THE DEATH OF PUBLIC SCHOOL

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.