Education Reform in the Twenty-First Century

This book explores how, why, and with what consequences one no-excuses charter network marketizes teaching and learning, through the author’s 1000 hours of covert participant observation at a network charter school. In her research, Brooks found that the “AAG” (pseudonym) network re-conceptualized teaching by urging staff to envision their careers in corporate education rather than in classroom teaching. While some employees received a boost up the corporate ladder, others found themselves being pushed out of the organization. Despite AAG’s equity-conscious discourse, administrators emphasized controlling student behavior as a central measure of teaching effectiveness. Brooks develops the concept of creative compliance to describe the most successful teachers’ tactics for adhering to formal policies strategically, bending the rules in order to survive and advance in a workplace fraught with competition and insecurity.

• charter schools
• Academic Achievement Group
• social justice
• school reform
• neoliberalism
• K-12
• teachers

“What happens when schools run like businesses? In this fascinating account, Brooks goes undercover at Eclipse Prep, a for-profit charter school, to reveal how ‘market-centered mania’ in education is transforming the work of teaching. Richly detailed and engaging, this book takes us into a results-driven world where teachers compete to climb the corporate educational ladder. The results may surprise you.”
—Joanne Golann, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Education, Vanderbilt University, USA, and Author of Scripting the Moves: Culture and Control in a “No Excuses” School (2016)

“While much has been written about the education reform movement, few studies offer the view from the inside that Erinn Brooks brings us in this amazing book. And what a view! Brooks’ covert ethnography carefully documents the contradictions between equity and control in a ‘No-Excuses’ charter school, and challenges the social justice rhetoric of education reform.”
—Christopher Lubienski, Professor of Education Policy, Indiana University, USA, and Author of The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools (2013)

“In her fascinating ethnography of a network charter school, Erinn Brooks shows us how market logic undermines quality teaching and hurts students. Anyone who wants an inside look at the dangers of turning education over to profit-seeking corporations will find this book indispensable.”
—Michael Schwalbe, Professor of Sociology, North Carolina State University, USA, and Author of Rigging the Game: How Inequality Is Reproduced in Everyday Life (2008)

“In this ethnography of a ‘No-Excuses’ charter school, Brooks provides a rare glimpse from inside. Despite a mission that centers racial equity, the reality behind-the-scenes is quite different. In this corporate environment, where reputation and career advancement mean everything, student learning suffers. Teachers compete rather than collaborating to develop their craft. They control students rather than educating them. This disturbing book reveals that market-based education is not resolving inequities—it is indisputably compounding them.”
—Kristen Buras, Associate Professor, Georgia State University, USA, and Author of Charter Schools, Race, and Urban Space: Where the Market Meets Grassroots Resistance (2014)

“This is an important ‘must read’ book by anyone worried about the intrusion of for-profit market logics into the U.S. education system. Like Dorothy unmasking the Wizard of Oz, Brooks’ insights into a large charter school corporation and the workings of one of its schools reveal a truly dark underbelly—an underbelly wherein symbolic frames of inclusion and excellence often conceal enhanced policing of students and terrible cut-throat competition, vulnerability, and non-cooperative pressures among teachers.”
—Vincent J. Roscigno, Distinguished Professor of Arts & Sciences in Sociology, The Ohio State University, USA

“Erinn Brooks's undercover immersion in one of the rapidly growing number of no-excuses charter schools shines the light on the devastating impact of marketization and misleading rhetoric on the macro school systems and the micro everyday practices, particularly for the disenfranchised communities that they purport to serve. This book is an important intervention for resisting the dismantling of public education.”
—Kevin Kumashiro, Author of Surrendered: Why Progressives Are Losing the Biggest Battles in Education (2020)

“Erinn Brooks’ new book is a unique contribution to the literature on education reform. It provides a grounded, rich, ethnographic story detailing the reality not the mythology of a charter school education. She carefully draws on the literature and her data to evaluate the impact of charters’ policing of students, business corporate model and restructuring of the teaching profession into a metric driven, mechanized work. This granular analysis of the charter culture’s impact on the teaching profession and Black and Brown students’ education is a substantial contribution to the education literature.”
—Michael Fabricant, Professor, Hunter College Silberman School of Social Work at City University of New York (CUNY), USA, and Author of Charter Schools and the Corporate Makeover of Public Education (2012)

• Sociology, St. Norbert College, De Pere, USA

  Erinn Brooks

Erinn Brooks is Assistant Professor of Sociology at St. Norbert College, USA. Her research examines the intersections of race, class, and gender inequality, emphasizing social justice in schools, workplaces, and nonprofit organizations. Her work has been published in Critical Education and Sociological Quarterly.

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