From GERM (Global Educational Reform Movement) to NERM (Neoliberal Educational Reform Madness)

Abstract

This article examines a popularized term, the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), and its underlying paradigm of neoliberalism. It elucidates neoliberalism’s maddening effects on the education sector, especially public education. To analyze these effects, I draw from and adapt Michel Foucault’s analytical approach to madness. My analysis focuses on the following maddening effects of neoliberalism on education: (1) it obstructs us from seeing inequalities; (2) it creates a desperate passion amid the rise of school choice; and (3) it eliminates reason and creates unreason in the school selection and admissions processes. My analysis is based on reflections on my decade-long research on school marketization and school choice in Canada. I conclude by suggesting that collective visions and concrete steps are needed to move toward equitable educational structures, discourses, and practices that resist or challenge the neoliberal education reform madness (NERM).

Keywords:

• Global Education Reform Movement,
• Neoliberalism,
• Foucault,
• Madness,
• School Choice,
• Education Marketization