Education and the Crisis of Public Values: Challenging the Assault on Teachers, Students, & Public Education

Education and the Crisis of Public Values examines the shift in American society away from democratic public values, the ensuing move toward a market-driven mode of education, and the growing social disinvestment in youth in the last decade. The book... Read more

Education and the Crisis of Public Values examines the shift in American society away from democratic public values, the ensuing move toward a market-driven mode of education, and the growing social disinvestment in youth in the last decade. The book examines how the ideal of public education as a democratic public sphere, has been under siege in a number of ways, including full fledged attacks by corporate interests on public school teachers, schools of education, and teacher unions. The book also examines how a business culture cloaked in the guise of generosity and reform has supported a charter school movement that takes as its aim the dismantling of public schools in favor of a corporate-friendly privatized system. The book concludes by arguing for educators to take on the role of public intellectuals willing to engage in creating a formative culture of learning capable of nurturing the capacities to defend public and higher education as a public good crucial to sustaining a critical citizenry and a democratic society. Central to the book is the issue of what is now required for educators, parents, and concerned citizens to align education with a defense of public values, critical education to a defense of public life, and the construction of young people as individual and social agents responsible to the ideals of a democratic society. Less