...Education in Crisis and the Threat of Privatization There is a crisis regarding our public schools, but it is not the one you usually read about by Diane Ravitch 8 Comments 'The crisis in education today,' writes Ravitch, 'is an existential threat to the survival of public education.' (Image: Photo by Dean Hochman/flickr/cc w/ overlay) It has become conventional wisdom that “education is in crisis.” I have been asked about this question by many interviewers. They say something like: “Do you think American education is in crisis? What is the cause of the crisis?” And I answer, “Yes, there is a crisis, but it is not the one you have read about. The crisis in education today is an existential threat to the survival of public education. The threat comes from those who unfairly blame the school for social conditions, and then create a false narrative of failure. The real threat is privatization and the loss of a fundamental democratic institution.” As we have seen again and again, the corporate education industry is eager to break into U.S. public education and turn it into a free marketplace, where they can monetize the schools and be assured of government subsidization. On the whole, these privatized institutions do not produce higher test scores than regular public schools, except for those that cherry-pick their students and exclude the neediest and lowest performing students. The promotion of privatization by philanthropies, by the U.S. Department...
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...Corrections Accreditation and Privatization Corrections Accreditation and Privatization Correctional facilities, today, operate on standards that would be unheard of in the past. The jails and prison of the past lacked a certain sense of humanity and an ability to show society that the prison was a place of reformation rather than condemnation. The standards for which correctional facilities follow come from the Commission on Accreditation in Corrects (CAC). The CAC developed the standards followed in today’s prisons. Accreditation officially began in 1978, jointly administered by the CAC and the American Correctional Association. What is corrections accreditation? The accreditation program offers public and private organizations performing correctional functions the opportunity to evaluate their operations against national standards, to remedy deficiencies, and to upgrade the quality of correctional programs and services (Foster, 2006). Benefits from the accreditation process are the following: improved management; defense against lawsuits through documentation and the demonstration of a “good faith” effort to improve conditions of confinement; increased accountability and enhanced public credibility for administrative and line staff; a safe and more humane environment for personnel and offenders; and establishment of measurable criteria for upgrading programs, personnel, and physical plant on a continuing basis (Foster, 2006). Professional development in the corrections...
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...Privatization Trends in Government in the 1990's e University of Submitted to: Prof. Submitted by: D el 6 7 May PRIVATIZATION HAS BECOME INCREASINGLY ATTRACTIVE TO GOVERNMENTS AT ALL LEVELS BOTH IN THE UNITED STATES AND AROUND THE WORLD. PRIVATIZATION, HOWEVER, POSES A DIF~ERENT SET OF PROBLEMS FOR PUBLIC ADMINISTRATORS. THE GOAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATOR IS TO RUN HIS/HER AGENCY AS EFFICIENTLY AS ) .' ''I ,J• . 1 , POSSIBLE. BUT IN TIMES OF FISCAL CONSTRAINlj PRIVATIZATION IS SEEN AS A SOLUTION TO BUDGETARY PROBLEMS. AS WITH ALL ISSUES THERE ARE TWO SIDES. PROPONENTS OF PRIVATIZATION FEEL THAT THE PRIVATE SECTOR CAN DELIVER THE SAME SERVICES THAT GOVERNMENT CURRENTLY PROVIDES FOR LESS MONEY, BETTER QUALITY AND WITH MORE VERSATILITY. ON THE OTHER HAND, OPPONENTS FEEL THAT PRIVATIZATION REDUCES THE QUALITY OF SERVICES, LEADS TO THE DESTRUCTION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS AND CORRUPTION AND IN THE PROCESS WEAKENS GOVERNMENT J CONTROL OF THESE SERVICES THAT ARE CONSIDERED ESSENTIAL TO THE PUBLIC. THESE OPPONENTS FEEL THAT IF THE PRIVATE SECTOR COULD HAVE DONE THESE JOBS AT A REASONABLE COST IN THE FIRST PLACE GOVERNMENT WOULD NOT HAVE HAD TO PROVIDE THEM AT ALL. PROPONENTS FEEL IT IS THE FACT THAT GOVERNMENT HAS GOTTEN SO BIG THAT THEY CAN NO LONGER PROVIDE THE SERVICE AT A RATE LOWER THAN THEIR PRIVATE COUNTERPARTS AND THAT HAS GIVEN BIRTH TO A VARIETY OF PRIVATE CONTRACTORS WILLING TO PROVIDE THESE SERVICES AT MORE COMPETITIVE PRICES. GOVERNMENT HAS...
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...Corrections accreditation is a system of verification that correctional agencies/facilities comply with national standards promulgated by the American Correctional Association. Accreditation is achieved through a series of reviews, evaluations, audits and hearings (ACA.org, n. d.). According to the American Correctional Association (n. d.) in order for a correctional facility to be eligible for accreditation they must hold convicted adults or juveniles adjudicated delinquent, pretrial or presentenced adults or juveniles, and/or adult or juveniles offenders sentenced to community supervision. It officially began in 1978, and today it is jointly administrated by the American Correctional Association (ACA) and the Commission on Accreditation in Corrections (CAC). The accreditation program offers public and private organizations performing correctional functions the opportunity to evaluate their operations against national standards, to remedy deficiencies, and to upgrade the quality of correctional programs and services (Foster, 2006). Foster (2006) stated “professionalization has to do with gaining professional status for persons working in corrections” (p.176). The professional development of corrections officers is truly affected by the corrections accreditation. They work toward obedience within the standards that represent professional practices. There are millions of people who work in the jail and prisons system for adults and juveniles. Some of those public employees work...
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...Temple University Privatization of public services to reduce cost and improve quality has a long history. Peter Drucker, the Austrian born management professor, was the first to suggest contracting out of local services to private companies. Indeed many municipal services were already contracted out by 1980 in Great Britain. But the most significant drive for privatization in Great Britain, which signaled the way to the rest of the world, came about with the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979. In the following decade a host of state owned enterprises were privatized including British Petroleum, British Aerospace, Jaguar, Rolls Royce, National Freight Corp., Cable and Wireless, British Airways, British Gas, British Telecom, several water and electric utilities. In addition, public housing was sold to the residents and compulsory competitive bidding of local services was initiated. By the late 1980’s, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina elected presidents who adopted privatization initiatives. But the trend toward privatization was not confined to western countries. The collapse of Communism in the Soviet Bloc prompted the sale of many state owned enterprises as well as other forms of privatization. Even earlier, China in 1978 allowed private farming and later private sector manufacturing and retail operations. And Vietnam allowed private businesses and Cuba allowed homes to be sold to their tenants. Privatization of government activities in the...
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...Atlanta Public Schools (APS) should entertain the idea of a hybrid public school transportation system, composed of contracting and in-house operations. A hybrid system can work for the APS because: - The cost benefits of privatization reduces transportation cost, which can lead to more money in the classroom. - Keeping experienced, happy bus drivers with the district can reassure the public that safety is a top priority. Atlanta Public Schools can structure a plan for hybrid transportation to fit the needs of the more than 50,000 students in the school district; about 22,000 of those students rely on the school bus to get to and from school according to the FY 2015 General Budget. School districts are more likely to contract out services when the views of the superintendent and school board support privatization. BACKGROUND As public school system budgets fluctuate since the recent recession, school officials are finding ways to cut cost, by contracting out services that indirectly tied to student instruction. Janitorial, food and transportation operations are non-instructional school functions that could save districts money without reducing education opportunities. With population growth and maintenance...
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...State versus Private Ownership Andrei Shleifer Department of Economics Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts. Abstract Private ownership should generally be preferred to public ownership when the incentives to innovate and to contain costs must be strong. In essence, this is the case for capitalism over socialism, explaining the "dynamic vitality" of free enterprise. The great economists of the 1930s and 1940s failed to see the dangers of socialism in part because they focused on the role of prices under socialism and capitalism, and ignored the enormous importance of ownership as the source of capitalist incentives to innovate. Moreover, many of the concerns that private firms fail to address “social goals” can be addressed through government contracting and regulation, without resort to government ownership. The case for private provision only becomes stronger when competition between suppliers, reputational mechanisms, the possibility of provision by private not-for-profit firms, as well as political patronage and corruption, are brought into play. 1 What kinds of goods and services should be provided by government employees as opposed to private firms? Should government workers make steel and cars in government-owned factories? Should teachers and doctors be publicly employed or should they work for private schools and practices? Should garbage be picked up by civil servants or employees of private garbage haulers? Should the whole economy be "socialized"? Although...
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...4.0 GOVERNMENT PRIVATIZATION POLICY; SUCCESS OR FAILURE? The implementation of Government Privatization Policy in Malaysia can be considered as success. This is because, this policy design able to achieved almost all the objective of government privatization policy. Therefore, our opinion about the government privatisation policy is success due to achievement of these objectives. 4.1 Relieve the financial and administrative burden of government The successful privatization should bring gain to the government in term of reduce financial burden of those entities that suffer losses .For example is Malaysia Airlines (MAS). According to Tun Dr Mahathir, MAS should be privatize since ten years ago due to loss of RM 10 billion in term of capital injection and government also did not received dividend during the 5 years to 1985. As we can see now days, there are so many problems facing by MAS. For instance the accident of MH370 and MH17 that make MAS become worse. In order MAS to success they need to reconstruct the management structure from top to bottom to make a better decision making and become more perform. Besides that, the privatization also undertaking and maintain services and infrastructure, for example according to the Privatization Master Plan Policy (PMP), proceeds from sale of government equity in privatize companies has generated RM1.88 billion, while the government is said to have saved more than RM8.2 billion in capital expenditure for infrastructure development...
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..."State and Local Governments" Terence Bolt State & Local Government August 26, 2011 State and Local Governments The differences in culture of the early Americans played a significant role in shaping state government. It affected the level and type of role that its citizens participated in politics, the reach of the government governed its people and the direction of its public policy. The three aspects of the influence of culture on politics were determined by its newly formed citizenry. As the United States was being formed, immigrants from Europe and other countries with similar perspectives grouped together to form different political subcultures. Daniel Elazar, a distinguished political scientist at Temple University, has been one of the leaders in this school of thought. Elazar (1994) argues that, "... the nation has one general political culture, but that within it are three important subcultures, which he describes as individualistic, moralistic, and traditionalistic." (pg 28) The Individualistic subculture relies on the marketplace. Government's role is limited and was instituted to accomplish the demands of the people. Elazar (1994) says that, "government need not have any direct concern with questions of "the good society"; except to further economic prosperity of the market place. In other words, government should primarily be limited to, "...areas in the economic realm, that encourage private initiative...
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...to pay these said corporations suffer from starvation due to their lack of financial wealth? Water Privatization refers to the transfer of ownership of water resources from the public sector to the private sector. Countries such as Australia, Canada, Argentina and Britain all have private water supplies and are facing numeric challenges such as a lack of access to clean water, corruption in the process and a reduction in local control and public rights. Should Jamaica be allowed to go through the same problems these countries face? Water is a fundamental human right and should be available to all the people of the world for little or nothing. Due to it being a human right Jamaica’s water supply should not be privatized as privatization may lead to rate increases and poor water quality. Firstly, Privatization of Jamaica’s water supply would lead to rate increases. Over the years Private corporations increase rates to increase and boost their profits for which they are accountable to shareholders not to consumers. This would lead to customers paying more for water supply on their monthly bill since the private entity recovers its investment and profit through user bills, privatizing water can lead to considerable rate hikes for consumers. In fact, consumers can expect future rate increases to reflect the size of the upfront payment that a local government receives in a privatization scheme. On the other hand Private companies often times promise to repair, upgrade and maintain infrastructures...
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...Privatization on Service Sector Preface We know that the countries which are developed today are getting very strong in service sector day by day. Without having a very significant service sector it is impossible to retain the development of the economy of a country. Service sector is the accelerator of an economy. And Bangladesh is one of the least developed countries of the world with a huge number of different problems but most importantly with an emerging service sector. Really this is a great tonic for this underdeveloped country on the way of development. So to utilize this potential setting up of a lot of service organization is needed. But the service organization should not be public rather private. Because we all know about the poor service quality and negative profit of the public service organizations of Bangladesh. So the privatization of service sector is one of our desired initiatives. It is one of the leading aspects with a very bright potential to boost-up the economy of this third-world poor country. Prepared by: Md. Abdul Hai – 07882860 Essence of Privatization Despite a significant degree of public ownership in health, education, communication, utilities and energy sectors in the pre-independence period, Bangladesh inherited basically a private sector dominated economy at the time of independence in 1971. A set of three inter-related reasons are put forward as rationale for privatization in Bangladesh. These are: • Improvement of the governments’ fiscal...
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...chief course in the menu of their captors. Examples of prisons can even be found in the Old Testament when Joseph was incarcerated in Egypt. It was not until the 19th century that a clear shift occurred from corporal punishment to imprisonment. As societies prospered and the industrial revolution began, the formal prison system, as we know it today, developed. Throughout most of the world, the correctional system is administered by the state, and it is considered a key function that the government must fulfill: protect its citizens by guaranteeing the state of law while enforcing the judicial system. More than two decades ago, the United Sates and Great Britain began experimenting with privatization of their prison systems, outsourcing the management to private enterprises. Like most privatization issues, this topic has many supporters from the liberal economic philosophy, as well as many detractors that argue against profit seeking enterprises. The discussion promotes themes such as the ethical dilemma of the private sector “administering punishment”, selecting the correct metrics used to evaluate the performance of private sector versus public sector, disputes of what are “just and fair” services that the inmates are entitled to, among others. In the following essay we aim to bring these topics into light and try to analyze the pros and cons of privatizing the prison system. Private prisons are one of the fastest growing industries in the security and protection industry....
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...Privatization of Prisons Introduction I am writing this memo in response to a request to analyze the benefits and disadvantages of privatized prison systems. With the present economic environment, it is important to explore all options that could reduce the state’s deficit. This research project will explore the cost benefits to the privatization of California’s prison system, in comparison to other cost saving options. It will use statistics from other states that use private prison systems, as well as federal detention facilities that are privately managed. The purpose of this analysis is to reduce spending as a whole, and to not place a financial burden on local governments. It is also important to note that prison sentences are not only a form of punishment, but also a deterrent for future criminal activity. It does not serve its purpose in its entirety when sentences are reduced due to budget inefficiencies. Findings The fiscal year, 2011-2012, has a $10,017,591,000 budget for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. This budget includes all adult corrections and rehabilitation operations, juvenile operations, parole operations, inmate health care, administration, and education and vocations programs (CDCR). It remains to be a difficult comparison between private enterprise and government entities due to the difference in accounting practices. Public agencies do not always include all expenses incurred at the specific agency level...
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...Impact of Privatization on Organization’s Performance Abstract The proposed research is intended to assess the impact of Privatization on Organization’s Performance. The main theme is to examine its impact on profitability, output, efficiency and employment. It will be analyzed to compare the performance of public and private sector organization in Pakistan. Keywords: Privatization, profitability, output, efficiency and employment Introduction Despite frequent changes in the governments since 1985, five regularly elected and six care takers, there has been consensus on the continuation of privatization policy and as such it is expected to be cornerstone of all the future government policies, at least in the near future. Instead of arguing the merits or demerits of the privatization policy, we explore its impact on the levels of efficiency. A large number of public sector units have already been divested and a number of other public enterprises including telecommunications and thermal power stations have been placed on the privatization list. Nevertheless, serious doubts have been expressed about transparency of the bidding process and the impact of privatization on efficiency, investment, production, prices, employment and fiscal deficit. Accordingly, there is a need to identify constraints in realizing various objectives of privatization with a view to suggesting concrete policy measures that may be taken to overcome the constrain and to improve...
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...Public Fiscal Administration fiscal administration generally refers to the process/es involved in the revenue generation, allocation, and expenditures of the government. Public finance belongs to the branch of economics but that was during the earlier times. With the emergence of the field of public administration, much interest has been directed towards fiscal administration. Again, this subfield of public administration covers a wide range of issues and topics affecting government operations like taxation, public expenditures and borrowing, resource allocation, revenue administration, auditing and intergovernmental relations. As Briones (1996) puts it, “public fiscal administration embraces the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of policies and decisions on taxation and revenue administration; resource allocation, budgeting, and public expenditure; public borrowing and debt management; and accounting and auditing.” Through the years, many researches were devoted on these topics and issues; the government has also introduced reforms like reforms in tax administration, value added tax (VAT), expanded value added tax (E-VAT), procurement reforms, the medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF), accounting reforms, re-engineering the bureaucracy program (REBP), transforming local finance, and many others. Fiscal policy refers to the "measures employed by governments to stabilize the economy, specifically by manipulating the levels and allocations of taxes and government...
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