Beware the Education–Industrial Complex
By
In January 1961, as he completed his second and final term as President of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower gave a farewell address to the nation. It was a remarkable and prescient speech in many ways, especially given that Eisenhower was a West Point graduate, a retired five-star general, a military hero in command of all Allied troops in Western Europe during World War II, and personally a very conservative man.
In the speech, Eisenhower warned the American people of the growing power of a “military-industrial complex,” an alliance of the military with defense contractors that he saw as a threat to democracy.
Democracy in the United States is now under a similar assault from an education-foundation-political-industrial complex. This complex takes many forms, but its primary goal is to shape state and federal educational policy in a way that maximizes private corporate profits.
What used to be called the not-for-profit sector has been virtually taken over by the complex. Non-profit no longer means non-profit. According to Dissent,“Hundreds of private philanthropies together spend almost $4 billion annually to support or transform K–12 education, most of it directed to schools that serve low-income