From schools advertising McDonald’s, Nike, and Shell oil to military generals appointed as superintendents; from corporate CEOs hailed as education experts to students suspended for wearing Pepsi tee shirts on Coke day; Collateral Damage sifts through a wide range of incidents to reveal how the rising corporatization of public schools needs to be understood as a part of a broader attack on the public sector. Uniquely, Collateral Damage considers the privatization of public education in relation to both globalization and local struggles over curriculum, schools, and culture. Saltman describes the dangers to democracy posed by educational policy debates increasingly framed by the language and logic of the market. He reveals how the language of school choice, competition, monopoly, and accountability shifts the grounds of debate to naturalize education along business models rather than for the public good. The commercialization and militarization of public schools, and media images of out of control teachers reveal how political and economic struggles over privatization involve culture, citizenship, nation, identity, and even bodies.

"Kenneth Saltman's important book arrives not a moment too soon…Collateral Damage is valuable not only for the well-reasoned political position the author takes, but also for the wealth of information it provides about commercialism in American public education. Given the largely uncritical public (as opposed to scholarly) discourse about privatization and commercialism in public education, Saltman's book is an especially useful and timely contribution." - Teachers College Record

"An insightful and timely examination of the corporatization of public education in the United States.Collateral Damage represents and important and provocative critique of the corporate sponsorship of education, linking this growing trend to globalization, a redefinition of public services as private commodities, and the militarization of the nation's public spaces. Saltman has presented a cogent analysis that is thoroughly accessible to scholars, laypeople, and all those interested in the nature of public education in the United States. Researchers, scholars, and educators at all levels, in particular, will find Collateral Damage a valuable resource and important contribution to the growing literature of the corporatization of public education." - Anthropology & Education Quarterly

"In this succinct book, Saltman delivers to the reader reasons to get outraged over, excited about, and committed to protecting public education as a public space where democracy can and must flourish." - Educational Researcher