Capitalizing on Disaster: Taking and Breaking Public Schools (Cultural Politics & the Promise of Democracy) - Softcover

Saltman, Kenneth J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1594513821 ISBN 13: 9781594513824

Publisher: Routledge, 2008

Synopsis

Breaking new ground in studies of business involvement in schooling, Capitalizing on Disaster dissects the most powerful educational reforms and highlights their relationship to the rise of powerful think tanks and business groups. Over the past several decades, there has been a strong movement to privatize public schooling through business ventures. At the beginning of the millennium, this privatization project looked moribund as both the Edison Schools and Knowledge Universe foundered. Nonetheless, privatization is back. The new face of educational privatization replaces public schooling with EMOs, vouchers, and charter schools at an alarming rate. In both disaster and nondisaster areas, officials designate schools as failed in order to justify replacement with new, unproven models. Saltman examines how privatization policies such as No Child Left Behind are designed to deregulate schools, favoring business while undermining public oversight. Examining current policies in New Orleans, Chicago, and Iraq, Capitalizing on Disaster shows how the struggle for public schooling is essential to the struggle for a truly democratic society.

About this title

About the Author

Kenneth J. Saltman

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1594513821
• ISBN 13: 9781594513824
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 184