"... the silent compulsions of economic relations": Markets and the Demand for Education

Abstract

Some recent analyses have argued that public education in the United States has been isolated from market processes and pressures, that the institutional environment of public education has been dominated by democratic politics and centralized bureaucracies, and that the key to the reform of public education lies in the exposure ofpublic education to market pressures. This article suggests that market forces shape the demand for, and the politics of, American education. It also suggests that, to the extent that market pressures and processes have shaped the institutional environment of American education, market processes and pressures have to bear a substantial amount of the responsibility for the condition of American schools and the problems that afflict them.