Capitalizing on disaster : taking and breaking public schools / Kenneth J. Saltman.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Smash and grab : schooling in disaster capitalism -- Silver linings and golden opportunities : the corporate plunder of public schooling in post-Katrina New Orleans -- Creative associates international incorporated : corporate schooling and "democracy promotion" in Iraq -- Renaissance 2010 and No Child Left Behind : breaking and taking schools and communities -- From dispossession to possession : making educational facts on the ground.

Renaissance 2010 and no child left behind : breaking and taking schools and communities -- Conclusion : from dispossession to possession : making educational facts on the ground.

Breaking new ground in studies of business involvement in schooling, Capitalizing on Disaster dissects the most powerful educational reforms and highlights their relationship to the rise of powerful think tanks and business groups. Over the past several decades, there has been a strong movement to privatize public schooling through business ventures. At the beginning of the millennium, this privatization project looked moribund as both the Edison Schools and Knowledge Universe foundered. Nonetheless, privatization is back.The new face of educational privatization replaces public schooling with EMOs, vouchers, and charter schools at an alarming rate. In both disaster and nondisaster areas, officials designate schools as failed in order to justify replacement with new, unproven models. Saltman examines how privatization policies such as No Child Left Behind are designed to deregulate schools, favoring business while undermining public oversight. Examining current policies in New Orleans, Chicago, and Iraq, Capitalizing on Disaster shows how the struggle for public schooling is essential to the struggle for a truly democratic society.