ABSTRACT
The era of corporate school reform came about partly as a response and reaction to the liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s and progressive trends of that period, but it was also a reflection of an ongoing “crisis” over the schools with origins in the 1950s and earlier. Corporate school reform largely embraced a return to traditional educational forms, prized competition and sorting, and reified some of the problems that lay behind the persistent achievement gap – between rich and poor, Black and White. The origins of accountability reforms in schools may be found in a confluence of interests: business, government, conservative and neoconservative politicians and educators, and the religious right. These groups combined to lead development of a mainstream consensus in support of accountability reform, fueled by pervasive myths about public schools as a failed monopoly and application of business principles as the solution.
