Defending Public Education from Corporate Takeover

Todd Alan Price, Ph.D., is director of leadership and specialized roles at National Louis University. An associate professor of education, his interests include educational policy, service learning, co-teaching, and the history and philosophy of education in the United States of America, Cuba, and the People’s Republic of China, where he has lived, studied, and taught.John Duffy, Ed.D., is a retired high school social studies and English teacher. He has been instructing school leaders and teachers in Chicago Public Schools for the last six years. His research, writing, and advocacy throughout his career have been on behalf of progressive teacher unionism, critical multicultural education, and diversity equity in school programs and curriculum. Tania Giordani, Ed.D., is a professor of adult education at the College of Lake County, where she currently serves as a department chair for adult basic education and general education development. She is an advocate for equal access to quality education for all children and uses Theater of the Oppressed to engage parents, students, and community members in conversations about the current state of public education.

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!

• ForewordPrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Racing to the Top, Running for the Money, and Running Away from School Funding EquityTodd Alan Price, John Duffy and Tania GiordaniPart I Chicago Public Schools: A Business Control Laboratory1: Commercial Club Curriculum: Big Business Against the Common SchoolTodd Alan Price and John Duffy2: A Dream Deferred: The Commodification of Chicago Public Schools Under Renaissance 2010Tania Giordani and Andrea Lee3: Citizen Teachers and Curricular ActivismJohn Duffy4: Standard Scores and Non-Standard Lives: A Recipe for Systemic ViolenceTerry Jo Smith5: Science Left Behind: Reflections from a Chicago Public School Student of ScienceTheresa RobinsonPart II Vouchers, Charters, and Mayoral Takeovers: Tools of the Great School Selloff6: Voucher Vultures: Blueprint for Restructuring Milwaukee Public SchoolsRobert Miranda7: Milwaukee League Comes to the Defense of Public SchoolsTodd Alan Price8: The Privatization Pandemic: Barbarians at the Schoolhouse DoorGeoff Berne9: Clash Over Charter Schools in Ohio: Ted Strickland’s Challenge to the Obama-Duncan Wrecking BallGeoff BernePart III Neoliberalism: The Ideology of For-profit Public Education10: The New Corporate Agenda: Austerity, “Shared Sacrifice” and Union BustingJack Gerson11: Recovering Schools and Classrooms in the Recovery School District Karen Roth12: Four Hundred Years of CharteringJohn Duffy13: Rationalizing Standards, Rationing Opportunity: Neoliberalism and the Paradox of Success in Haitian and U.S. EducationBaudelaire K. UlyssePart IV Reclaiming Education for the Public 14: Corporate Siege and the Growing ResistanceTodd Alan Price15: This is What Democracy Looks Like!T.J. MertzConclusion: Turning the Tide on Commercial Club “School Reform”John Duffy and Todd Alan PriceAbout the Authors