The New Market Bureaucracy in Public Schooling: Charting the Circuit of Venture Philanthropy and Privatization

• In Event: Elite Policy Networks and the Politics of Education Reform: Researching the Social Geography of Power

Abstract

The first presenter analyses how specific venture philanthropies in the United States, such as the Broad, Gates, and Walton Foundations, create an influential, multi-tiered network referred to as the new market bureaucracy in public schooling. The new market bureaucracy in public schooling, he explains, can be divided into three categories for conceptual clarity. First, it involves the shift to "market positivism" – that is, numerically quantifiable performance outcomes and bureaucratic apparatuses to control teachers, administrators, and students and to align curriculum and pedagogy with neoliberal imperatives. Second, the new market bureaucracy links market positivism to the institutionalization and funding of entirely new bureaucratic organizations dedicated to furthering the corporate agendas of privatization, deregulation, and standardization, charter school support organizations, venture philanthropies, district support organizations, and lobbying infrastructure. Third, the new market bureaucracy imports business expenses and rationales into public schooling that have financial and social costs, such as public relations and advertising for public and privatized schools, real estate deals with chartering organizations, and market-style competitions for private funds or public funds to implement corporate reforms such as Race to the Top, the Broad Prize, etc. All of this involves billions of dollars in private foundation money to influence public policy, wealth which is only possible through tax incentives that redistribute control over public policy to private, super-rich individuals; this creates what may be called a circuit of privatization. In sum, the presenter maps the formation of the new market bureaucracy and elaborates on the financial and ideological motivations for its development. The presenter also discusses how institutions outside of schooling, particularly mass media, are involved in reframing educational policy debates in ways that accord with recent shifts toward network governance. He concludes by suggesting alternative political and ethical norms to guide policy in democratic directions.

Author

• Kenneth J. Saltman, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth