Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools

Description

From one of the foremost authorities on education and the history of education in the United States, "whistleblower extraordinaire" (The Wall Street Journal), former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education, author of the best-selling Reign of Error ("fearless"—Jonathan Kozol, NYRB)—an impassioned, inspiring look at the ways in which parents, teachers, activists—citizens—are successfully fighting back to defeat the forces that are privatizing America's public schools. Diane Ravitch writes of those who have privatized the schools, the Disrupters, who believe America's schools should be run like businesses, with teachers incentivized with threats and bonuses, and schools that need to enter into the age of the gig economy in which children are treated like customers or products. She writes of the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, the Waltons (Walmart), Eli Broad, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg, and many more, on the...