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Emphasizing the relationship between private choices and public education as they affect the division of labor between public and private non-profit schools, colleges, and universities, contributors to this book focus on the relationship between private and public education in a comparative context.

The conditions are ripe in at least a dozen states for proposals to invest public dollars in private educational options for families.

Private aid and philanthropic charities are often considered part of a neo-liberal strategy to reduce state responsibility for the provision of many services considered essential to securing social rights, with the devolution of welfare responsibilities to non-state actors a means to minimising social expenditures. Such a construction ostensibly depicts philanthropic non-state actors as agents of social justice that, in contributing to poverty reduction, play a role in social transformation. This article questions the assumption that private aid delivered through philanthropic activities and faith-based organisations (FBOs) can fulfil the state's responsibility in terms of social protection and transformation. It questions whether partnerships between the state and institutions that are not democratically elected and do not fit within a robust accountability framework can fulfil this remit. This is examined through the prism of a case study of the relationship between the Turkish state and philanthropy, focusing on FBOs that fund poverty reducing activities. Les organisations caritatives et de bienfaisance privées sont souvent considérées comme étant un élément d’une stratégie néolibérale pour transférer une partie de la responsabilité de l’État de fournir des services considérés essentiels pour la garantie des droits sociaux vers le secteur privé. Déléguer la responsabilité pour l’aide sociale à divers acteurs non gouvernementaux est ainsi un moyen de réduire les dépenses sociales. Une telle interprétation présente les organisations philanthropiques non gouvernementales comme les artisans d’une justice sociale qui, en aidant à réduire la pauvreté, contribuent du même coup à une transformation sociale. Cet article remet en question l’hypothèse selon laquelle l’aide privée fournie à travers les activités philanthropiques et des organisations confessionnelles peut décharger l’État de sa responsabilité en matière de protection et transformation sociales. Il pose la question de savoir si les partenariats entre l’État et les institutions non démocratiques et qui n’adhèrent pas à un cadre de responsabilisation sociale peuvent remplir cette mission. Nous examinons cette question à travers le prisme d’une étude de cas sur la relation entre l’État turc et la philanthropie, en portant une attention particulière aux organisations confessionnelles qui financent des activités de réduction de la pauvreté.

This article considers evidence which suggests that Australia's current approach to the funding of non-government schools does not serve the common good. Educational provision is now segmented and a majority of private schools have resources that are either moderately or highly superior to those available in public schools. The current funding system has failed to coordinate the activities of public and private providers, leading to duplication of provision, reductions in economies of scale, and increases in per-student costs. Students whose backgrounds and disabilities make them relatively costly to teach are heavily concentrated in the public sector. Private sector recurrent subsidies are tied to public sector per-student costs, forcing Australian taxpayers into an upward spiral of increasing outlays. The article concludes by outlining some proposals for change that would lead to a new approach to funding Australia's schools. [Author abstract]

In California, a half century after the landmark Serrano v. Priest decision overturning the state’s public school finance system because of the inequality between the state’s school districts, a significant amount of wealth-based inequality in per-pupil expenditures continues to exist. One of the sources of this inequality is the result of Californians having formed thousands of nonprofit organizations that raise additional money for their schools and school districts by collecting private contributions. This study makes use of a new dataset that is the most extensive census to date of nonprofits collecting private contributions for California public schools. The results of our analyses indicate highincome districts and those with large shares of Democratic registrants benefit from substantially larger amounts of private contributions. The wealthiest 10 percent of school districts receive an average of over $400 per pupil in private contributions, while the bottom 50 percent of school districts receive less than an average of $50 per student. These findings raise important questions about the effective distribution of private contributions, as well as the democratic principles of allowing education finance to be determined by private donors.

Improving Development through Effective Evaluation The development paradigm has shifted toward private investment, and the private sector has become central in development strategies.The International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency are developing and refining their monitoring and evaluation (M&E) efforts.

For over three decades, government subsidies have been a major source of funds for private schools in Australia. Private schools now enrol more than one-third of all students. Analysing trends in school enrolment and participation data, changes in tuition fees and trends in student:teacher ratios in private and public secondary schools since the introduction of government operating subsidies for private schools, the authors find that Australian private schools have used government subsidies to increase the quality of their services (that is, to reduce student:teacher ratios) rather than to reduce their fees. As a consequence, the socio-economic composition of private schools has remained above average while a higher proportion of public school students now come from low socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds. The data suggest that Australia's government funding scheme is ineffective in facilitating access to private schools for students from lower socio-economic backgrounds and has undermined the viability of public secondary schools. [Author abstract, ed]

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has advanced systems to gather, analyze, and apply investment and advisory project information. It has made strides in developing, aggregating, disclosing, and strategically using its development indicators. The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) has made progress in upgrading its system of assessing its development performance. There are gaps in terms of measuring private sector development for investment projects and use of relevant standard indicators in advisory services projects. Reliability of data can be enhanced by adding more independent verification. Most self-evaluation has been project focused, but there is much that could be learned by extending evaluation to cover programs and strategies. The systems could be improved in several aspects to make evaluation more effective and to get more value from evaluation lessons. This biennial report on operations evaluation is an evaluation of these systems. It takes stock of the strengths and weaknesses of the development results frameworks in place for IFC investment services, IFC advisory services, and MIGA guarantees, and determines whether they: (1) provide mechanisms to generate credible, timely, and relevant information; (2) support evidence based decision making and learning; and (3) improve the performance and results of IFC's or MIGA's activities. Where they fall short, this report offers recommendations for improvements.