ABSTRACT
The corporatization of schools is part of a broader assault on public and critical education and the aspirations of a critical democracy. By the “corporatization of public schools,” I mean both the privatization of public schools and the transformation of public schools on the model of the corporation. In what follows, I schematize corporatization in terms of economic, political, and cultural transformations. More specifically, I consider how the corporatization of public schools redistributes economic control and cultural control from the public to private interests. I argue that these intertwined redistributions of power undermine public democracy (the possibilities for the development of a more participatory and deeper democracy), just social transformation, and critical citizenship, while exacerbating material and symbolic inequality.
