Hitting The Books: Educational Courage: Resisting the Ambush of Public Education

Who are the Authors? 

Nancy Schniedewind & Mara Sapon-Shevin.

What is the title?

“Educational Courage: Resisting the Ambush of Public Education.”

What is the subject? 

The book focuses on braces and presented the braces in stories of educators, students and parents across the country who have been resisting and challenging what is the privatization and standardization of education over the past 10 years. In America, public education has always been something that’s been democratic and something that’s been controlled at the local level parents, teachers school boards, local tax payers traditionally have had a major say in educational policy but now that’s totally changing.

People are being told what to do by people far away from the classroom and what they’re being told to do is not educationally sound. The book goes to the grass-root and it tells the story of teachers and parents and others and students that are challenging that and why.

How long have you been working on this?   

We’ve been working on this for about four years.

When was it published?

It was just published this month on Sept. 4.

What makes this unique?

There is no other book that collects these narratives of grassroots resistance to these policies.It has very diverse voices in terms of peoples backgrounds: some urban, some rural, different racial backgrounds, some people working as individuals, some people working in groups, it’s a collection and there is no collection like this out there.