Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"A Good Investment? is a well-developed and well-executed ethnography. Amy Brown’s ability to tell a broad story about the privatization and marketization, as well as their enactment, of public schooling is exemplary."—Jill Koyama, University of Arizona
"The book, which should interest readers in a wide variety of disciplines, is a good contribution to this ongoing, important debate related to urban public education today." —CHOICE
Table of ContentsContents
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction: Privatization and Political Spectacle in Education
1. A Mind Is a Wonderful Thing to Invest In: Philanthropy and the New York City Public Schools
2. The College Prep Look: Managing Image, Marketing Students
3. Walk the Walk, Talk the Talk: Professionalism at College Prep
4. Waiting for Superwoman: White Female Teachers as “Neoliberal Saviors”
5. Girl Drama: Black Female Students and the Spectacle of Risk
6. Critical Thinking: Reading Urban Fiction with Students
7. Behind the Mask: Professionalism and Life after College Prep
Afterword: Beyond the Spectacle
Appendix A: Producing Knowledge through Qualitative Research Methods
Appendix B: 2010 College Prep Student Questionnaire
Notes
Bibliography
Index
