Bureaucracy is said to hinder initiative and efficiency, whereas the private sector is said to be more dynamic and responsive given market competition. Generally speaking, advocates of privatization believe that the public school system will benefit greatly from private sector know-how (Molnar, 1994).
On the other side of the debate is the group that favors continued government control over the school system. Contenders feel that privatizing the schools would lead to a decreased focus on the needs of the children with an increased emphasis placed on the bottom line. They maintain that the companies taking over for the government would focus their attention more on cutting corners to make larger profits rather than on the education of children. They argue that privatization is clearly about money, not education reform (Miner, 2002). Continued government control over the school system is seen as the key to stability and the insurance of a full and equal educational opportunity for all. Those who oppose privatization maintain that not only will municipal control maintain stability, but would also ensure fair and equal treatment for all.
The first privatization efforts took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s with endeavors which were dubbed "performance contracting" (Molnar, 1994). As quickly as it had appeared, performance contracting disappeared off the list of viable educational policy alternatives. Privatizing was destine to return during the 1980s however, when more and more governmental tasks began to be performed by private contractors. The contemporary debate over the privatization of education began in the 1980s, when an entrepreneur named Christopher Whittle entered classrooms with his commercial television news outlet called Channel One and laid the foundation for the Edison Project, an enormous endeavor to create a nationwide chain of schools for-profit. The issue of privatizing education gained even more attention and momentum when Education Alternatives, Inc.
