The Product: Education

Abstract

In the preceding chapter I argued that the (neoliberal) impulse to “get down to business” was in fact a bad approach to take in the name of improving education. My main claim was that education reform was overly influenced, if not determined, by corporate strategies and values. As a result education gets transformed into a product, to be marketed, distributed, and sold. Schools themselves become commercial sites, exploiting children, teachers, parents, and whole communities, much in the way unscrupulous corporations have done so historically, from tobacco to liquor companies, and from mortgage sellers to junk food vendors. Alex Molnar summarizes this trend in his School Commercialism: From Democratic Ideal To Market Commodity. In his book he observes:As I noted in Chap. 3, the marketing and investing in education as a commodity are explicitly and unabashedly promoted by a number of reformers, not just investment bankers by the way, but even a growing number of educators. This approach is problematic for many reasons, but the gravest negative impact on education is the reformation of education as a product and the refusal and or inability to consider education as a process of transformation (personal, cultural, and political).¹ This important shift and emphasis toward the commodification of education have done real harm to students, teachers, administrators, parents, and education itself. Thus the need to reclaim education.