144 pages; 23 cm

Summary

This book, the second in the Twentieth Century Fund's series of studies on the privatization of public services, finds that current arguments for privatizing schools are based on wishful thinking. After examining what the actual experience has been with privatization around the country, Hard Lessons concludes that the promise of saving money and improving educational quality through privatization is, at minimum, being oversold. While this report is likely to be disputed by those who have a strong attachment to the notion that privatizing always improves output--and by those with a financial stake in the for-profit school " industry"--It will be an important part of the ongoing debate. The report, which focuses on big city schools, argues that while the magic wand of privatization must be abandoned, the efforts to solve the problems facing our nation's urban schools must continue; there are hard questions to be asked, new solutions to be tried, and the case must continually be made for new resources for our public schools, even in today's political climate.

Alternative Title

Public schools and privatization

Subject

• Privatization in education > United States
• Educational vouchers > United States
• School choice > United States
• Educational vouchers
• Privatization in education
• School choice
• Öffentliche Schule
• Privatisierung
• United States
• USA

Note

• "Twentieth Century Fund report."

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-133) and index.

Contents

Foreword / Richard C. Leone -- 1. Our besieged public schools and why they are public -- 2. Promises of privatization -- 3. Two forgotten experiments in school privatization: performance contracting and educational vouchers -- 4. Privatization in Baltimore, 1992-95 -- 5. Experimenting with privatization -- 6. Public education in transition -- 7. The limits of privatization and the continuing struggle for equity.

ISBN

• 0870783998
• 9780870783999

LCCN

96032848

OCLC

• ocm35096097
• 35096097
• SCSB-8904784

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library