A Political Education: Black Politics and Education Reform in Chicago since the 1960s (Justice, Power, and Politics)

Synopsis

In 2012, Chicago's school year began with the city's first teachers' strike in a quarter century and ended with the largest mass closure of public schools in U.S. history. On one side, a union leader and veteran black woman educator drew upon organizing strategies from black and Latinx communities to demand increased school resources. On the other side, the mayor, backed by the Obama administration, argued that only corporate-style education reform could set the struggling school system aright. The stark differences in positions resonated nationally, challenging the long-standing alliance between teachers' unions and the Democratic Party.Elizabeth Todd-Breland recovers the hidden history underlying this battle. She tells the story of black education reformers' community-based strategies to improve education beginning during the 1960s, as support for desegregation transformed into community control, experimental schooling models that pre-dated charter schools, and black teachers' challenges to a newly assertive teachers' union. This book reveals how these strategies collided with the burgeoning neoliberal educational apparatus during the late twentieth century, laying bare ruptures and enduring tensions between the politics of black achievement, urban inequality, and U.S. democracy.

Copyright:

2018

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

344 Pages

ISBN-13:

9781469646596

Related ISBNs:

9781469647173, 9781469646572, 9781469646589

Publisher:

The University of North Carolina Press

Date of Addition:

12/17/20

Copyrighted By:

Elizabeth Todd-Breland

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Nonfiction, Education, Social Studies, Politics and Government

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.