Dear Commons Community,
A couple of weeks ago, one of the students in a class here at the CUNY Graduate Center asked me about education policy and the vying between the various levels of government (federal, state and local). After giving a standard reply, I also mentioned that most important was the problem of political influence at the various governing agencies and directed her to a book that my colleague, Joel Spring and I recently published entitled, The Great Education-Industrial Complex: Ideology, Technology, and Profit (Routledge/Taylor & Francis). It examines the structure and nature of national networks and enterprises that seek to influence public education policy in accord with their own goals and objectives. As one reviewer mentioned:
“This book offers readers the alarming facts about the influence that private, for-profit organizations and companies have on education policy and practices in the United States…The authors have written an important useful book in the name of reclaiming education for the good of our nation.”
It contains a number of case studies that document major education service companies, corporate-sponsored foundations, for-profit colleges and others that engage in questionable practices in an effort to secure policies beneficial to their goals much of which in recent years centers on the promulgation of technology. Joel and I bring very different perspectives to these issues. And at two hundred pages, it is a quick read.
Tony
