ABSTRACT
This complex web of economic and political relationships influences the knowledge schools disseminate and how public education will be funded. To exemplify the new politics of education and the web of relationships, this chapter discusses the educational career of James H. Shelton. It examines the evolution of political control from nineteenth-century school boards to the present complex set of influences by venture philanthropists, for-profit companies, education networks, and federal, state, and local politicians. The chapter suggested that, it would be hard to defend an argument that American education is democratically controlled. In fact, some argued that public schools should not be democratically controlled, but that education experts should be in charge. This was a central tenet of the accountability movement, which advocated that experts report school conditions to the public and in turn the public could complain. The reaction to community control was a call for an accountability movement based on expert control.
