A Comparative Analysis of Educational Privatization and School Choice on Testing and Access in the United States and Pakistan

Privatization in education is a global phenomenon that is rooted in the New Public Management (NPM) reforms of the 1970s (Koinzer, Nikolai & Waldow, 2017). NPM relies on the principle-agent dynamic which pertains to the inherent mismatch between the objectives of the principal and agent and puts results and efficiencies at the center of programming rather than issues of equity or fairness (Greuning, 2001). The impact of the most recent wave of globalization (starting in the 1990s) under which the aforementioned reforms took place in the educational sector globally is complex, due to the various drivers, processes and entities involved (Yergin & Stanislaw, 2002; Verger, Novelli, & Altinyelken, 2012). In general, neoliberalism, which is an underlying feature of this wave of globalization has led to the spread of educational privatization in both “developed†and “developing†countries (Yergin & Stanislaw, 2002; Coleman & Jones, 2004). In this context, in the United States (U.S.) for example, we may find the introduction of charter schools in the early 1990s. In Pakistan, we find a reduction in national educational expenditures, resulting in higher opportunity costs for schooling, the crowding out the state, and expansion in the private school sector coinciding with this time period (See Stromquist & Monkman, 2014; Robertson & Verger 2012).