Neoliberalism And The Privatization Of Education

Neoliberalism and the Privatization of Education in K-12 Within the spectrum of modern education, neoliberalism permeates academics. Because of this, neoliberalistic ideologies have forced education to become a market-driven, for-profit organization. Rather than public education being a civil right, neoliberalism introduced privatization into the educational field, resulting in detrimental competition, as well as an economic focus on the monetary gains that education potentially offers. This privatized education system has greatly altered education as it is today, including the NCLB law, and the use of school vouchers.
In 2001, the No Child Left Behind act was enacted. This act articulated that its main purpose lay in closing the achievement

"States all over the nation are using the results of these tests to determine student promotion and placement, teacher salary, school accreditation, district funding, and graduation opportunity" (Smyth, 2008, p.133). In other words, these tests determine more than just a student's level of knowledge. According to AYP, the scores determine whether a school succeeds or fails. Consequently, because of the high expectations of each state for their schools to achieve high overall test scores, teaching has drasticallymorphed to accommodate these high demands. These requirements of high AYP through test scores drive schools to change the way that they instruct and teach their students. According to Smyth, "high-stakes testing is forcing instruction to change from exploratory lifelong learning to teaching to the test through drill and kill" (Smyth, 2008, p.134). Rather than teaching the materials in a way that firmly imparts the information to the child, this strategy of teaching forces the teacher to focus on the critical material that will be on the test – thus, “teaching to the test.”Numerous negative side effects of this teaching method include teachers and students alike experiencing a decreased interest in education, as well as a lack of motivation (Smyth, 2008, p. 134). In addition, "teaching to the test," by definition, has removed creative, original teaching approaches and tactics for the diverse populationof students

Because of the NCLB act, academic achievement likely differs due to the fact that “public schools with large minority enrollments and high poverty rate were more likely to fail” (Zhang & Cowen, 2009, p. 34). While diverse explanations exist for why a school fails, one of the main reasons is rooted in the fact that numerous public schools within any given neighborhood generally incorporate a large number of minority and low socioeconomic individuals. This gives rise to a school's probable inability to achieve AYP, resulting in these schools considered as"failing" and in need of improvement. When this occurs, the students who attend these schools do not receive equal education as according to NCLB. Another inequality researched by Zhang and Cowen lies in the fact that geographical location may also potentially affect a student or school’s success or failure (Zhang & Cowen, 2009, p. 24). Schools in a rural setting experience difficulties that a suburban school might not. Likewise, urban schools encounter difficulties as well. A study performed by Zhang and Cowen explored the possibility that the geographical inequality may lead schools to fail AYP (Zhang & Cowen, 2009, p. 24). They concluded that although the geographical location is not the main reason that a school succeeds or fails, geographical inequality does indeed have some effects on educational