Failure of Corporate School Reform [Hardcover]

Corporate school reforms, especially privatization, union busting, and high-stakes testing have been hailed as the last best hope for public education. Yet, as Kenneth Saltman powerfully argues in this new book, corporate school reforms have decisively failed to deliver on what their proponents have promised for two decades: higher test scores and lower costs. As Saltman illustrates, the failures of corporate school reform are far greater and more destructive than they seem. Left unchecked, corporate school reform fails to challenge and in fact worsens the most pressing problems facing public schooling, including radical funding inequalities, racial segregation, and anti-intellectualism. But it is not too late for change. Against both corporate school reformers and its liberal critics, this book argues for the expansion of democratic pedagogies and a new common school movement that will lead to broader social renewal.Chapter One: The Failure of Corporate School Reform This is a must read for anyone desiring an understanding of the myths, realities, and impact of and solution to two decades of corporate school reform. Highly recommended.
CHOICE


Kudos to Kenneth Saltman, who offers yet another compelling look at the devastating impact of corporate reform on public education. His cogent analysis begs the question of why we as a nation are turning education over to business when the latter is sowing the seeds of its own undoing by caving into its own destructive logic of short-term profit that compromises long-term value. To counter this recklessness, he calls for a re-centering of public education for reimagining both a political system that cannot be purchased by corporate interests, policies, and agendas and an economy that is more just, equal and democratic.
Angela Valenzuela, University of Texas at Austin and author of Subtractive Schooling: U.S. Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring

We live in a time when corpolóX