Keeping an eye on the global education industry: A conversation with Anna Hogan 

PHI DELTA KAPPAN: In this issue of Kappan, we explore the relationship between private industry and public education, focusing mainly on the selling of goods and services to schools in the United States. But, of course, the U.S. isn’t the only place where the private sector has become a major player in public education. Having studied the influence of big business on school systems in Australia, England, and other parts of the world, do you see a consistent pattern, or does the education marketplace look very different from country to country?  

Anna Hogan: I do see a lot of consistency, especially among education policy makers. Today, in most countries, the people who wield the most influence over public education tend to favor a free-market approach to schooling. Whether you talk to government officials, investors, philanthropists, or World Bank economists, you’ll hear them describe pretty much the same set of priorities, emphasizing school choice, competition, deregulation, privatization, standardization, and the teaching of a skills-based curriculum, focusing on literacy and numeracy. And these policies tend to be friendly to commercial vendors.