Many voices speak from the pages of Defending Public Education from Corporate Takeover, the new book edited by Todd Alan Price (University Press of America). These are voices of academics and activists, teachers and parents. One message comes through loud and clear. This is not just a battle for what goes on in school. This is a battle for democracy, for what kind of society we will live in.
The essays in this book form a broad range of topics and geographical areas. While focusing on rust belt Chicago and Milwaukee with a side trip to Ohio, the book takes up the examples of Haiti and New Orleans for comparison.
There is a resistance narrative in the book, one which shows how communities are fighting the effects of austerity valiantly. The victory over vouchers and mayoral takeover in Milwaukee is rendered bittersweet by the statewide political tactics of Governor Scott Walker.
Some of the authors look beyond the immediacy of the battle or the classroom to engage larger issues. Terry Jo Smith describes her experiences with the structure of standardized testing as terrorism and systemic violence, and “because the source is outside of the education system itself, it must be fought in the national political arena.” Jack Gerson argues that austerity budgets – “do more with less” – inevitably exacerbates poverty, homelessness and contributes to the decline in education. Even more, it concentrates more power in the hands of the corporations, which really is their “New Corporate Agenda.”
Todd Alan Price, in “Corporate Siege and Growing Resistance,” points out that the election of President Obama, despite his affirmation that “. . .change has come to America,” solidified an educational policy that “mirrored Wall Street’s interests.” Price and his co-editors John Duffy and Tania Giordani describe the assault on public education as the Commercial Club Curriculum. This refers to the leading elements of capital that guide Chicago’s financial and industrial community and have engineered the restructuring of education within a wider plan for the city.
In the concluding essay, Duffy and Price argue that there is a democratic curriculum model, distinguished from the model of the Commercial Club, a “curriculum for expanding popular democracy” and for “envisioning schools as liberatory organizations.” There is a caveat, however, that pervades the pages of this volume: despite the battles that have retarded the attacks on public education, the corporate and state monitored assault continues to undermine not only education but the rights and welfare of the people.
This book is an important weapon in learning the defensive tactics to oppose the corporate takeover of education. It has much to teach about the need for holding the government responsible for providing for the interests of the people.
