Henry A. Giroux claims this to be the "worst of times" for US public education. Not alone in this judgment, numerous other scholars stand in agreement with him. These thinkers view the current corporate/accountability/testing movement, with its iron grip on public school policies, as disfiguring and disparaging the US system of public schools. A system that, in the past, was viewed, primarily, as a "public good" now appears to be a "public problem." Language used to describe schools now, however, reliably has moved toward the notion of failure or crisis. Shifting from public perception as a public good to public problem precipitates change in vision, mission, and purposes for public schooling: a shift away from the strain of ideals embedded within certain educational philosophies that argue for the development of thoughtful, public citizens capable of participating in a functional democracy and a meaningful life, and toward the concept of preparing individuals for a market-driven, consuming society, whose citizens contribute to the corporate good. This turn leads to re-visioning knowledge as a set of accumulated facts and skills, with the completion of formal schooling ultimately leading to a job and consumerism. In this article, the author identifies this current way of viewing schools and the accompanying educational policies that now dominate as an educational fundamentalism. (Contains 61 footnotes.)