 Collateral Damage. Corporatizing Public School: A Threat to Democracyreviewed by Roslyn Arlin Mickelson - 2002  Title: Collateral Damage. Corporatizing Public School: A Threat to DemocracyAuthor(s): Kenneth J. Saltman Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham ISBN: 0742501027 , Pages: 125, Year: 2000 Search for book at Amazon.com Kenneth Saltman’s important book arrives not a moment too soon as cash strapped public schools contemplate heightened commercialism in order to raise the money necessary to offer, in some cases, basic education and in other instances, "frills" such as athletic programs and cultural enrichments. The author’s trenchant critique of corporatization of public education makes the case that such commercialism threatens democracy. Commercialism reflects neoliberal shifts from understanding education as a public good to considering it a private good. Saltzman argues that neoliberal privatization, the transfer of public institutions into private hands, is fundamentally at odds with democracy, the development of a critical citizenry, and institutions that foster social justice and equality. Collateral Damage’s title, as Saltman notes in Chapter 4, has several meanings: indirect damage, as in Timothy McVeigh’s depiction of his murder of children in Oklahoma City; kinship damage, as in the notion that we all will be affected by commercialization because of our common interests in the survival and health of democratic public education; and capital damage,... (preview truncated at 150 words.) To view the full-text for this article you must be signed-in with the appropriate membership. Please review your options below:
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