Education and the rise of the corporate state (Beacon paperback)

By Joel Spring

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807031747
• ISBN13: 9780807031742
• Release Date: January 1972
• Publisher: Beacon Press (MA)
• Length: 206 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Another Brick in the Wall

When talking about the relatively recent phenomenon of state schooling in the history of mankind, the U.S. experience is said to have been initiated by Anglo-Saxon Protestants in reaction to Catholic immigrants and their schools. But Joel Spring writes that "A factory-like system in the nineteenth-century schoolroom was not accidental". These government indoctrination centers were designed to not only produce obedient, tax-paying citizens but also obedient factory workers. Teachers had little say in what their students would learn; they did not even have the opportunity to choose classroom texts - these were chosen by officials, not teachers. This book covers a dynamic period in the history of state schooling. If you agree with Pink Floyd's plea - "We don't want no thought control", you'll like this book.

Forget Stephen King...

Well, maybe not...The book was informative. I'll give it that. But it just didn't hold your attention. Though, I can't say this detracts too much from it because the topic just isn't something you can make very interesting.Spring goes over many people's ideas about how schools should be run and ties it together with how factories came to be run to show that schools are a sort of training center to pump out workers like they're a sort of product. It's well documented and I did find some of the ideas, like vocational guidance pointing kids not where they'd be happiest but where they'll help the economy most, intriguing. Given what he had to write about, I can give it four stars... But don't expect to lose yourself in this one...