The Decline in Educational Standards
eBook - ePub

The Decline in Educational Standards

From a Public Good to a Quasi-Monopoly

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Decline in Educational Standards

From a Public Good to a Quasi-Monopoly

About this book

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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Yes, you can access The Decline in Educational Standards by James D. Williams in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Education & Education Administration. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. Acknowledgments
  3. Introduction
  4. Section I: Economics and Neoliberalism
  5. Chapter 1: Liberalism and Conservatism: Some Characteristics
  6. Chapter 2: The Industrial Revolution
  7. Chapter 3: Socialist Stirrings
  8. Chapter 4: John Maynard Keynes and Economic Theory
  9. Chapter 5: The Great Depression
  10. Chapter 6: Keynesian Economics and The Road to Serfdom
  11. Chapter 7: The 1970s’ Inflation
  12. Chapter 8: Debt-Based Consumer Capitalism and Taxation
  13. Chapter 9: Debt-Based Consumerism and a Mountain of Debt
  14. Chapter 10: Too Big to Fail
  15. Section II: What Happened to Public Education?
  16. Chapter 11: The Common School Movement
  17. Chapter 12: Meeting Educational Needs in a Diverse Society
  18. Chapter 13: Intelligence Testing
  19. Chapter 14: Academic Tracking
  20. Chapter 15: Criticisms of IQ Testing and Tracking
  21. Chapter 16: The Effects of the Proximate Environment on IQ and Academic Performance
  22. Chapter 17: The Commodification of Education
  23. Chapter 18: Federal Control through Federal Funding
  24. Chapter 19: Parental Satisfaction and Student Performance
  25. Chapter 20: Charter Schools, Vouchers, and Politics
  26. Chapter 21: How Did We Get Here?
  27. Chapter 22: Following the Money
  28. Section III: Higher Education as a Quasi-Monopoly
  29. Chapter 23: Education and the End of Poverty
  30. Chapter 24: Higher Education in a Privatized-Keynesian World
  31. Chapter 25: The Democratization of Higher Education
  32. Chapter 26: The Exchange Value of a College Degree
  33. Chapter 27: The Gainful Employment Rule and Tacit Collusion
  34. Chapter 28: Declining Public Confidence and Politicized Faculty
  35. Section IV: Improving Public and Higher Education
  36. Chapter 29: Neoliberalism, Privatized Keynesianism, and the Debt Bomb
  37. Chapter 30: Rethinking Public Education
  38. Chapter 31: Egalitarianism and the Drive for Equal Outcomes
  39. Chapter 32: Reforming the Nation’s Education System
  40. References
  41. About the Author