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 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.