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Business-Managed Democracy

“Business-managed democracies are those in which the political and cultural arrangements are managed in the interests of business”

Sharon Beder

Business-Managed Education

Business Model not Appropriate

There are good reasons to believe that a business model, with its focus on cost-effectively producing outputs, is inappropriate to education. Learning is not work and teaching is not production. Graduates are not manufactured. Lewis Finch, a Colorado school superintendent, pointed out:

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Corporations want us to operate public schools like they operate their businesses. They can carefully select their raw materials to produce, say, the best Oreo cookies in the world. But out behind the plant is a pile of refuse made up of those that don’t qualify. Is that the kind of school system we want for America? I think not.

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Many school activities produce an outcome but the process of achieving that outcome is what is important. Learning should be about discovery, exploration and curiosity, not just performance and achievement, which is all the business model is concerned with.

 

 

 

 

 

Contributers' Updates and Examples

If you have any examples or updates you would like to contribute please email them to me and I will add them here. Please give references for where you sourced the information.