The Fight for America’s Schools: Grassroots Organizing in Education

In The Fight for America’s Schools, Barbara Ferman brings together a diverse group of contributors to investigate how parents, communities, teachers, unions, and students are mobilizing to oppose market-based reforms in education. Drawing on a series of rich case studies, the book illustrates how disparate groups can forge new alliances to work together toward common goals.

The Fight for America’s Schools tackles recent changes in the landscape of education policy that have prompted significant alterations in the politics of education. Collectively, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, the Common Core State Standards, and now the Every Student Succeeds Act have chipped away at the traditional center of community control-a trend reinforced by the charter movement, school closures, and state takeovers of some urban schools. At the same time, market-based reforms have sparked resistance from teachers, parents, students, and community groups.

The book explores grassroots organizing campaigns in mid-Atlantic cities and suburbs, describing the reconfiguration of historical alliances, the mobilization of new organizations, and the potential for new coalitions that provide a countervailing force to establish political configurations and strive to preserve education as a public good.