ABSTRACT
Schooling is often thought of as one of the least commodified public services: it is typically funded, regulated, and provided by the government, and (for most students effectively) compulsory. Recent ‘market’ reforms appear to commodify education. However, once it is understood that, despite appearances, even in the traditional models, markets played a very large role in schooling provision, it is not clear that these reforms really increase, as opposed to just making transparent, the extent of commodification. The chapter argues that concerns about the extent of commodification is not something that should guide decisionmakers: what should guide them is the at most very loosely related question of what educational goods a system produces and how that system distributes those goods.
