education-industry

Alex Molnar once again writes an anti-establishment and anti-business diatribe. He uses this book as a platform to prosletyse his personal views rather than looking at the benefits and disadvantages of having businesses involved with education.

A classic example of his selective scholarship applies to educational text books publishers. These for-profit entities produce the core texts which teachers and students have relied on for over a century in the US. Almost all major US educational publishers are owned by Fortune 500 companies, who mandate they publish for profit. This has not created a perfect system for producing school text books, but no one can seriously argue that education would benefit by banning their involvement with schools!

Alex Molnar would have you believe all business involvement with education is evil, however his thesis is undermined by a blinkered and narrow approach. This is an important issue which needs better analysis!

Molnar does an excellent job cataloguing and dissecting corporate involvement in education, and for that reason alone, this is a book that should be read by all those concerned with the changing nature of North American education.

What was lacking in the book, however, was an explicit theorization of capitalism or the state. The involvement of business in education was seen through an overly conspiratorial light, which, in my opinion, obscures the real issues to a certain degree. The connections between educational restructuring, economic restructuring, and corporate involvement in schools should be made more explicit.

But, a thought-provoking read nonetheless.

Molnar's Giving Kids the Business is one of the most important books written about the frightening influence of for-profit corporations on the American education system. The section "And Now a Word From Our Sponsors" is a sensational argument loaded with pithy insights and biting sarcasm. A must read for all who are concerned about education.

The book has some general iinformation. It gives some basic insight into the aerospace industry but not the whole. It is like a fresh up or first time information for someone who does not know anything about that field. If you don't know anything, then Read! it otherwise look for something else.