Privatization is an overarching term that describes several subtrends in the education sector. Borrowing from the work of the educational economists Clive Belfield and Henry Levin, privatization may be defined in two primary but not mutually exclusive ways. The first way of thinking about privatization is that it is the transfer of assets, activities, and responsibilities from public or government-run institutions to private individuals or organizations. This definition is probably the most commonly understood, and examples include nationalized industries that are handed off to private shareholders, the administration of prisons subcontracted out to private providers, and sports stadiums being taken over by private interests. A second way of thinking about privatization, more common in policy circles and among those interested in economics, relies on the ...