Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Racing to the Top, Running for the Money, and Running Away from School Funding Equity
Todd Alan Price, John Duffy and Tania Giordani
Part I Chicago Public Schools: A Business Control Laboratory
1: Commercial Club Curriculum: Big Business Against the Common School
Todd Alan Price and John Duffy
2: A Dream Deferred: The Commodification of Chicago Public Schools Under Renaissance 2010
Tania Giordani and Andrea Lee
3: Citizen Teachers and Curricular Activism
John Duffy
4: Standard Scores and Non-Standard Lives: A Recipe for Systemic Violence
Terry Jo Smith
5: Science Left Behind: Reflections from a Chicago Public School Student of Science
Theresa Robinson
Part II Vouchers, Charters, and Mayoral Takeovers: Tools of the Great School Selloff
6: Voucher Vultures: Blueprint for Restructuring Milwaukee Public Schools
Robert Miranda
7: Milwaukee League Comes to the Defense of Public Schools
Todd Alan Price
8: The Privatization Pandemic: Barbarians at the Schoolhouse Door
Geoff Berne
9: Clash Over Charter Schools in Ohio: Ted Strickland’s Challenge to the Obama-Duncan Wrecking Ball
Geoff Berne
Part III Neoliberalism: The Ideology of For-profit Public Education
10: The New Corporate Agenda: Austerity, “Shared Sacrifice” and Union Busting
Jack Gerson
11: Recovering Schools and Classrooms in the Recovery School District
Karen Roth
12: Four Hundred Years of Chartering
John Duffy
13: Rationalizing Standards, Rationing Opportunity: Neoliberalism and the Paradox of Success in Haitian and U.S. Education
Baudelaire K. Ulysse
Part IV Reclaiming Education for the Public
14: Corporate Siege and the Growing Resistance
Todd Alan Price
15: This is What Democracy Looks Like!
T.J. Mertz
Conclusion: Turning the Tide on Commercial Club “School Reform”
John Duffy and Todd Alan Price
About the Authors

About the Author

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.

Reviews

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!
*William H. Watkins, professor, University of Illinois at Chicago*

With salient political analysis from the frontlines of the struggle for public education in the United States, this collection is a must-read for educational justice workers, focusing on praxis-oriented theorizing from urban school districts in the United States. Chapters provide engaged and sharp analysis of the current punishing neoliberal landscape and examples of resistance.
*Erica R. Meiners, professor, Northeastern Illinois University*