Privatization Found To Fall Short of Billing

By Mark Walsh

Private management of public schools has so far failed to improve student performance, lower costs, or bring greater educational equity, a report by the Twentieth Century Fund concludes.

Hard Lessons: Public Schools and Privatization , written by three education and public-policy researchers from New York University, argues that experiments with privatization in public education have not lived up to the promises of their promoters.

"Despite the enthusiasm of its advocates, privatization has not proved itself a solution to low student achievement or declining school budgets," the book says. "Moreover, it has not improved accountability, widened parents'...