Education is often referred to as a business and expected to follow standard business practices. An examination of the schools shows that they resemble natural monopolies and service enterprises. Although they have administrative management, they do not have a parallel to production management. When education is viewed as a business, it becomes clear that educational management is complicated by problems concerning evaluation of production and outmoded employee relations. Tenure procedures are often ineffective in providing job protection. Shoddy dismissal procedures both fail to protect some teachers against unfair job termination and unreasonably protect some incompetent teachers. Many schools provide ineffective orientation for new teachers and insufficient supervision of all teachers. An unresolved problem is whether teachers may engage in collective bargaining and strike. Teachers are different from other employees in their preference for limiting their organizational activities to subject matter organizations rather than engaging in broader issues. Schools are different from other businesses in the aloofness of educators from interest in financing. Schools are also somewhat unusual in the way leadership is identified. A particularly exceptional practice of the business of education is the involvement of nonprofessionals (the public) in school internal affairs. (Author/JM)