Assault on Kids: How Hyper-Accountability, Corporatization, Deficit Ideologies, and Ruby Payne are Destroying Our Schools: 402 (Counterpoints: Studies in Criticality) - Tapa dura

"Finally a book that eschews the timid talk and middle class politeness that typically characterizes academic education analyses. If the other side can be `mad as hell and not want to take it anymore,' imagine how mad the people who are demonized and victimized by draconian and regressive policies are. Bravo to the editors for assembling such a courageous collection." (Gloria Ladson-Billings, Professor and Chair, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Kellner Family Chair in Urban Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison) "So-called `solutions' for improving public education interconnect in troubling ways - as is revealed insightfully and compellingly in this new and timely book. Ahlquist, Gorski, and Montano have assembled an impressive collection of analyses that help us to unmask what are mere symptoms of broader movements to widen educational disparities, and to imagine alternatives and interventions with insight and conviction. `Assault on Kids' should cause us to pause, and reimagine, and should be read immediately." ( Kevin Kumashiro, Author of `The Seduction of Common Sense: How the Right has Framed the Debate on America's Schools'; President-Elect of the National Association for Multicultural Education) "These are troubling times for classroom teachers and for public education. Alhquist, Gorski, and Montano have collected a series of essays that add the provocative and vibrant voices of practitioners who face the everyday realities of `hyper accountability' policies, programs and practices. These voices shed light on the dire consequences of high stakes tests, a narrow curriculum, and of the perilous `reform' efforts currently eroding the very fabric of public education. I encourage all teachers, practicing and preservice, to read this book and to build a movement to keep the `public' in public education." (David Sanchez, current President of the California Teachers Association) "The editors and authors of this volume dare to re-frame current `debates' about the nature of U.S. public schooling. Dialogues about policy and practice have devolved into sound-byte chats about increasingly narrow curricular standards, ever more efficient - rather than effective - assessments of student learning, and endless means through which teachers' work is de-professionalized. In this context, we need the mindset offered by this volume in order to counter dangerous, de-humanizing trends. This text is a primer of our best thinking about how to make our public schools places where a public is made." (Kristien Zenkov, Associate Professor, George Mason University) "Finally a book that eschews the timid talk and middle class politeness that typically characterizes academic education analyses. If the other side can be `mad as hell and not want to take it anymore,' imagine how mad the people who are demonized and victimized by draconian and regressive policies are. Bravo to the editors for assembling such a courageous collection." (Gloria Ladson-Billings, Professor and Chair, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Kellner Family Chair in Urban Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison) "So-called `solutions' for improving public education interconnect in troubling ways - as is revealed insightfully and compellingly in this new and timely book. Ahlquist, Gorski, and Montano have assembled an impressive collection of analyses that help us to unmask what are mere symptoms of broader movements to widen educational disparities, and to imagine alternatives and interventions with insight and conviction. `>Assault on Kids' should cause us to pause, and reimagine, and should be read immediately." ( Kevin Kumashiro, Author of `The Seduction of Common Sense: How the Right has Framed the Debate on America's Schools'; President-Elect of the National Association for Multicultural Education) "These are troubling times for classroom teachers and for public education. Alhquist, Gorski, and Montano have collected a series of essays that add the provocative and vibrant voices of practitioners who face the everyday realities of `hyper accountability' policies, programs and practices. These voices shed light on the dire consequences of high stakes tests, a narrow curriculum, and of the perilous `reform' efforts currently eroding the very fabric of public education. I encourage all teachers, practicing and preservice, to read this book and to build a movement to keep the `public' in public education." (David Sanchez, current President of the California Teachers Association) "The editors and authors of this volume dare to re-frame current `debates' about the nature of U.S. public schooling. Dialogues about policy and practice have devolved into sound-byte chats about increasingly narrow curricular standards, ever more efficient - rather than effective - assessments of student learning, and endless means through which teachers' work is de-professionalized. In this context, we need the mindset offered by this volume in order to counter dangerous, de-humanizing trends. This text is a primer of our best thinking about how to make our public schools places where a public is made." (Kristien Zenkov, Associate Professor, George Mason University)

Hyper-accountability, corporatization, deficit ideology, and Ruby Payne's preparation of teachers to comply with these and other atrocities are not merely markers of philosophical shifts in education. They are manifestations of a neoliberal remaking of public schooling into a private and corporate enterprise. Collectively, these trends are seen not just as an imposition, but as an assault on quality pedagogy; an assault on democratic ideals of equity and social justice; and an assault on kids compelled to participate simply because they are public school students. This edited collection is a response by critically-minded educators, activists, and scholars - both a reaction to and a call to action against these vilifications. It is critical reading for students, professors, administrators, and policy makers involved in public education.