Working Papers

This paper presents the most notorious decentralization and privatization policies of education delivery included in the 1995-2005 education reform plan and briefly explain some of the factors justifying their existence, potential success, and possible limitations. Based on existing evidence, it also examines the capacity of a privatization strategy, contracting not-for-profit parents' associations to administer schools financed by the state, to improve education in rural areas (The EDUCO program). The author concludes that decentralization and privatization policies have produced multiple results. In the search for a better education system, decentralization and privatization policies have not only given the Salvadoran government new ways to exert control over the education system but also added new problems and challenges. In the case of the EDUCO program, for instance, although it has successfully contributed to expanding education supply and promoting social cohesion, its impact on equity and the productive efficiency of schooling may not be like the one expected. Therefore, decentralization and privatization strategies, like any other policies, have had their pros and their cons. There may never be a perfect policy to solve satisfactorily all weaknesses within an education system; but education advocates and policymakers should always be committed to review existing practices and improve them.

This paper investigates the determinants of political support for the privatization of education in the UK. The electorate is assumed to apply cost-benefit calculations, depending on their circumstances; a set of criteria for evaluating educational reforms is linked to individual voters' characteristics. It is then possible to identify which voters would oppose or advocate educational reforms such as greater school competition, ability selection and promotion of private schooling. Support for these reforms is then estimated using the British Educational Panel Survey (1997). The results indicate that political preferences largely reflect the anticipated personal costs and benefits from educational reforms. Those with children are in favour of reforms to raise school competition; those working in the education sector are against such reform. Those with higher anticipated tax liabilities favour privatization and support private schooling. Overall, however, educational reforms toward privatization received only minority support in Britain as of 1997.

Both U.S. states and Canadian provinces have moved to enhance educational choice within their educational systems in order to improve educational productivity. In spite of this similarity of purpose and means, the two nations are taking very different approaches. Most Canadian provinces have moved to full provincial financing of schools and to the allocation of school choice based on group rights assigned to French-speaking and English-speaking citizens. In contrast, U.S. states have decentralized authority via charter schools, vouchers or tax deductions, thereby enhancing individual rights. Both nations also have adopted federal and state/provincial assessment systems. Eventually, we may be able to assess the educational, financial and political success of two distinctive models, one driven by centralized institutions and the other by markets.

The construct of the market is an interesting new element in the discourse on higher education in Europe. It has generated serious initiatives in deregulating higher education, in developing performance-based models of resource allocation, in fostering inter-institutional competition and efficient management structures, and even in considering the "privatization" of higher education. These developments affect particularly the financing of higher education, where new models of resource generation and allocation, institutional steering and controlling, and accountability are being explored. Within this context, and with a view towards the future of higher education in Europe, eight issues are being examined in more detail: The transition from line-item budgets to block grants, formula funding, the role of incentives, the mobilization of external resources, the introduction of tuition fees, the creation of private institutions, alternative strategies of steering and controlling, and the internal distribution of resources.

This paper investigates the effect of private school competition on public school performance. We present a simple theoretical model that shows the many linkages needed in order for increased competition to result in improved performance, and present reasons why those linkages might be weak or non-existence in reality. We improve on previously published work in that we can better control for the endogeneity between private school enrollment and public school performance. Multiple approaches provide very little evidence that current levels of private school competition increase public school performance in Georgia.

<Now published in (2001) Education Matters, 1(1), 6-15>
Although the theory of the market is succinct and well understood, we know little about how for-profit schools will operate in practice. This short paper considers why for-profit schooling has developed during the current period and not before; what are the main input differences between for-profit and public schooling; and how for-profit schools will have to attract students as clients. Given current evidence, the scope for efficiency gains appears limited - research has not identified substantial economies of scale in education and for-profit schools may have to devote more resources to marketing their provision rather than to provision of education.

This paper summarizes the results on the relationship between school choice and social segregation in the UK. School choice was substantially increased in 1988, and the analysis is based on the entire UK student cohort and for every year between 1989 and 1999. A range of segregation measures were used, although the results are invariant to the index used. Socio-economic stratification in all secondary schools in England declined from a high of 36% in 1989 to around 30% by 1996, but rose to 32% by 1999. There is no evidence that within this decline in stratification, a subset of schools went into a 'spiral of decline'.

<Now published in (2002) Education-Economics, 10(1), 49-69>
A significant body of literature suggests that enterprises in the public education sector may differ from 'standard production' market firms in important ways. Substantial government involvement is then legitimized. However, this literature often uses within-sector comparisons of school types, rather than cross-sector comparisons of the education sector with other sectors. This paper compares the structure of education enterprises and workplace practices with those in other industries, namely (the rest of) the public sector and the private sector. Key differences - particularly as regards staffing resources - between education providers and these other enterprises are identified from prior literature and then tested. Data from the UK Workplace Employee Relations Survey (1998) are used. Our findings show substantial differences in labor rewards and factor management in the education sector.

The countries of Argentina and Chile have long-standing policies that give public subsidies to private schools. In Argentina, the government funds the salaries of many teachers and principals in private schools. In Chile, the funding is directly tied to student enrollments, and school budgets are immediately penalized when students leave a private school. In many ways, the Chilean plan is similar to Milton Friedman's original voucher proposal. In this paper, I use 1997 data from Argentina and Chile to compare the academic outcomes of seventh- and eighth-graders in public and private schools. Three types of private schools are analyzed: Catholic schools that are subsidized by the government, non-religious schools that are subsidized, and private schools that receive no subsidies. The analyses suggest a mixed portrait of private school effectiveness. In both countries, Catholic subsidized schools are somewhat more effective than public schools in producing student outcomes, although these results are probably an upper bound to the true effects, due to selection bias. There are several explanations for these effects. In part, they may be due to the unique missions, policies, and resources that are characteristic of the Catholic sector (although empirical research to substantiate this is sparse). It may be less attributable to the "private" status of Catholic schools. In contrast, there are few differences in outcomes between public and non-religious subsidized schools in Chile (but this is not the case in Argentina). Enrollments in non-religious subsidized private schools are substantially larger in Chile. The diminished effectiveness of these schools in Chile may be due, in part, to their different objectives--placing greater emphasis on securing a margin of profit-or their different students. Again, however, existing research is not sufficient to explain why different types of private schools may produce different results.

This paper presents an analysis of the issues and concerns of the concept of the privatization and outsourcing of campus services. Traditionally, colleges and universities have operated their own campus services providing goods and services to the institutional community as needed. Some services such as food service and bookstores were turned over to private companies, early on, to operate for the institution. A recent phenomenon has been occurring wherein colleges and universities have been turning to private service providers to operate more and more of their campus services. Although financial incentives appear to be the main reason colleges and universities are moving toward the privatization of campus services, other reasons can also be identified.

This paper examines why this phenomenon is occurring and the reasons higher education is so keenly interested in this concept. The paper reviews pressures to privatize; the current status of privatization in higher education; how the decision to privatize is made and what is involved before making that decision; what services are being privatized more than others; the importance of the relationship between the service provider and the institution; and, more generally, the issues involved in the privatization process itself.

<Now published in (2003) Choosing choice: School choice in international perspective. New York, NY: Teachers College Press>
This is a paper is on the recent development in parental choice in basic education in the People's Republic of China (China). It has two major objectives. First, it attempts to explain the origin and inherent tension in school choice by relating the recent development to historical changes and the larger societal contexts in post-1949 China. Second, based on studies in both Chinese and English sources, it identifies emerging changes in basic education related to increased school choice. Particular attention is given to the unique characteristics of interventions in school choice in China, the development of different types of non-government schools as alternatives to government education, the effort to introduce innovation in school governance and school curriculum, and increased parental and community voice in schooling.

The paper is organized into five sections. The first section is an introduction to the subject; it explains what school choice means in China today. The second section explains why school choice has become an issue in urban China since the early 1990s. It highlights socio-economic development in Chinese society since 1978 and conflicting policies within the party-controlled State in post-1949 China. The discussion of the development of school choice and its impact is given in two sections: Section Three is a general overview of development in the country, and Section Four presents case studies in two major urban centers in China, Tianjin and Beijing. The last section is a summary; it also explores future development in school choice in China.

This paper examines the effects of public funding for religious and private schools in the Netherlands and England over the last century or more. These two countries are chosen because both have religious schools which are fully funded by the state and the netherlands, in particular, is often seen as providing an ideal environment in which private religious schools can flourish. The paper shows that state funding brings disadvantages as well as advantages, for funding has been associated with considerable, yet variable, state control and regulation over such aspects as curriculum, staffing, admissions criteria, inspection and governance. At various points in the past both governments have effected powerful shocks to the religious schools that have received funding, and there has also been a gradual increase in regulation - especially in the last decade. This increase in state regulation and control is such that there are now some religious schools in both countries which do not seek state funding but refer to remain dependent upon fees. The benefits of state funding are seen as being outweighed by the decrease in autonomy that the schools would undergo. A final twist, however, is that private schools not in receipt of state funding have also experienced increased state regulation at both the country and European levels. Furthermore, all schools have also been influenced by the growing public rhetoric of 'standards' and 'league tables' which has brought with it a growing pressure to conform to a narrow version of schooling. Diversity is being replaced by conformity.