The Alienation of Fact : Digital Educational Privatization, AI, and the False Promise of Bodies and Numbers

An investigation of the role of educational privatization and technology in the crises of truth and agency. Today, conspiracy theories run rampant, attacks on facts have become commonplace, and systemic inequities are on the rise as individual and collective agency unravels. The Alienation of Fact explains the educational, technological, and ideological preconditions for these contemporary crises of truth and agency and explores the contradictions and competing visions for the future of education that lie at the center of the problem. Schools are increasingly reimagined as businesses, and high-stakes standardized testing and curricula, for-profit charter schools, and the rise of educational AI put capital and technology at the center of education. Yet even as our society demands measure, data, and facts, politicians and news outlets regularly make unfounded assertions. How should we make sense of the contradictions between the demand for radical data-driven empiricism and the flight from evidence, argument, or theoretical justification? In this critical investigation of the new digital directions of educational privatization—AI education, adaptive learning technology, biometrics, the quantification of play and social emotional learning—and the politics of the body, Saltman shows how the false certainty of bodies and numbers replaces deliberative and thoughtful agency in a time of increasing precarity. A distinctive contribution to scholarship on public school privatization and educational technology, politics, policy, pedagogy, and theory, The Alienation of Fact is a spirited call for democratic education that values creating a society of “thinking people” over capitalistic gains. The Alienation of Fact -- AI and the Digital Educational Privatization -- New Directions of Global Educational Privatization -- The Lego Foundation and the Quantification of Play -- Conspiracy Against Theory -- Trust in Numbers, Distrust in Experts -- "Privilege-Checking", "Virtue-Signaling", "Affinity Groups", and "Safe Spaces" -- Conclusion An investigation of the role of educational privatization and technology in the crises of truth and agency. Education; digital privatization; education technology; politics of education; education policy; sociology of education; critical theory; critical pedagogy; neoliberalism and education; educational privatization; positivism "Saltman wrestles with the contradiction between the demand for radical empiricism ("data driven" everything) in contemporary education, and the flight from evidence in the enactment of policy and politics"-- Provided by publisher