From the New Deal to the War on Schools - (Justice, Power, and Politics) by Daniel S Moak (Hardcover)

About the Book

"In an era defined by political polarization, both major U.S. parties have come to share a remarkably similar understanding of the education system as well as a set of punitive strategies for fixing it. Combining an intellectual history of social policy with a sweeping history of the educational system, Daniel S. Moak looks beyond the rise of neoliberalism to find the origin of today's education woes in Great Society reforms"--

Book Synopsis

In an era defined by political polarization, both major U.S. parties have come to share a remarkably similar understanding of the education system as well as a set of punitive strategies for fixing it. Combining an intellectual history of social policy with a sweeping history of the educational system, Daniel S. Moak looks beyond the rise of neoliberalism to find the origin of today's education woes in Great Society reforms.

In the wake of World War II, a coalition of thinkers gained dominance in U.S. policymaking. They identified educational opportunity as the ideal means of addressing racial and economic inequality by incorporating individuals into a free market economy. The passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1965 secured an expansive federal commitment to this goal. However, when social problems failed to improve, the underlying logic led policymakers to hold schools responsible. Moak documents how a vision of education as a panacea for society's flaws led us to turn away from redistributive economic policies and down the path to market-based reforms, No Child Left Behind, mass school closures, teacher layoffs, and other policies that plague the public education system to this day.

Review Quotes

"From the New Deal to the War on Schools will be a welcome addition to the fields of policy history, African American studies, and American intellectual history. Daniel Moak's analysis of how the United States came to rely on schooling as its primary tool in addressing racial inequalities is a vital contribution to the story of American education."--Judith Kafka, Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College

"Daniel Moak has written a fresh and important reinterpretation of American education that goes far toward explaining the unceasing attacks on teachers and schools. Moak describes the ideological battles among educators and demonstrates how education leaders capitulated to a view that shifted the blame for poverty and inequality to the schools. His attention to the role of African American thinkers is especially valuable."--Diane Ravitch, author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education

"The contemporary US education system suffers from a multitude of problems: overworked and undervalued teachers, overreliance on standardized tests, and systemic racial inequality, just to name a few. Anyone seeking to understand why needs to pick up a copy of Daniel Moak's excellent book. . . . [A]n essential study in the field."--Historical Studies in Education

"The innovation of this work is a new periodization of the rise of punitive education policies and the development of these ideas among education advocates and reformers who became partners with liberal politicians. . . . Moak's synthesis of the most debated issues in education form the Progressive Era to the present provides great insight into the dismantling of the nation's public schools and the bipartisan embrace of reforms that have proven ineffective since their inception."--North Carolina Historical Review