The Decline in Educational Standards: From a Public Good to a Quasi-Monopoly
The Decline in Educational Standards: From a Public Good to a Quasi-Monopoly is about the “commodification” of education and the factors that have changed education from a public good into a “commodity” over the last 50 years. When we look at today’s education, we see that academic standards in public education have been declining for decades even as education funding has reached nearly a trillion dollars per year to fund such failed programs as No Child Left Behind and Common Core. Simultaneously, tuition and fees at public universities have increased nearly 2000 percent over the last 30 years, and student loan debt is now a staggering $1.5 trillion. Quite simply, education has become big business.

This book examines the various issues associated with the commodification of education, especially neoliberalism and privatized Keynesianism—what they are, how they developed, and how they have affected education and public policy. It argues that neoliberalism and the related socioeconomic shift to “debt-based consumerism” are at the center of commodification, leading to a significant decline in the exchange value of a college degree. It also argues that we cannot understand the changes in our public and higher education systems without examining the historical, social, economic, and political factors that have essentially created an education system that is significantly different from what it was in the not so distant past.

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The Decline in Educational Standards: From a Public Good to a Quasi-Monopoly
The Decline in Educational Standards: From a Public Good to a Quasi-Monopoly is about the “commodification” of education and the factors that have changed education from a public good into a “commodity” over the last 50 years. When we look at today’s education, we see that academic standards in public education have been declining for decades even as education funding has reached nearly a trillion dollars per year to fund such failed programs as No Child Left Behind and Common Core. Simultaneously, tuition and fees at public universities have increased nearly 2000 percent over the last 30 years, and student loan debt is now a staggering $1.5 trillion. Quite simply, education has become big business.

This book examines the various issues associated with the commodification of education, especially neoliberalism and privatized Keynesianism—what they are, how they developed, and how they have affected education and public policy. It argues that neoliberalism and the related socioeconomic shift to “debt-based consumerism” are at the center of commodification, leading to a significant decline in the exchange value of a college degree. It also argues that we cannot understand the changes in our public and higher education systems without examining the historical, social, economic, and political factors that have essentially created an education system that is significantly different from what it was in the not so distant past.

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The Decline in Educational Standards: From a Public Good to a Quasi-Monopoly

The Decline in Educational Standards: From a Public Good to a Quasi-Monopoly

by James D. Williams
The Decline in Educational Standards: From a Public Good to a Quasi-Monopoly

The Decline in Educational Standards: From a Public Good to a Quasi-Monopoly

by James D. Williams

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Overview

The Decline in Educational Standards: From a Public Good to a Quasi-Monopoly is about the “commodification” of education and the factors that have changed education from a public good into a “commodity” over the last 50 years. When we look at today’s education, we see that academic standards in public education have been declining for decades even as education funding has reached nearly a trillion dollars per year to fund such failed programs as No Child Left Behind and Common Core. Simultaneously, tuition and fees at public universities have increased nearly 2000 percent over the last 30 years, and student loan debt is now a staggering $1.5 trillion. Quite simply, education has become big business.

This book examines the various issues associated with the commodification of education, especially neoliberalism and privatized Keynesianism—what they are, how they developed, and how they have affected education and public policy. It argues that neoliberalism and the related socioeconomic shift to “debt-based consumerism” are at the center of commodification, leading to a significant decline in the exchange value of a college degree. It also argues that we cannot understand the changes in our public and higher education systems without examining the historical, social, economic, and political factors that have essentially created an education system that is significantly different from what it was in the not so distant past.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781475841374
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date: 04/15/2019
Pages: 304
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

James D. Williams holds a doctorate in rhetoric and linguistics from the University of Southern California and has published more than a dozen books on education, linguistics, and rhetoric. He has held faculty positions at UCLA, The University of Southern California, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and is a founding faculty member at Soka University in California.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Section I: Economics and Neoliberalism

Chapter 1: Liberalism and Conservatism: Some Characteristics

Chapter 2: The Industrial Revolution

Chapter 3: Socialist Stirrings

Chapter 4: John Maynard Keynes and Economic Theory

Chapter 5: The Great Depression

Chapter 6: Kynesian Economics and The Road to Serfdom

Chapter 7: The 1970s Inflation

Chapter 8: Debt-Based Consumer Capitalism and Taxation

Chapter 9: Debt-Based Consumerism and a Mountain of Debt

Chapter 10: Too Big to Fail

Section II: What Happened to Public Education?

Chapter 11: The Common School Movement

Chapter 12: Meeting the Educational Needs in a Diverse Society

Chapter 13: Intelligence Testing

Chapter 14: Academic Tracking

Chapter 15: Criticisms of IQ Testing and Tracking

Chapter 16: The Effects of the Proximate Environment on IQ and Academic Performance

Chapter 17: The Commodification of Education

Chapter 18: Federal Control Through Federal Funding

Chapter 19: Parental Satisfaction and Student Performance

Chapter 20: Charter Schools, Vouchers, and Politics School Vouchers

Chapter 21: How Did We Get Here?

Chapter 22: Following the Money

Section III: Higher Education as a Quasi-Monopoly

Chapter 23: Education and the End of Poverty

Chapter 24: Higher Education in a Privatized-Keynesian World

Chapter 25: The Democratization of Higher Education

Chapter 26: The Gainful Employment Rule and Tacit Collusion

Chapter 27: Declining Public Confidence and the Politicized Faculty

Section IV: Improving Public and Higher Education

Chapter 28: Neoliberalism, Priviatized Keynesianism, and the Debt Bomb

Chapter 29: Rethinking Public Education

Chapter 30: Egalitarianism and the Drive for Equal Outcomes

Chapter 31: Reforming the Nation’s Education System
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