Todd Alan Price – författare

Students of education are aware of the story of public education, of legendary figures like Horace Mann riding from district to district trying to improve the American school by establishing a common school fund and developing teacher-training programs. Those who followed worked hard to broaden the mission and refine the institution. While advancing the distribution of textbooks, developing curriculum materials and employing testing tools, even as early as 1845, standardized testing was used to see if it all worked. Advocates used the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 to make accessible to all an education of worth for social advancement. Yet today's No Child Left Behind Act, signed in 2002 is, ironically so, a reform driven not by the advocates, but by public education's most ardent detractors. NCLB appears to be an attempt to change the public education system fundamentally, from the perspective that it is broken, its mission in need of radical revision.

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?

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?

This books takes a deep dive into the historic, sociopolitical, and economic interests that have resulted in a frontal assault on the very governance of public education.Recent decades have seen dramatic changes in the landscape of American public education, including the closure of local schools, elimination of teachers’ unions, and local school board takeover attempts. In order to explore the social and political motivations behind these changes, the contributors address questions such as: What tactics are being used to drive this paradigm shift where teachers are the enemy, and schools are harming kids? What events in this sociopolitical moment right now make it ripe for dismantling the democratic experiment of public education? In an age of sound bites and instant news, how can the nuanced—and sometimes hypocritical—narrative supporting public education compete for attention with the seductive, political pablum of reactionary groups?The voices in these chapters include those of curriculum theorists, policy analysts, education practitioners and leaders, and parents—all of whom engage in forms of activism at the local and/or national level.