This book recounts the author's experiences in the for-profit education industry. It starts out at the Harvard Kennedy School, winds its way through New American Schools and the Edison Project, and ends with Sandler’s development of an education consulting firm named EduVentures. The narrative poses some genuinely significant questions about the intersection of education and business: Is it possible for private firms to serve both their shareholders and their pupils equally? Do profit-seeking education entrepreneurs warrant special moral status? What are the benefits and limits of business in education, and how do politics delineate or obscure the line between the public and the private? Unfortunately, the book is better at posing such dilemmas than at resolving them. Sandler tends to glorify the entrepreneurs, even those whose businesses failed and whose education efforts yielded little learning. Despite informative tales of companies like Kaplan, University of Phoenix, and EduVentures itself, the reader may emerge with little grasp of what makes the for-profit education industry more "social" or "public" than any other sector of the economy. You can purchase a copy here.
Michael Sandler
Rowman & Littlefield Education
January 2010