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Title: American Education and Corporations : The Free Market Goes to School (Pedagogy and Popular Culture, Volume 1) by Deron Boyles ISBN: 0-8153-2821-4 Publisher: Garland Publishing Pub. Date: April, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The penetration of corporations into schools
Comment: The author finds that the direct involvement of corporations with the primary and secondary schools of America hardly enhances the education of students. The rhetoric of "win-win" and of "choice" in school-business partnerships and in privatized schools is empty, misleading sloganeering.
Every school-business partnership described in the book shows that the primary interest is in promoting products and corporate images whether in the form of product giveaways, the plastering of corporate logos on school property, or the penetration of the school day by private television networks advertising products appealing to students. In some cases, there is clear intent in creating interest on the part of students in entry-level clerical or service jobs such as those found in grocery stores or in the fast-food business. One grocery chain hires teachers for summer work expressly to persuade them to help in recruitment efforts among student populations.
The motive for privatization, or corporate-managed or -owned schools, is purely one of profit. Privatization is promoted as enhancing "choice." But providing choices for, say, special students or those interested in extra-curricular activities is costly. Privatized schools invariably reduce curriculum choices and require teachers to closely follow course blueprints with the primary goal being one of inculcating facts useful for scoring high on standardized tests. High test-scores bolster the product, that is, the school, that the corporation is selling. Broader and more nebulous educational goals are shoved aside because they are viewed as a drain on the bottom line. An additional consequence of private school choice is the inevitable segmentation of student bodies along racial and class lines as the ability to pay excludes some from having actual "choice."
In addition to specific corporate involvement in schools, the author is concerned with the predominance of business thinking in the broader culture and its impact on our school systems. It has become a standard view among political and business elites that the essential purpose of schools is to train future employees. According to them, the primary focus of schools should be on teaching "skills" to students that are directly useful in work places. In this line of thinking schools are not the locus for wide-ranging intellectual endeavor. Teachers as intellectuals are not needed. Instead, they are seen as essentially education clerks, as employees, that follow management's direction in producing a product. Students are said to get an education, a product, closing the circle on the commodification of education. In another vein of corporate determination, the textbook industry sanitizes book content to ensure greater book sales which is contrary to the spirit of open inquiry.
In the face such reductionistic and regimented thinking, the author pushes throughout the book for the spread of "critical transitivity" in our schools whereby a critical and flexible approach by both teachers and students is taken in acquiring broad knowledge. He is concerned with what finds as the oligopolistic nature of the United States. He sees schools as being centers for the education of democratic practice and where critiques of our culture, capitalism, and social injustice are mounted.
While the author seems to be on solid ground to decry the move to quantify schools by simplified, standardized testing and the de-professionalization of teaching, it is worrisome to see what amounts to a social agenda being proposed as a replacement. Children and teenagers are not equipped to engage in social critique; they simply do not have enough worldly experience to have informed, independent opinions. One would hope that the author is not suggesting that the influencing of young minds with the social agenda of teachers has more merit than business-imposed thinking. It is for adult citizens to make democracy a reality in the political process, in workplaces, and in the broader culture including schools. Meanwhile, there is much for students to learn beyond workplace "skills" long before they become agents for social change.
The book seems to be grabbing for too much. It details actual corporate involvement in schools; it is concerned with the dominance of business thought; and it wants schools themselves to be the agents to change all of that. And those topics get intermixed. Also, at times the book can get a little overloaded with academic jargon as the author sprinkles in talk about techno-rationality, non-propositional versus propositional knowledge, consumer materialism, and intransitivity versus critical transitivity, etc. But for the most part the author's points are on the money. Our school systems have gotten derailed by some very dubious thinking. This book contributes to understanding the situation.
Rating: 5
Summary: Where Has a Book Like This Been All This Time?
Comment: A school teacher, I never even thought that our school-business partnerships could be anything but "good." We were told they were "win-win" situations, and we seemed to benefit. Boyles' book, however, points out many shortcomings that aren't so obvious. It's in the third chapter when he provides example after example of business partnerships and then proceeds to reveal the errors and the major issues that teachers and students should know...but just don't really pay attention (in my case, anyway). I got a paperback version of the book for $22, and it was worth every penny. I'm going into my classes this fall armed with information about grocery store gimmicks and corporate "donations" that I intend to pose to my students...which is the author's real point. It's a great read...a little academic at times, but humorous and compelling.
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Title: Education and the American Dream : Conservatives, Liberals and Radicals Debate the Future of Education (Critical Studies in Education Series) by Harvey Holtz ISBN: 0897891767 Publisher: Bergin & Garvey Paperback Pub. Date: 30 January, 1988 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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