Assault on Kids and Teachers: Countering Privatization, Deficit Ideologies and Standardization in U.S. Schools (Counterpoints)

In __Assault on Kids and Teachers__, educators from across the United States push back against the neoliberal school reform movements that are taking the “public” out of public education, demonizing teachers, and stealing from youth the opportunity for an equitable, just, and holistic education. Contributors, including teachers, educational and community activists, teacher educators, critical education scholars, and others, expose how racism, economic injustice, and other forms of injustice are created and recreated both locally and nationally through educational policies more intent on turning schools into profit centers and undermining teacher unions than on strengthening public schools. Topics include the privatization of public schools, the growing influence of grit ideology on school practices, zero tolerance policies and the school-to-prison pipeline, Teach For America, the lies behind the charter school movement, and the damage TPAs are doing to teacher education. Beyond leveling critiques at these and other troubling trends and practices, though, contributors describe the many sites and forms of resistance emerging in response to these assaults on kids and teachers from students, parents, teachers, and other concerned people. __Assault on Kids and Teachers__ is both a call for deeper understandings of anti-democratic and regressive school reform initiatives and an invitation into movements for putting the “public” back into public education. Cover 1 Table of Contents 9 List of Tables 11 Foreword 13 Introduction 15 Part I. Privatization 23 1. The “Empire” Strikes Back with a Neoliberal Agenda: Confronting the Legacies of Colonialism and Popular Resistance (Roberta Ahlquist) 25 2. “Won’t Back Down, Don’t Know How”: The Fight for Walter H. Dyett High School (Monique Redeaux-Smith) 49 3. Exposing the Myths of Privatization: Popular Education and Political Activism in a Southern U.S. City (Richard D. Lakes / Lisa Healey / Paul McLennan / Susan McWethy / Jennifer Sauer / Mary Anne Smith) 77 4. “Getting Up” and Claiming Political Power in Newark: Citizens Taking Action for Radically Democratic Possibilities (Carolyne J. White / Leah Z. Owens) 93 Part II. Deficit Ideologies 117 5. Poverty Ideologies and the Possibility of Equitable Education: How Deficit, Grit, and Structural Views Enable or Inhibit Just Policy and Practice for Economically Marginalized Students (Paul C. Gorski) 119 6. Battling Zero-Tolerance in Schools and the School-to-Prison Pipeline (Alan Singer / Eustace Thompson) 145 7. Educate, Agitate and Organize: One Union’s Response to the Teacher Shortage and Union Bashing (Theresa Montaño / Maria Elena Cruz) 167 8. Re-Routing the Nightmare: Why We Need Another Movement to Create an Equitable Public Education System in Wisconsin and Across the United States (Virginia Lea) 185 Part III. Standardization 205 9. From Despair to Hope: reClaiming Education (Julie Gorlewski / Peter M. Taubman) 207 10. What Instead?: Reframing the Debate About Charter Schools, Teach For America, and High-Stakes Testing (Julian Vasquez Heilig / T. Jameson Brewer / Terrenda White) 225 11. They Should See Themselves as Powerful: Teacher Educators, Agency, and Resisting TPAs (Erica K. Dotson / Alison G. Dover / Nick Henning / Ruchi Agarwrwal-Rangnath) 243 Contributors 261 In Assault on Kids and Teachers, educators from across the United States push back against the neoliberal school reform movements that are taking the "public" out of public education, demonizing teachers, and stealing from youth the opportunity for an equitable, just, and holistic education. Contributors, including teachers, educational and community activists, teacher educators, critical education scholars, and others, expose how racism, economic justice, and other forms of injustice, and other forms of injustice are created and recreated both locally and nationally through educational policies more intent on turning schools into profit centers and undermining teacher unions than on strengthening public schools. Topics include the privatization of public schools, the growing influence of grit ideology on school practices, zero tolerance policies and the school-to-prison pipeline, Teach for America, the lies behind the charter school movement, and the damage TPAs are doing to teacher education. Beyond leaving critiques at these and other troubling trends and practices, though, contributors describe many sites and forms of resistance emerging in response to these assaults on kida and teachers from students, parents, and other concerned people. Asualu on Kids and Teachers is both a call for deeper understandings of anti-democratic and regressive school reform initiatives and an invitation into movements for putting the "public" back into public education.--Book cover