As part of a larger study, this study provided a critical-interpretive perspective of Whittle Communications' Channel One programming, a microcosm of the growing national trend of commercialism in public schools. Several board meetings held at the East Side Union High School District, San Jose, California, generated the discourse for analysis. A critical discourse analysis of this controversy reveals several dominant assumptions about the role of business in education: business and education should be partners; schools should generate their own profits; commercialism should be used pedagogically; students should be viewed as clients; and educators should function as business leaders. A collective examination of six assumptions reveals tensions and contradictions related to the co-opting of the language of business and that of education. (Contains 30 references and 5 notes. An appendix illustrates the underlying tensions between education and business.) (Author/RS)