Patrick Shannon

Education, Inc.: Turning Learning into a Business Patrick Shannon 2nd edition

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 expose 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."