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4.0 

Cutting School

By Noliwe Rooks & Diane Ravitch
Cutting School by Noliwe Rooks & Diane Ravitch digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

2018 Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award (Nonfiction) Finalist

A timely indictment of the corporate takeover of education and the privatization—and profitability—of separate and unequal schools, published at a critical time in the dismantling of public education in America

"An astounding look at America's segregated school system, weaving together historical dynamics of race, class, and growing inequality into one concise and commanding story. Cutting School puts our schools at the center of the fight for a new commons."
—Naomi Klein, author of No Is Not Enough and This Changes Everything

Public schools are among America's greatest achievements in modern history, yet from the earliest days of tax-supported education—today a sector with an estimated budget of over half a billion dollars—there have been intractable tensions tied to race and poverty. Now, in an era characterized by levels of school segregation the country has not seen since the mid-twentieth century, cultural critic and American studies professor Noliwe Rooks provides a trenchant analysis of our separate and unequal schools and argues that profiting from our nation's failure to provide a high-quality education to all children has become a very big business.

Cutting School deftly traces the financing of segregated education in America, from reconstruction through Brown v. Board of Education up to the current controversies around school choice, teacher quality, the school-to-prison pipeline, and more, to elucidate the course we are on today: the wholesale privatization of our schools. Rooks's incisive critique breaks down the fraught landscape of "segrenomics," showing how experimental solutions to the so-called achievement gaps—including charters, vouchers, and cyber schools—rely on, profit from, and ultimately exacerbate disturbingly high levels of racial and economic segregation under the guise of providing equal opportunity.

Rooks chronicles the making and unmaking of public education and the disastrous impact of funneling public dollars to private for-profit and nonprofit operations. As the infrastructure crumbles, a number of major U.S. cities are poised to permanently dismantle their public school systems—the very foundation of our multicultural democracy. Yet Rooks finds hope and promise in the inspired individuals and powerful movements fighting to save urban schools.

A comprehensive, compelling account of what's truly at stake in the relentless push to deregulate and privatize, Cutting School is a cri de coeur for all of us to resist educational apartheid in America.

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19 Reviews

4.0
“A must read- basically our education system is being run by capitalism and politics. I really enjoyed the historical component of this novel- the author brought us back prior to Brown v Board of Education and the fall out of that legislation. They went into depth about virtual schools, the popularity of charter schooling, the allure of private education, and the demise (depending on where you live) of public schooling. All in all, our whole system is so messed up.”
“A powerful indictment of the American public education system providing the necessary historical context that American education has always been predicated on the miseducation of Black and Brown children. Rooks' writing is compulsively readable, and she compiles so many anecdotes and research studies about education from all angles, from the little local schoolhouses to the virtual classroom. I'd recommend this for anyone interested in Black history and education. Some takeaways: - "Segrenomics...[is] the business of profiting specially from high levels of racial and economic segregation." In the case of education, refusing to educate Black children has been and continues to be profitable. - Philanthropy is another instance of how White elites profit from Black children. Organizations like Teach for America, which purport to innovate in education by supplying "highly qualified teachers" (read: recent idealistic college graduates from elite institutions like Brown and Yale) to understaffed, suffering schools, are maintaining the status quo in which Black and Brown children don't get the same resources as their White peers and have to deal with this constant rotation of new undertrained teachers. Also: "the organization generally charges between $2,000 and $5,000 in finder's fees for every teacher they supply to a school district." Basically, these organizations are taking federal money and claiming that they can educate better in a more cost-effective way and pocketing the difference. This makes sense when you look at the boards of these organizations: they're filled with tech billionaires and hedge fund investors. -From the beginning, America has held the opinion that "Black people have to be invested in their own future" and so literally made Black communities coming out of slavery match the amount of money that White philanthropists were giving to build schools for Black children. And then, they'd take tax money that Black taxpayers were contributing to and give them to White children while ignoring the decrepit buildings and lack of resources that Black children were subjected to (see: the voucher system). - Brown v Board of Education came as a compilation of violations of Black students' access to education. Even when desegregation was mandated, White parents simply chose to leave the school district for Whiter suburban pastures and/or White only private schools called segregation academies. The same thing is still happening today. - There was an interesting segment on Annette Polly Williams, "the mother of school choice" who championed the use of vouchers for Milwaukee's Black school district. She thought it would be a way to uplift low-income Black families, but clearly this didn't come to be, and people still used her name and image to boost the reputation of vouchers. Later in her life, Williams expressed regret for her choice to support vouchers, but this isn't discussed nearly enough. - There is no way in hell anyone actually thought virtual school would be a good thing for anyone, especially low-income Black and Brown students, yet here we are. - The prosecution of Black and Brown parents that register their children in Whiter, wealthier school districts indicates the state's willingness to criminalize only certain parents wanting better educations for their children (never the White ones--and dare I say it--and the Asian ones). It's to the point that schools hire investigators to follow children back home from school to see if they're actually living in the address they claim. - Never forget to discuss resistance movements! I will name drop the Philadelphia Student Union resisting Edison Schools' attempt to take over a Philadelphia school district and the Urban Youth Collaborative + Journey for Justice organizations in New York fighting against the harsh physical violence unleashed on Black students, the closing of local schools, and the privatization of schools. Please read this book! It's so necessary in this age until abolition is achieved.”

About Noliwe Rooks

Noliwe Rooks is the director of American studies at Cornell University and was for ten years the associate director of African American studies at Princeton University. She is the author of Cutting School (The New Press) as well as White Money/Black Power and Hair Raising. She lives in Ithaca, New York.

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