New Public Management and Evaluation under Decentralizing Regimes in Education

Abstract

In the academic year 2000–2001, I visited the U.S. What I found out concerning the “standards reform” in public education intrigued me. I had a conception of public schooling in the U.S. as a very decentralized system, mainly governed by local school boards. But during my stay, people talked about public schooling in terms of centralization, not only referring to the standards reform but also to other issues of state control, like tests and development projects. Some years earlier I had been made aware of changes in England that also were talked about in terms of centralization. Local school authorities lost much of their power in policy and decision-making to the central power of the state, and a national curriculum was introduced.

Citation

Segerholm, C. (2007), "New Public Management and Evaluation under Decentralizing Regimes in Education", Kushner, S. and Norris, N. (Ed.) Dilemmas of Engagement: Evaluation and the New Public Management (Advances in Program Evaluation, Vol. 10), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 129-138. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-7863(07)10009-0