The Commodification of American Education: Persistent Threats and Paths Forward

For the last few decades, teacher preparation has increasingly aligned itself with “best practices,” standards, and accountability, and such policies became mandatory in P-12 schooling nationwide. Technical skills instruction and methods have become the common practice of teacher preparation and accreditation of programs. Teacher candidates are encouraged to be unquestioning servants of a school system rather than educators who govern the meaning of schooling. The purpose of this book is to present a view of how we got to where we are today and to offer strategies to bring the job of teaching back to its roots. It seeks to identify the conservative influences that treat students as a commodity rather than future citizen scholars. For teacher candidates, this has meant the excision of social foundations of education courses and any further explorations of the philosophy of education or the history of schooling in their curricula. The Commodification of American Education looks at ways to re-establish teachers as professionals rather than mere technicians, and to take back public education to transform schools into places that educate while eliminating inequality and oppression.

Perfect for courses such as: Social Foundations of Education | General Methods

T. Jameson Brewer, Ph.D., is an associate professor of social foundations of education at the University of North Georgia. His teaching experience spans the middle school, high school, undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral levels. Broadly conceptualized, his research focuses on the impact of privatization of public education by way of school vouchers, charter schools, alternative teacher certification, and homeschooling. Additionally, he researches the impacts of Christian nationalism on public schools and democracy. Find more at www.tjamesonbrewer.com.

William Gregory Harman, Ed.D., M.E.A., is a professor of teacher education at Lewis-Clark State College. He was formerly at Dominican University, Chicago. He teaches educational psychology, educational philosophy, social studies methods, and mentors teacher candidates in their student teaching. He was a social studies teacher, teaching middle and high school students for over a decade in the Twin Cities metro. He has edited for SOJO, reviewed for Education Policy Analysis Archives, has published in both, as well as in Educational Theory, Teaching with Primary Sources: Research & Practice, Critical Questions in Education, and Teaching & Learning. His dissertation director, Walter Enloe, was a mentee of Jean Piaget, and his M.Ed. mentor, Peter Martorella was a mentee of Alan Griffiths, whose mentor was John Dewey. Greg believes that this line of wonderful teachers explains a lot about his own teaching, and his views and advocacy in education.