Business Culture and the Death of Public Education: Mayor Bloomberg, David Steiner, and the Politics of Corporate ‘Leadership’

Abstract

This article provides a case study of how a business culture imposes modes of educational leadership on a public school system in New York City that has little if any concerns for empowering children, teachers, and the communities. The article provides a counter-narrative that serves to dispel the notion that the culture of educational empowerment is synonymous with a corporate model of leadership and education and that the latter is the best ideological and political template for understanding and governing public schools. In fact, the article attempts to make clear that the culture of business largely functions both to disempower students and teachers and to undercut the ability of schools to connect learning to social change, the power of the imagination, civic courage, and intellectual growth.