Globalization and charter schools 1 Running Head: GLOBALIZATION AND CHARTER SCHOOLS Globalization and Charter Schools

Globalization and charter schools 2 Education has always reflected the mode of production. "Globalization " is a new mode of capitalist production, capitalism in the age of electronics, with distinctive features and demands. Charter schools, as an education reform, reflect important threads within globalization. First, the reform of educational content and delivery is really a change to meet the needs of globalization for new skillsets. Second, charter schools are a form of privatization, which is an important feature of globalization's demand for new sites of valorization and profit. Third, the network form is an emergent property of globalization, which is expressed through attempts to break down the centralized public school system through charter schools. The debate around charter schools takes within the assumption of the supremacy of the market and the inevitability of globalization, leading to a set of limited or even false choices. For a real debate on education reform, one must move beyond the narrow confines of the terms of globalization. Globalization and charter schools 3 Globalization and Charter School