06/26/2023
Pulitzer winner Fitzpatrick’s informative debut outlines the recent history of public education reform, detailing the intellectual underpinnings and political wrangling behind successive movements for school privatization. Beginning in the 1960s, she notes, school vouchers and similar programs were developed to “sidestep” integration, allowing white students to opt in to segregated private schools in the South, an idea that spread across the country but “remained deeply unpopular”—and rarely implemented—because of how it would have diverted taxpayer dollars to Catholic institutions. (Catholic intellectuals, like political scientist and Jesuit priest Virgil Blum, became strong proponents of voucher systems.) In the 1990s, charter schools and their promise of “school choice” became a far more successful method of diverting resources from public education. Promoted in a 1988 speech by Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the concept of a charter—a small, experimental “school within a school”—caught on like “wildfire,” according to Fitzpatrick. Rather than functioning as teaching laboratories, however, most charters were coopted by the forces of privatization and established as “competitors of the traditional public school”; by 1993, Shanker was referring to charters as a “gimmick.” Meticulously drawn from years of archival research, this is a lucid and thorough study of a hot-button issue. (Aug.)
"Opens with a superb survey of the political, cultural, legal and natural forces undermining public trust in our nation’s schools... The book is a timely history of a movement that could reshape American education and set off explosive policy debates for many years."—New York Times
Best Summer Book of 2023—Financial Times
"An extraordinary achievement...thoroughly researched."—C-SPAN
"The Death of Public School manages to provide grounding context to the labyrinthine journey of the school-choice movement, profiling both the well-known figures and the less familiar activists, lawyers, educators, and parents on both sides who have shaped this war. In Fitzpatrick’s capable hands, a sequel would certainly be much appreciated." —Booklist
"Meticulously drawn from years of archival research, this is a lucid and thorough study of a hot-button issue."—Publishers Weekly
"A cohesive study of America’s path to increasingly politicized—and privatized—education."—Kirkus
"A great addition to education and behavioral sciences collections." —Library Journal
"Cara Fitzpatrick has written a remarkable book on the decades long battle over school choice. Deeply researched and beautifully written, this is a story of the calculating lawmakers and surprising political alliances who have redefined public education with profound implications for families, communities, and the nation. This is a must-read book for anyone who cares about the future of education in America."—Matthew F. Delmont, Dartmouth College and author of Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad
"The Death of Public School is history at its best, unfurling a remarkable, troubling tale. In chilling detail, Cara Fitzpatrick lays out how in plain sight the conservatives have worked to dismantle public education. In this recounting, Fitzpatrick has issued a clarion call, to renew our public commitment to providing an equitable and rigorous schooling for all."—Alex Kotlowitz, author of An American Summer
"Cara Fitzpatrick has produced a crucial political history of the movement that, often quietly, has threatened the public nature of America's education system. The Death of Public School is timely, carefully researched, and critically important."—Dana Goldstein, author of The Teacher Wars: A History of America's Most Embattled Profession
08/01/2023
Pulitzer Prize winner Fitzpatrick (editor, Chalkbeat) focuses on the United States' public school system, designed to educate all children but currently facing declining enrollment, diminished public trust, and cuts in government funding. The book notes that conservatives are successfully diverting government funds for private and chartered schools that have different and even oppositional curriculums. In the 1960s, Wisconsin passed the first bureaucratic funding of school vouchers, and more states followed suit. Although the author does not interview people who actually work in or design school systems, her personal interviews with students are quite revealing. They show how limited the options are for disadvantaged learners, often assigned to low performance classes or segregated in public schools with lower expectations of performance. Also enlightening from other interviews is the desperation of parents to procure funds to move their child to any school that would give them a better education. VERDICT This book does not offer any solutions or suggest any governmental or educational policies that would solve the problems it identifies, but will still likely appeal to general readers. A great addition to education and behavioral sciences collections.—Claude Ury
2023-04-04
A Pulitzer Prize–winning education journalist follows the recent history of education movements in America.
In a landscape of declining trust in public schools, Fitzpatrick examines how public education has been radically redefined in the U.S. since the 1950s. From the South’s campaigns of “massive resistance” to desegregation that followed Brown v. Board of Education, she traces the country’s trajectory toward today’s understanding of “school choice.” Along the way, she delves into contentious movements for and against school vouchers, religious education, charter schools, and standardized testing along with these movements’ entanglement with racial biases, civil rights, church-state separation, and free market principles. Instead of the characters most regularly discussed in the media’s coverage of education—e.g., superintendents, school boards, teacher unions, and philanthropists enamored with charter schools—Fitzpatrick details the outsized influence of several less-familiar figures, such as the Jesuit priest Rev. Virgil Blum, Wisconsin state Rep. Annette “Polly” Williams, and conservative attorney Clint Bolick. Fitzpatrick’s substantial coverage of unlikely political alliances, granular explanation of legal battles, and detailed accounts of education legislation tempers the potential sensationalism of her subtitle: Rather than a tidal wave of conservatism, America’s current education system has been shaped by narrow wins, compromises, technicalities, and a few key pivotal moments—e.g., rebuilding the New Orleans school system in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. More textbook-style history than analysis, the book leaves Fitzpatrick’s driving questions about the role of individual liberty, government measurement and accountability, and the importance of education itself largely unanswered, and the narrative sometimes feels like more of a synthesis of materials rather than something new and incisive. Nevertheless, it is sure to be a valuable resource for anyone who studies public education, as the author offers sufficient context for divisions that went before and go beyond today’s partisan arguments over curriculum, merit pay, or online learning.
A cohesive study of America’s path to increasingly politicized—and privatized—education.
