Join us for a virtual release party and first look into THE CHOICE WE FACE: HOW SEGREGATION, RACE, AND POWER HAVE SHAPED AMERICA’S MOST CONTROVERSIAL EDUCATION REFORM (release August 10th, 2020). Jon will be joined by a guest to discuss the comprehensive history of school choice in the United States, from its birth in the 1950s as the most effective weapon against integration to its lasting impact in public schools today. An honest and meaningful examination of historical and contemporary educational policy, this book will answer questions you didn’t even know you had about the state of public education and racial equity today. This event is free and open to all, accessible through our Facebook and Youtube pages (@busboysandpoets).
Please RSVP if you are interested in purchasing a book bundle (shipping included)
The program will start out with an introduction from Busboys and Poets’ Director of Operations, Lori Barrientos Sanchez, before we get right into discussion with Jon and others to hear more about how something as simple and seemingly innocuous as school choice helped to thwart desegregation and civil rights in the United States. A movement that continues to privilege middle- to upper-class white students and families while depleting the resources for students left behind, the right to school choice has encouraged the expansion of for-profit charter schools and continues to drive inequity today. There will be time for Q&A with the audience before the end of the program.
About THE CHOICE WE FACE: A comprehensive history of school choice in the US, from its birth in the 1950s as the most effective weapon to oppose integration to its lasting impact in reshaping the public education system today. Most Americans today see school choice as their inalienable right. In THE CHOICE WE FACE, scholar Jon Hale reveals what most fail to see: school choice is grounded in a complex history of race, exclusion, and inequality. Through evaluating historic and contemporary education policies, Hale demonstrates how reframing the way we see school choice represents an opportunity to evolve from complicity to action.The idea of school choice, which emerged in the 1950s during the civil rights movement, was disguised by American rhetoric as a symbol of freedom and individualism. Shaped by the ideas of conservative economist Milton Friedman, the school choice movement was a weapon used to oppose integration and maintain racist and classist inequalities. Still supported by Democrats and Republicans alike, this policy continues to shape American education in nuanced ways, Hale shows--from the expansion of for-profit charter schools and civil rights-based reform efforts to the appointment of Betsy DeVos.
Jon N. Hale is a professor of educational history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an advocate for quality public education. Hale’s research in education has been published in The Atlantic, CNN.com, Education Week, the American Scholar, and the African American Intellectual History Series. His books include THE FREEDOM SCHOOLS and TO WRITE IN THE LIGHT OF FREEDOM.
