According to founder Chris Whittle, the popular press, and educational think-tanks, The Edison Schools were going to revolutionize American education. This book, The Edison Schools: Corporate Schooling and the Assault on Public Education , illustrates the successes, failures, and ultimate demise of the largest for-profit manager of public schools. At a time of public doubt about corporate accountability, much has been written about the financial scandal and collapse of such corporate giants as Enron, Worldcom, and Martha Stewart. Is the failure of the Edison Schools at 'going public' just another example of corporate abuse and accounting scandal? Saltman argues that the failures of Edison are about much more than the mismanagement of one business. Rather, Edison's failure offer very valuable lessons about the remaining Educational Management Organizations, about the meaning of public education in a democracy, and about the need to rethink investment in the public sector more generally.