Any Time, Any Place, Any Way, Any Pace: Markets, EdTech, and the spaces of schooling

Abstract

For decades investors have sought to find ways of profiting off the billions of public dollars spent annually on systems of public schooling across the world. This interest has coincided with the growing marketization of systems of public schooling, especially in the United States, as well as the increased use of educational technologies (or EdTech). This study examines the implications of the growing use of profit-driven educational technologies for the politics and spatial practices of schooling. Specifically, it examines past experiences with market-oriented EdTech systems in Oregon and Michigan to highlight how the combination of market systems of governance and profit-driven EdTech practices depend on the deconstruction of links between schools, communities, and students in order to roll out aspatial and apolitical educational practices that maximize profits. The placeless vision for education embedded in profit-driven EdTech helps promote the reproduction of dominant orders and stifles place-based struggles over educational justice.