Privatizing Schools: The Struggle over How We Define Democracy and the Role of Public Institutions

Abstract

In this paper, I analyze the discourse generated during one public debate and associated news coverage over the merits of privatization and choice policies for public schools.I explore discourse-based techniques policy advocates use to construct public perception of these issues.Critical discourse analysis (CDA) provides a theoretical grounding and influences the frame for the analysis.Using this public text, I begin building a discourse grounded micro-level understanding of the means through which radical shifts in our understanding of the role of the public in public institutions are accomplished.Much of the debate centers on attempts to influence public perception of the problems of education, their severity, who is responsible for them, and how they should be addressed.However, my analysis reveals that discursive moves employed by the pro-privatization advocate go beyond attempts to define the problem, improve school efficiency or performance to the colonization of democratic discourse, infiltrating it with the relatively simple logic of the marketplace.The principles of freedom and democracy are also used in the service of this pro-privatization argument but are based on their realization in the economic sphere.This discursive move leads to the construction of not only discourse about the purposes of public education but also about the public's role in government institutions and by association, the very nature of a democracy.

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