Private Learning, Public Needs looks at the devastating effects neoliberal globalization continues to have on education, schooling, and literacy development in the United States. As a global phenomenon, neoliberalism’s power lies in its ability to transcend national, regional, and local borders, and to manufacture a discourse of needs, thus affecting how education, schooling, and literacy are theorized and practiced. From the effects of whole school reform and the ideological investment of positivism, to the economic reduction of schooling and literacy development, this book expresses how neoliberal globalization reinforces state power while undermining the power of the individual.