Why don't our schools work? Ewing tackles this question from a new angle- what if they're actually doing what they were built to do? She argues that instead of being the great equalizer, America's classrooms were designed to do the opposite- to maintain our inequalities. It's a task at which they excel.
"When I teach courses on education policy and race, I always begin on the first day of class by asking my students a simple question- What is the purpose of schools?"
If all children could just get an education, the logic goes, they would have the same opportunities later in life. But this historical tour-de-force makes it clear that the opposite is true- the educational system has played an instrumental role in creating racial hierarchies, preparing children to expect unequal treatment throughout their lives.
In Original Sins, Ewing demonstrates that schools were designed to propagate the idea of white intellectual superiority, to "civilize" Native students and to prepare Black students for menial labor. Schools were not an afterthought for the "founding fathers"; they were envisioned by Thomas Jefferson to fortify the country's racial hierarchy. And while those dynamics are less overt now than they were in centuries past, Ewing shows that they persist in a curriculum that continues to minimize the horrors of American history. Ewing argues that the most insidious aspects of the system are under the radar- standardized testing, tracking, school discipline, and access to resources.
By demonstrating that it's in the DNA of American schools to serve as an effective, and under-acknowledged, mechanism maintaining inequality in this country today, Ewing makes the case that there should be a profound re-evaluation of what schools are supposed to do, and for whom. This book will change the way people understand the place they send their children for eight hours a day.
