Defending Public Education from Corporate Takeover

Edited by Todd Alan Price, John Duffy, Tania Giordani

Publication date:

19 December 2012

Length of book:

248 pages

Publisher

University Press of America

Dimensions:

239x162mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9780761860495

At this moment, schools are doing everything they can to win the Race to the Top. They are allocating their funding to test preparation, riffing beloved teachers, and transferring students who “drag down” their grade average on the state report card. This book describes the current state of the education system in the United States. Readers will be on the front lines of the protests in Madison, in the inner city public-turned-charter schools, and in the shoes of the teachers dealing with educational politics every day. By the end of this text, you may beg the question: who’s winning in the Race to the Top?

Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Racing to the Top, Running for the Money, and Running Away from School Funding Equity
Todd Alan Price, John Duffy and Tania Giordani
Part I Chicago Public Schools: A Business Control Laboratory
1: Commercial Club Curriculum: Big Business Against the Common School
Todd Alan Price and John Duffy
2: A Dream Deferred: The Commodification of Chicago Public Schools Under Renaissance 2010
Tania Giordani and Andrea Lee
3: Citizen Teachers and Curricular Activism
John Duffy
4: Standard Scores and Non-Standard Lives: A Recipe for Systemic Violence
Terry Jo Smith
5: Science Left Behind: Reflections from a Chicago Public School Student of Science
Theresa Robinson
Part II Vouchers, Charters, and Mayoral Takeovers: Tools of the Great School Selloff
6: Voucher Vultures: Blueprint for Restructuring Milwaukee Public Schools
Robert Miranda
7: Milwaukee League Comes to the Defense of Public Schools
Todd Alan Price
8: The Privatization Pandemic: Barbarians at the Schoolhouse Door
Geoff Berne
9: Clash Over Charter Schools in Ohio: Ted Strickland’s Challenge to the Obama-Duncan Wrecking Ball
Geoff Berne
Part III Neoliberalism: The Ideology of For-profit Public Education
10: The New Corporate Agenda: Austerity, “Shared Sacrifice” and Union Busting
Jack Gerson
11: Recovering Schools and Classrooms in the Recovery School District
Karen Roth
12: Four Hundred Years of Chartering
John Duffy
13: Rationalizing Standards, Rationing Opportunity: Neoliberalism and the Paradox of Success in Haitian and U.S. Education
Baudelaire K. Ulysse
Part IV Reclaiming Education for the Public
14: Corporate Siege and the Growing Resistance
Todd Alan Price
15: This is What Democracy Looks Like!
T.J. Mertz
Conclusion: Turning the Tide on Commercial Club “School Reform”
John Duffy and Todd Alan Price
About the Authors

School “reform,” charter schools, mandatory testing, new funding schemes, selective admissions, curriculum changes, standards, and closures have made public schooling in America confusing. [The] biting commentary this book, written by very knowledgeable people, helps explain what’s going on. If you want information and analysis . . . here it is!