Keeping an eye on the global education industry A conversation with Anna Hogan

Abstract

Kappan’s editor talks with Queensland University researcher Anna Hogan about the rapid growth of commercial activity in Australia’s schools and in school systems around the world. Private businesses have always sold textbooks, classroom tools, and other goods and services to public schools, and many teachers are happy to purchase and use them, notes Hogan. However, the biggest corporations in the education market — such as Pearson and Google — have grown so large, and are so eager to promote online schools and automated instruction, that teachers have reason to be concerned about the future of their profession, and the public has reason to worry that the quality of their schools will decline.