In the light of the current changes, school is perceived less and less as a public good, serving the development of not only individuals but also of entire societies enriched by the public and equal access to education. Announcing ‘the end of school’ is a commonplace practice (ref. 5, 3, 12), but it is not unambiguous. I argue that the prophecies of ‘the end of school’ are currently disrupted and there are varied and co-existing school ontologies. I describe three ontologies that grasp this disruption (ref.2,4,7). First is drawn by the path of privatization and it can be represented by actions for profit, dragging means from the public to the non-public sphere. This ontology of privatization can be represented by the phenomenon of charterization in the USA, where public good becomes a profitable business that takes public moneys but escapes public control (ref. 1,6,8,9). In Poland it is called “creeping privatization” that operates across the public sector slowly but efficiently (ref.11). Another ontology develops in rural areas. Threatened with liquidation by local authorities, small schools are often saved by local associations. Their ownership is transferred to closed groups of individuals forming such associations. However, they still provide impulse for development, affect local communities, and maintain a democratic way of exercising power (ref.10). ‘The end of school’ in this version presents the ontology of soft privatization. The third is a hybrid ontology which can be represented by urban schools newly built by local governments with intention to be operated by privately owned non-profit organizations. The recent introduction of child benefits in Poland, with a simultaneous school reform that dramatically deteriorated their conditions, results in rapid increase in private schooling. The PiS ruling party is thus increasing class inequalities in education, replacing the policy of social cohesion with that of national identity. Schools still exist and, in diverse ways, still are public. A factor that unites their ontologies is that teachers that are silent victims of their transformation. Privatization, hard, soft and hybrid, concerned or unconcerned with public good, allows for teachers being employed irrespective of union regulations (bigger workload, unpaid paid holidays etc). Scarce funding of publicly owned schools and - as in Poland - an open fight against the old elites (depreciation of judges, artists or teachers, etc.) and building new elites that promote subordination to power rather than competence, make teachers’ work unbearable.

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