This is happening worldwide; standardised testing are used by the media and politics to tell public opinion that public schools fail to ensure quality education to all in order to thrust towards privatization.
However, private education is of high quality only for those who are privileged and wealthy, other private schools, like Charter Schools have not been proved at all as being of quality and as of being of help to those students who start out with great disadvantages for many and various reasons.
Multinational corporations have increased their interests in education worldwide and thanks to strong lobbying activities have changed the political agenda.
Therefore, governments rather than investing more funds in public education, rather than reducing the number of students per class, rather than providing the needed help and assistance to those children that come from less fortunate backgrounds, they are instead paving the way for private holdings to get their rapacious claws on the only means available to people to obtain emancipation.
Steven Singer’s site has much more valuable material available, I highly recommend it.
