Going Undercover at Eclipse
This chapter introduces the study setting and research methodology. I outline AAG’s organizational layout, sketching the network’s office structures and staff hierarchies. Modeled after for-profit companies in other industries, AAG employs hundreds of wor
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Education Reform in the Twenty-First Century “What happens when schools run like businesses? In this fascinating account, Brooks goes undercover at Eclipse Prep, a for-profit charter school, to reveal how ‘market-centered mania’ in education is transforming the work of teaching. Richly detailed and engaging, this book takes us into a results-driven world where teachers compete to climb the corporate educational ladder. The results may surprise you.” —Joanne Golann, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Education, Vanderbilt University, USA, and Author of Scripting the Moves: Culture and Control in a “No Excuses” School (2021) “While much has been written about the education reform movement, few studies offer the view from the inside that Erinn Brooks brings us in this amazing book. And what a view! Brooks’ covert ethnography carefully documents the contradictions between equity and control in a ‘No-Excuses’ charter school, and challenges the social justice rhetoric of education reform.” —Christopher Lubienski, Professor of Education Policy, Indiana University, USA, and Author of The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools (2013) “In her fascinating ethnography of a network charter school, Erinn Brooks shows us how market logic undermines quality teaching and hurts students. Anyone who wants an inside look at the dangers of turning education over to profitseeking corporations will find this book indispensable.” —Michael Schwalbe, Professor of Sociology, North Carolina State University, USA, and Author of Rigging the Game: How Inequality Is Reproduced in Everyday Life (2008) “In this ethnography of a ‘No-Excuses’ charter school, Brooks provides a rare glimpse from inside. Despite a mission that centers racial equity, the reality behind-the-scenes is quite different. In this corporate environment, where reputation and career advancement mean everything, student learning suffers. Teachers compete rather than collaborating to develop their craft. They control students rather than educating them. This disturbing book reveals that market-based education is not resolving inequities—it is indisputably compounding them.” —Kristen Buras, Associate Professor, Georgia State University, USA, and Author of Charter Schools, Race, and Urban Space: Where the Market Meets Grassroots Resistance (2014)
“This is an important ‘must read’ book by anyone worried about the intrusion of for-profit market logics into the U.S. education system. Like Dorothy unmasking the Wizard of Oz, Brooks’ insights into a large charter school corporation and the workings of one of its schools reveal a truly dark underbelly—an underbelly wherein symbolic frames of inclusion and excellence often conceal enhanced policing of students and terrible cut-throat competition, vulnerability, and non-cooperative pressures among teachers.” —Vincent J. Roscigno, Distinguished Professor of Arts & Sciences in Sociology, The Ohio State University, USA “Erinn Brooks’s undercover immersion in one of the rapidly growing number of no-excuse
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