Making Failure Pay

A little-discussed aspect of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is a mandate that requires failing schools to hire after-school tutoring companiesthe largest of which are private, for-profit corporationsand to pay them with federal funds.Making Failure Paytakes a hard look at the implications of this new blurring of the boundaries between government, schools, and commerce in New York City, the country's largest school district. As Jill P. Koyama explains in this revelatory book, NCLBa federally legislated, state-regulated, district-administered, and school-applied policyexplicitly legitimizes giving private organizations significant roles in public education. Based on her three years of ethnographic fieldwork, Koyama finds that the results are political, problematic, and highly profitable. Bringing to light these unproven, unregulated private companies' almost invisible partnership with the government,Making Failure Paylays bare the unintended consequences of federal efforts to eliminate school failurenot the least of which is more failure.

Jill P. Koyama is assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the Graduate School of Education at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York.