The 500 Pound Gorilla…corporatizing our schools.

Schools — and, by extension, children — have been turned into sources of profit in several distinct ways. Yes, some corporations sell educational products, including tests, texts, and other curriculum materials. But many more corporations, peddling all sorts of products, have come to see schools as places to reach an enormous captive market.

This article is adapted from the introduction to the newly revised edition of Education, Inc.: Turning Learning into a Business, an anthology just published by Heinemann, edited by Alfie Kohn and Patrick Shannon. It appeared in the Phi Delta Kappan, October 2002 and is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

I give a lot of speeches these days about the accountability fad that has been turning our schools into glorified test-prep centers. The question-and-answer sessions that follow these lectures can veer off into unexpected directions, but it is increasingly likely that someone will inquire about the darker forces behind this heavy-handed version of school reform. Aren’t giant corporations raking in profits from standardized testing? a questioner will demand. Doesn’t it stand to reason that these companies engineered the reliance on testing in the first place?

Indeed, there are enough suspicious connections to keep conspiracy theorists awake through the night. For example, Standard & Poors, the financial rating service, has lately been offering to evaluate and publish the performance, based largely on test scores, of every school district in a given state — a bit of number crunching that Michigan and Pennsylvania purchased for at least $10 million each, and other states may soon follow. The explicit findings of these reports concern whether this district is doing better than that one. But the tacit message — the hidden curriculum, if you will — is that test scores are a useful and appropriate marker for school quality. Who has an incentive to convince people of that conclusion? Well, it turns out that Standard & Poors is owned by McGraw-Hill, one of the largest manufacturers of standardized tests.

With such pressure to look good by boosting their test results, low-scoring districts may feel compelled to purchase heavily scripted curriculum programs designed to raise scores, programs such as Open Court or Reading Mastery (and others in the Direct Instruction series). Where do those programs come from? By an astonishing coincidence, both are owned by McGraw-Hill. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have some influential policy makers on your side when it’s time to make choices about curriculum and assessment. In April 2000, Charlotte K. Frank joined the state of New York’s top education policy-making panel, the Board of Regents. If you need to reach Ms. Frank, try her office at McGraw-Hill, where she is a vice president. And we needn’t even explore the chummy relationship between Harold McGraw III (the company’s chairman) and George W. Bush. (1) Nor will we investigate the strong statement of support for test-based accountability in a Business Week cover story about education published in March 2001. Care to guess what company owns Business Week?

Even more disturbing than having public schools sanction and expose children to advertisements(6) is the fact that corporate propaganda is sometimes passed off as part of the curriculum. Math problems plug a particular brand of sneakers or candy; chemical companies distribute slick curriculum packages to ensure that environmental science will be taught with their slant.(7) A few years ago, someone sent me a large, colorful brochure aimed at educators that touts several free lessons helpfully supplied by Procter & Gamble. One kit helps fifth graders learn about personal hygiene by way of Old Spice after-shave and Secret deodorant, while another promises a seventh-grade lesson on the “ten steps to self-esteem,” complete with teacher’s guide, video, and samples of Clearasil.

It’s worth thinking about how corporate sponsorship is likely to affect what is included — and not included — in these lessons. How likely is it that the makers of Clearasil would emphasize that how you feel about yourself should not primarily be a function of how you look? Or consider a hypothetical unit on nutrition underwritten by Kraft General Foods (or by McDonald’s or Coca-Cola): would you expect to find any mention of the fact that the food you prepare yourself is likely to be more nutritious than processed products in boxes and jars and cans? Or that the best way to quench your thirst is actually to drink water? Or that a well-balanced diet requires little or no meat? Or that smoking causes cancer? (Kraft General Foods — and Nabisco, for that matter — are owned by a tobacco company.)

Most politicians have uncritically accepted the goals and methods outlined by the private sector — and, with the possible exception of attitudes toward vouchers, there are few differences between the two major parties. Marveling that “Democrats and Republicans are saying rather similar things about education,” a front-page story in the New York Times explained, “One reason there seems to be such a consensus on education is that the economic rationale for schooling has triumphed. “