Week 13: Neoliberal Education

While most may not know what a neoliberal education is, it is almost guaranteed that their education, whether public, private, or homeschooled, has been influenced by a neoliberal view of education. Although the term “neoliberal” is typically discussed in the realm of economics, it has grown to become representative of a view of the world that values individual freedoms, individual autonomy, and minimal government interference within the classroom. In the realm of the classroom, this ideology can take the form of a rising interest in free market principles, such as competition and cost-saving measures, held within the classroom, school, and district at large. However, with any blanket view of the world, it comes with its positives and negatives.

Positives

One of the major positives that come from a neoliberal education is the incentive of school competition. Schools are able to compete with each other, using the grades of the student body to represent the effectiveness of the school’s methods of education. This can then provide financial incentives to schools that are performing better for their students. As a result, this can result in an increased effectiveness of the school system as schools are pushed towards being the best that they can be in trying to keep up with other schools. Another positive relies on the idea of choice as parents can choose what school they wish for their student to attend for the sake of obtaining a better education, adding a further incentive for schools to perform better. Parents are also incentivized to invest more money in their child’s school for the sake of obtaining that better education with more resources.

Negatives

On the other hand, the focus on competition and choice has the potential to create inequality in the education system as schools that are underperforming are left in the dust and leave valuable resources out of reach of those students, taking advantage of their disadvantages. The high stakes of standardized testing and the rigorous need for student high performance can also lead to burnout on behalf of students and teachers as they are pushed towards such high standards that may lie outside of their personal interests. This also has the potential to result in worse teaching as a love of learning is never established due to the heavy focus on test scores, also resulting in a lack of critical thinking.

Overall, individuals need to assess the positives and negatives of the neoliberal education system and come to a conclusion about the extent to which it should be implemented in the classroom.