ITS Workshop with Martin Carnoy: "Public Sector Versus Market Accountability"

When schools are funded publicly, there is pressure on the public sector to control the quality of educational inputs. This is direct public sector accountability. Since the 1990s, there have been two important worldwide shifts in public sector regulation of education. The first is a shift to outcomes-based accountability that uses State-administered student achievement tests. The second is a shift to school regulation to improve education. Also, in the past 40 years, politically conservative groups have pressured many governments to implement an alternative form of accountability—market accountability—through publicly funding private education and promoting school choice. They argue that market competition between publicly- and privately-run schools is the most effective way to improve student achievement. We will describe these two approaches of direct state and market accountability, compare their underlying assumptions about the main “problem” confronting educational improvement, and their degree of success in realizing greater effectiveness in educational systems. 

Dr. Carnoy's latest book, The Political Economy of Education, has just come out and is available for purchase here. This talk will cover two chapters of the book, and Dr. Carnoy will be able to sign books after the discussion.

Martin Carnoy is Lemann Foundation Professor of Education and Economics at Stanford University. He is a former president of the Comparative and International Education Society and a fellow of the National Academy of Education and of the International Academy of Education. He has been principal advisor for more than 100 PhD graduates at Stanford and has written more than 40 books and 150 articles on the economic value of education, on the political economy of educational policy, on educational production, and on higher education. Much of his work is comparative and international and investigates the way educational systems are organized.  His books include Education as Cultural Imperialism (1974), Economic Democracy (1980), The State and Political Theory (1984), Sustaining the New Economy (2000), Cuba’s Academic Advantage (2007), University Expansion in a Changing Global Economy (2013), and Transforming Comparative Education (2019). His latest book is The Political Economy of Education (March 2024).