Defining+Neoliberalism

“[Neoliberalism] values competitive markets and the freedom of individual choice within them, and devalues governmental or cultural attempts to redistribute resources or accountability. Thus, it often manifests itself in policies that reduce governmental regulation of trade, increase the privatization of public services and support the growth of businesses. …With privatization, economic enterprises become treated as “private” matters, not under the domain of public, governmental regulation or intrusion, and profit (or loss) becomes a private matter as well, whereby those who choose to work hard and are able to work well should reap the rewards. This latter point is what connects privatization with the commonly expressed values of freedom and meritocracy, thus making it a policy initiative that many Americans will want to support. …Drawing on liberal-humanist notions of individual agency and freedom, neoliberalism overlooks structural or institutional biases, historical legacies regarding oppression and injustice, and an economic structure with built-in mechanisms that exacerbate inequalities. **Neoliberalism, in other words, promotes an understanding of equality and freedom that presumes a level playing field.**” --Kevin K. Kumashiro

Taken from //The Seduction of Common Sense: How the Right has Framed the Debate on America’s Schools//

The “excellence” oriented policies of today argue for lower taxes and less government regulation, for more choices and competition to improve quality, for rewards to those who succeed and clear consequences for those who don’t. In the public discourse, **the balance has shifted from concerns for group access to individual merit; from equity to quality; from entitlement to choice**. –Janice Petrovich Taken from “’This //is// America’ 2005: The Political Economy of Education Reform Against the Public Interest” by Pauline Lipman

-- Dr Glenn Rikowski
 * Neoliberalism is not just a //market ideology//. It is a real social process…** Neoliberalism nurtures the development of capital and seeks to crash down any barriers to capital accumulation. …Neoliberalism undermines teacher professionalism. It places practically, morally and ideologically the development of capital and markets above that of teacher autonomy and professionalism. The restless restructurings of schools and the schools system, the changes of roles and responsibilities, the policy fever and all the rest pursued under the neoliberal banner continually disrupt, undermine and reconfigure claims to teacher professionalism, and its social substance.

Taken from “//Caught in the Storm of Capital: Teacher Professionalism, Managerialism and Neoliberalism in Schools”// []

“…the capitalist crisis over the last 25 years, with its shrinking profit rates, inspired the corporate elite to revive economic liberalism. That's what makes it "neo" or new. Now, with the rapid globalization of the capitalist economy, we are seeing neo-liberalism on a global scale. A memorable definition of this process came from Subcomandante Marcos at the Zapatista-sponsored Encuentro Intercontinental por la Humanidad y contra el Neo-liberalismo (Inter-continental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neo-liberalism) of August 1996 in Chiapas when he said: "**what the Right offers is to turn the world into one big mall where they can buy Indians here, women there ..." and he might have added, children, immigrants, workers or even a whole country like Mexico."** -- Elizabeth Martinez and Arnoldo García   Taken from “What is ‘Neo-Liberalism’? A Brief Definition” []  Today we are often told that education must be made more efficient by being forced into the market model, moving away from the traditional concept of education as a publicly provided social good. This neoliberalism—**the belief that today’s problems are best addressed by the market**, and that government regulation and the public sector should both be as minimal as possible—is not unique to debates over education: it dominates economics, politics and ideology in the U.S. and most of the world. There are three elements involved in the neoliberal model of education: making the provision of education more cost-efficient by commodifying the product; testing performance by standardizing the experience in a way that allows for multiple-choice testing of results; and focusing on marketable skills. -- William Tabb Taken from “Globalization and Education as Commodity”, [] **The neoliberal model of education is a human capital model—preparing workers (differentially) for the new economy**. This is education in the private interest. Education in the public interest calls for students to be prepared with the tools of engaged and critical public participation in a diverse, heterogeneous democracy that is under siege. The current regime of oppressive testing, militarized schools, and cultural white-washing is beginning to produce seeds of the countermovement. One example is the social justice –oriented schools that are forming in various cities in reaction to current policies and grounded in the historical memory of educational and social struggles for justice. – Pauline Lipman

Taken from “’This //is// America’ 2005: The Political Economy of Education Reform Against the Public Interest”

Tabb (2002) writes that neoliberalism stresses the privatization of the public provision of goods and services---moving their provision from the public sector to the private--along with deregulating how private producers can behave, giving greater scope to the single-minded pursuit of profit and showing significantly less regard for the need to limit social costs or for redistribution based on nonmarket criteria. **The aim of neoliberalism is to put into question all collective structures capable of obstructing the logic of the pure market.** (p. 29) -David Hursch Taken from “No Child Left Behind: Globalization, neoliberalism, and recent education reforms**”**

Neoliberalism transforms how we conceptualize the role of government and the relationship between the individual and society. Neoliberalism denounces social democratic liberalism as a recipe for an interventionist government that threatens individual liberty through taxes and other regulations. Neoliberalism promotes personal responsibility through individual choice within markets. The individual is conceived as an autonomous entrepreneur who can always take care of his or her own needs. Lemke (2002) describes neoliberalism as seeking…**For neoliberals, those who do not succeed are held to have made bad choices. Personal responsibility means nothing is society’s fault. People have only themselves to blame.** Furthermore, the market becomes central within such a conception of the individual…Under neoliberalism, individuals are transformed into equally competent, equally privileged “entrepreneurs of themselves,” (Foucault, 1979, p. 198) operating within a marketplace that now includes services such as education, health care, and pensions. -David Hursch Taken from “No Child Left Behind: Globalization, neoliberalism, and recent education reforms**”**

By examining the efforts over the last quarter century to increase educational efficiency through standards and standardized testing, we can see how neoliberal ideas led to recent educational reforms including NCLB. As I will show, these reforms are presented as necessary to increased educational efficiency within a world in which goods, services, and jobs easily cross borders. Increased efficiency can only be attained, argue neoliberals**, if individuals are able to make choices within a market system in which schools //compete//, rather than the current system in which individuals are captive to educational decisions** made by educators and government officials. Furthermore, if individuals are to make decisions, they must have access to quantitative information, such as standardized test scores, that presumably indicate the quality of the education provided. -David Hursch -Taken from “No Child Left Behind: Globalization, neoliberalism, and recent education reforms**”**