This paper argues that public education, as a contemporary industry, is more like business than any other organization. The traditional view of education defines the student as customer, the teacher as worker, teaching and learning as the products, and school boards as overly influential. An alternative paradigm is presented that defines school board members as the elected representatives of the customers of education--local business and parent groups. The product is preparedness, which has been paid for in advance by the customers. Students, in this paradigm, are not the customers, but the workforce of the American public schools. The customers are those who receive the end product of education's services; i.e., parents, higher education, business, government, and society. Teachers are not the labor force, but managers of the workers and the work. It is argued that these new definitions will allow the industry of schooling to move forward as never before. (LMI)