Commentary: Searching for Solutions / Privatization: A Drain on Public Schools

It's possible, of course, that the whole thing is sheer coincidence. If so, governors and state legislatures accomplished something truly remarkable in 2011. Faced with the greatest state budget shortfalls in history, they arranged for the greatest transfer of public assets to private schools ever contemplated. It may be coincidental, but only in the sense that novelist Emma Bull (1991) defined coincidence as "the word we use when we can't see the levers and the pulleys" (p. 22).

The sheer scale of the 2011 effort to privatize public education through vouchers and charters is staggering. "School may be out for the summer," gloated an editorial from the Wall Street Journal ("The Year of School Choice," 2011) in July, "but school choice is in… This year is shaping up as the best for reformers in a very long time." No fewer than 13 states enacted or expanded charter or voucher legislation in 2011, while 28 states had legislation pending in midsummer.