The ideology of consumership and the coming deregulation of the public school system

Abstract

This article examines the origins and implications of the ideology of consumership as it relates to the educational reform movement known generically as school choice. The ideology of consumership is defined as a belief that market‐driven governance policies can, in and of themselves, solve the ‘crisis’ in American education. The ideology of consumership is examined as a form of public discourse. The central argument of this paper is that if consumership does replace citizenship as the basic ethos and driving force of American education, the public school system will cease to exist as we have known it. A distinction is made between those school‐choice advocates who base their proposals on empirical studies of school improvement and those school‐choice advocates who maintain that markets alone can transform schools. The ‘gospel’ of free‐market choice is examined and implications are drawn concerning the possible effects of deregulation on the American public school system.