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Tuesday, January 24, 2012

New Book Critiques 'Corporate' School Reform

New Book Critiques 'Corporate' School Reform:

Description

Neoliberal education reforms, including No Child Left Behind and Chicago's Renaissance 2010, tend to "marketize" schools and threaten to dismantle public education as we know it, according to a new book edited University of Illinois at Chicago education researcher William Watkins.




New Book Critiques 'Corporate' School Reform

Released: 1/24/2012 3:15 PM EST
Source: University of Illinois at Chicago

Neoliberal education reforms, including No Child Left Behind and Chicago's Renaissance 2010, tend to "marketize" schools and threaten to dismantle public education as we know it, according to a new book edited by a University of Illinois at Chicago education researcher.

William Watkins, professor of curriculum and instruction, criticizes the replacement of neighborhood schools with charter schools and the replacement of education leaders with corporate officials in "The Assault on Public Education: Confronting the Politics of Corporate School Reform" (Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 2012), a collection of essays by scholars across the country.

Watkins writes that free-market principles should not be applied to school reform.

"The corporate intrusion into school reform is connected to realignments in the labor market. Renaissance 2010, for