Debating Education: Is There a Role for Markets?

The evolution of educational institutions has been shaped by an uneasy mix of standards-based and market-based reforms. How we understand education’s outcomes for students and for society at large will shape how we think about the general idea of market-based reforms. Yet any given reform is a particular intervention in a particular time and place, so a responsible evaluation of reform ultimately must be an analysis of particular observations. General principles of philosophy and economics can illuminate, but real cases have a way of turning out to be special cases. So while this is a debate about the role of market-based reforms in education, we want to avoid engaging in a duel of rival theories and instead speak on behalf of real children, real parents, and real teachers.

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