Why Is Corporate America Bashing Our Public Schools?

An invaluable combo of information and fiery inspiration, this book equips us to resist the business powers that be coiling themselves around public schools to squeeze out all respectful, individual teaching.
- Carol Bly, Author of Changing the Bully Who Rules the World

Emery and Ohanian decode the Orwellian doublespeak on educationsuch as "no child left behindcutting through the smokescreen of testing that obscures the actual agenda of privatization.
- David Barsamian, founder and director of Alternative Radio

Kathy Emery and Susan Ohanian shout Jaccuse! to the Business Roundtable, the Education Trust, politicians, and the rest who are selling out America's children in the name of high standards. A must read for all citizens, not just parents and educators.
- Gerald L. Bracey, Author of On the Death of Childhood and the Destruction of Public Schools

Kathy Emery and Susan Ohanian have written a magnificent, carefully documented, and high-voltage manifesto to confront the degradation of our nation's schools by powerful corporations whose self-serving motives and assaultive tactics have developed into a relentless and dehumanizing juggernaut. Steam will be coming out of your ears by the time you finish this extraordinary book. It should be a wake-up call to all who care about the future of our schools and all who truly value children.
- Jonathan Kozol, Author of Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools

Q: How many businessmen does it take to screw up American schools?
A: Only 13, the number of members of the Business Roundtable assigned to the Business Coalition for Education Reform!Emery and Ohanian explain why this joke isn't funny, asking readers to raise their consciousness and their voices to take back public education.
- Patrick Shannon, Pennsylvania State University, author of Becoming Political, Too

Deluged by demands to regiment the curricula, noosed by high stakes tests, many educators ask, How can I keep my ideals and still teach? With meticulous research engagingly presented, Emery and Ohanian offer teachers ways to both resist and create.
- Rich Gibson, San Diego State University

Where exactly did high-stakes testing come from anyway? Neither parents, teachers, administrators, nor school boards demanded it, and now many communities feel powerless to reverse its appalling effect on our schools.

Hot on the heels of the testing masterminds and peeling back layer upon layer of documentation, Kathy Emery and Susan Ohanian found a familiar scent at the end of the paper trail. Corporate money. CEOs and American big business have blanketed United States public education officials with their influence and, as Emery and Ohanian prove, their fifteen year drive to undemocratize public education has yielded a many-tentacled private-public monster.

With stunning clarity and meticulous research, Emery and Ohanian take you on a tour of board rooms, rightist think tanks, nonprofit "concerned citizens groups," and governmental agencies to expose the real story of how current education reform arose, how its deceptive rhetoric belies its goals, and the true nature of its polarizing and disenfranchising mission.

Why is corporate America bashing our schools? Because it's in their interests - not yours. What can you do to promote your best educational interests? Read this expose and get ready to dismantle the education-reform machine.