NEPC Topic Experts on School Commercialism

Samuel E. Abrams is the director of NEPC’s International Partnership for the Study of Educational Privatization (IPSEP), launched in 2024, and the author of Education and the Commercial Mindset (Harvard University Press, 2016). In addition, he has written on education policy for The New Republic, The Los Angeles Times, Le Monde, and Columbia Journalism Review, among other publications. From 2015 to 2024, he served as the director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. In 2022-23, he served as a Fulbright visiting professor at the University of Turku in Finland, where he remains a visiting scholar. For his advancement of the understanding of Finnish education in the United States, he was knighted by the Finnish government in 2012. Abrams was previously a high school history teacher for 18 years. He earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from Columbia.

Email Sam Abrams at: samuel.abrams@utu.fi

Faith Boninger is NEPC's Publications Manager and Co-Director of NEPC's Commercialism in Education Research Unit. She brings to her research a background in social psychology (Ph.D., Ohio State University), particularly an interest in persuasion, social influence, and communication processes. For the past several years she has co-authored CERU’s Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends. Additional publications include A National Survey of the Types and Extent of the Marketing of Foods of Minimal Nutritional Value in Schools, with Alex Molnar, David Garcia, and Bruce Merrill (2006) and Policy and Statutory Responses to Advertising and Marketing in Schools, with Alex Molnar and Bill Koski (2010).  Her book, Sold Out: How Marketing in School Threatens Children's Well-Being and Undermines their Education, with Alex Molnar, was released in 2015.

Email Faith Boninger at: faith.boninger@colorado.edu

Dr. Burch, Associate Professor of Education at University of Southern California, studies the drivers and manifestations of private involvement (for profit and not for profit) in K-12 education and the implications for equity and quality in public schools. Over the past decade, Dr. Burch has conducted major studies and evaluations of K-12 education reform such as class size reduction, systemic district instructional reform in large urban school districts, teacher professional development reforms, and school-linked services.

She is the author of several books, including Hidden Markets: The New Education Privatization (Routledge, 2009), Equal Scrutiny: Privatization and Accountability in Digital Education, with Annalee Good (Harvard Education Press, 2014) and Mixed Methods Research in Policy and Program Evaluation (SAGE, in press).

Email Patricia Burch at: pburch@usc.edu

Bryan Mann is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Kansas, and Director of the Center for Geography of Education Policy. He holds a PhD in Educational Theory and Policy from the Pennsylvania State University. His research focuses on geography and educational policy, exploring key questions about school enrollment trends and policy mechanisms that enhance educational and social equity. Dr. Mann's work spans areas such as segregation and diversity, school choice, and alternative education models. Notably, his studies have shed light on trends related to rural segregation in Alabama, the impact of gentrification on education in Washington DC, and the geospatial patterns of cyber charter schools in Pennsylvania. Prior to his role at the University of Kansas, Dr. Mann was an assistant professor at the University of Alabama and a high school English teacher in Monmouth County, New Jersey.

Email Bryan Mann at: bryanmann@ku.edu

NEPC Director Alex Molnar founded NEPC with Kevin Welner in 2010. He is a Research Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and also co-directs the Commercialism in Education Research Unit (CERU). He has published numerous articles on social and educational policy and practice. For the past three decades, he has studied and written about commercial activities in schools. Molnar has also researched the impact of reduced class size on student achievement and market-based school reforms such as private school vouchers, charter schools, virtual schools, and for-profit schools. Molnar has a B.A. in history, political science, and education; two masters degrees, one in history and one in social welfare; a Specialist's Certificate in educational administration; and a Ph.D. in urban education. His most recent book, Sold Out: How Marketing in School Threatens Children's Well-Being and Undermines their Education, with Faith Boninger, was released in 2015. 

Email Alex Molnar at: nepc.molnar@protonmail.com

Kenneth Saltman is a Professor of Educational Policy Studies at University of Illinois at Chicago. His interests include the political economy and cultural politics of public school privatization. His work also explains how the privatization movement in education is part of the broader movement to undermine public democratic power and expand global corporate power.

He is the author and editor of numerous books on educational policy and politics including Capitalizing on Disaster: Taking and Breaking Public Schools, The Gift of Education: Public Education and Venture Philanthropy, The Edison Schools, Education as Enforcement: the Militarization and Corporatization of Schools, The Failure of Corporate School Reform, The Politics of Education: A Critical Introduction, and Toward a New Common School Movement.  His most recent book (2016) is Scripted Bodies: Corporate Power, Smart Technologies, and the Undoing of Public Education.

Email Kenneth Saltman at: ksaltman@uic.edu 

Janelle Scott is a Professor and the Robert C. and Mary Catherine Birgeneau Distinguished Chair in Educational Disparities at the University of California at Berkeley in the Graduate School of Education, African American Studies Department, and Goldman School of Public Policy. She earned a Ph.D. in Education Policy from the University of California at Los Angeles’ Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley. Before earning her doctorate, she was a teacher in Oakland, California. 

Professor Scott’s research investigates how market-based educational reforms affect democratic accountability and equity in public education. She has explored this research program across several policy strands: 1) the racial politics of public education, 2) the politics of school choice, marketization, and privatization, 3) the politics of research evidence on market-oriented reforms, and, 4) the role of elite and community-based advocacy in shaping public education and research evidence utilization. Her work has appeared in several edited books and journals, including the Peabody Journal of Education, Educational Policy, Qualitative Inquiry, the American Educational Research Journal, and the Harvard Educational Review.

She was awarded a Spencer Dissertation Year Fellowship, and a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship. In 2014, she was awarded the Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) Committee on Scholars of Color.  In 2020, she was elected as an AERA Fellow. She is Vice President for Division L (Policy and Politics) of AERA (2019-2022). She is the editor of School choice and diversity: What the evidence says (2005 Teachers College Press), and, with Sonya Horsford and Gary Anderson, author of The Politics of Education in an Era of Inequality: Possibilities for democratic schooling (2018 Routledge). 

Email Janelle T. Scott at: jtscott@berkeley.edu