Samuel E. Abrams is Director, National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, Teachers College, Columbia University.
Abrams’s book is the best, most insightful and comprehensive
analysis of the modern-day efforts to manage schools like
businesses. It is beautifully written and documented with careful
research.
*Diane Ravitch, author of The Death and Life of the Great
American School System*
Abrams describes eloquently the disconnect between the optimism
underlying for-profit companies’ efforts to improve urban education
and the realities that their schools faced. He also describes the
history of KIPP charters, their accomplishments, and the limits of
the KIPP model as a strategy for improving the life chances of
urban children growing up in low-income families.
*Richard J. Murnane, co-author of Restoring Opportunity*
Lucid, thorough, and balanced, Education and the Commercial Mindset
is a riveting analysis of current education policy and how we got
here. It will serve as an invaluable resource for policymakers
involved in urban school reform.
*David Rogers, author of 110 Livingston Street*
Abrams provides a comprehensive and insightful analysis of the
private sector’s foray into public education. His analysis of
Edison Schools, an educational management organization,
demonstrates why private sector practices may easily be applied to
purchasing scheduling software or contracting bus service, but why
they cannot be easily applied to the management of schools where
the purpose and process of education is much more complex and
opaque. He also examines charter school organizations, the use of
publicly funded vouchers for students to attend private schools in
Chile and Sweden, and the application of business practices to
schools in Finland. Altogether, Abrams makes a compelling case on
the limits of private sector practices in public education.
*Russell W. Rumberger, author of Dropping Out*
Grounded in meticulous research in Finland and Sweden as well as
the United States, Education and the Commercial Mindset is a
bracing assessment of contemporary education reform and its
consequences.
*Pasi Sahlberg, author of Finnish Lessons*
Given the near-complete absence of public information and debate
about the stealth effort to privatize public schools, this is the
right time for the appearance of [this book]. Samuel E. Abrams, a
veteran teacher and administrator, has written an elegant analysis
of the workings of market forces in education in his book Education
and the Commercial Mindset.
*New York Review of Books*
[An] outstanding book.
*Washington Post*
In Education and the Commercial Mindset, Abrams provides a
detailed, informative and insightful account of the rise and fall
of The Edison Project, as a case study of for-profit schools…Abrams
demonstrates that for-profit schools have no incentives to consider
long term educational or social goals. Obsessed with achievement
metrics that might persuade consumers to purchase their product,
they often exclude students with cognitive, emotional or behavioral
problems. Or with failing grades…Running schools like businesses
won’t solve the problem, Samuel Abrams makes clear.
*Huffington Post*
In 1962, Raymond Callahan’s classic text Education and the Cult of
Efficiency argued that the goal of efficient operations had become
a first order priority in public education. Callahan’s work is now
joined by a new definitive account, the brilliant book Education
and the Commercial Mindset by Samuel E. Abrams...His arguments are
exceptionally balanced, meticulously researched, and rooted in a
deep understanding of the historical, cultural, and social
antecedents of the widespread use of business practices and norms
in education...Abrams has provided a thoughtful, critical, and
rigorous explanation of crucially important distinctions that will
be invaluable to scholars, policymakers, administrators, and
teachers alike.
*Teachers College Record*
Education and the Commercial Mindset provides the most detailed and
comprehensive analysis of the school privatization movement to
date. Students of American education will learn a great deal from
it.
*Dissent*
This is a book that all supporters as well as opponents of school
choice and educational privatization should read, because the
hypotheses and findings are expressed so convincingly that they may
serve as a field trial for testing one's own opinions.
*Educational Researcher*
Essential to understanding the new challenges facing American
politics, with the future of the education system being a central
issue…Abrams not only offers a historical overview of the education
system crisis under the Reagan administration, but also a reminder
of the failure of privatization attempts in the 1990s.
*Progressive Post*
In recent years, several books have been published that explore the
corporate influence on public education. Few are as in depth and as
evenhanded as Education and the Commercial Mindset.
*American Educator*
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