The Emergence and Growth of For-Profit Independent Schools in the Swedish Nation-Wide Voucher System. Working Paper No. 10

This report seeks to explore some of the reasons Sweden developed an independent school sector dominated by for-profit schools by drawing on prior scholarship and reports as well interview material from Swedish school entrepreneurs, researchers, and prior public representatives that helped create and implement the Swedish voucher program. This report is based on a descriptive qualitatively-oriented, research approach drawing on archival material, public data, and information gathered from interviews with key informants. The implementation of the Swedish voucher program appears to have been propelled by an appetite for change, and quest for greater diversity among educational providers, that had taken root in political parties on both the left and right. Today, however, the situation looks rather different as debates regarding inequality, segregation, grade inflation, and the notion of "vinster i välfärden" (profits in welfare services) have shifted the perception and opinions regarding school vouchers, and for-profit voucher schools in particular. We do not want to speculate what is going to happen, but it seems feasible to assume that future for-profit school entrepreneurs will have to operate, and be willing to accept, a very different public and political climate when it comes to the role of for-profit providers in the Swedish school sector. If the U.S. desires to increase the number of for-profit school entrepreneurs it will require substantial revisions of many formal as well as informal institutions. The current formal institutions in most U.S. voucher systems, which typically limits who can participate combined with lower per-pupil voucher payments, would need to be altered in order make this calculus attainable and attractive enough to spur action. The following are appended: (1) Methodology; and (2) About the authors.