School Commercialism: From Democratic Ideal to Market Commodity by Alex Molnar

From the Publisher

As the leading U.S. expert on the commercialization of public education, Alex Molnar offers a concise study of how marketing and market logic increasingly shape school practice and policy. In this groundbreaking exploration, Molnar traces the rise of commercial activities in American schools over the last twenty-five years, raising serious questions about the role of private corporations in public schools. From the marketing of unhealthy foods to the expansion of the for-profit education management industry, School Commercialism tracks these disturbing trends and makes clear their detrimental effects on the historic mission of public education.

Pizza Hut's Book It! program rewards students with pizza for meeting their reading goals. Toys "R" Us paid a Kansas school five dollars for each student who took its toy survey. Cisco Systems donated internet access to a California elementary school, asking in return for the school choir to sing the company's praises while wearing Cisco t-shirts.

Kids today face a barrage of corporate messages in the classroom. In School Commercialism, education expert Alex Molnar traces marketing in American schools over the last twenty-five years, raising serious questions about the role of private corporations in public education. Since the 1990s, Molnar argues, commercial activities have shaped the structure of the school day, influenced the curriculum, and determined whether children have access to computers and other technologies. He argues convincingly against advertisers' assertion that their contributions are a win-win proposition for cash-strapped schools and image-conscious companies.
      
From the marketing of unhealthy foods to privatizing reforms such as the Edison Schools and Knowledge Universe, School Commercialism tracks trends that are more pervasive than many parents realize and shows how we might recapture schools to better serve the public interest.

What People Are Saying

Michael W. Apple
"Alex Molnar has been an acknowledged leader in helping us all understand what the dangers are in the rampant commercialization in schools today. School Commercialism demonstrates why his voice is listened to. It is a clear and powerful statement about who the winners and losers are in our seemingly never-ending willingness to commodify all of school life."
—John Bascom Professor of Education at the University of Wisconsin, Madison

Paul Shaker
"No one writes on school commercialism at the level of Alex Molnar. His data are global in scope, historical in sweep, and fully grounded in the leading theorists of the past and present. Molnar expertly details today's relentless attack on the guiding ideals of our public schools and their ongoing replacement by the amoral logic of the corporate marketplace. "
—Dean of Education at Simon Fraser University of British Columbia.

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