Description

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While educators want their students to grow into thoughtful and curious people, the overriding objective of corporations is to maximize their own profits. From that fact alone we can predict what is likely to happen to the nature and purposes of our schools when business becomes involved in the education of our children. This unique and timely anthology chronicles the extent of that involvement, along with the troubling consequences it has already brought.

Author Alfie Kohn and professor of education Patrick Shannon have assembled a provocative collection of articles, including

• an analysis of the racial implications of voucher programs
• vivid accounts of how schoolchildren are targeted by advertisers
• descriptions of how corporate propaganda is insinuated into classroom curriculums
• an expos of the political connections enjoyed by giant textbook and test publishers
• a critical look at the process whereby teachers are turned into grant writers.

This book builds a convincing case against those who see children as "customers" or "workers"--and those who would turn learning into a business. As Kohn notes, " Corporations] are not shy about trying to make over the schools in their own image. It's up to the rest of us to firmly tell them to mind their own businesses."

About the Author

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Alfie Kohn was recently described by Time magazine as "perhaps the country's most outspoken critic of education's fixation on grades [and] test scores." He is the author of 13 books on education and human behavior, including The Schools Our Children Deserve, The Case Against Standardized Testing, and The Homework Myth. A former teacher, Kohn now works with educators across the country and speaks regularly at national conferences. He lives (actually) in Belmont, Mass. and (virtually) at www.alfiekohn.org. Patrick Shannon's latest book with Heinemann is Closer Readings of the Common Core, an analysis and critique the Common Core State Standards. He and his colleagues seek answers to the big questions about standards (Common to whom? Core of What?) by examining the product and process of the CCSS document, its creation, and its adoption. A former preschool and primary grades teacher, Pat is currently a professor of education at The Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of numerous other Heinemann titles, including Reading Against Democracy (2005); Education, Inc. (2002); Becoming Political, Too (2001); iShop, You Shop (2001); Reading Poverty (1998); text, lies, & video tape: stories about life, literacy, & learning (1995); and Becoming Political: Readings and Writings in the Politics of Literacy Education (1992), all published by Heinemann.