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Class War: The Privatization of Childhood
What America has at stake when some children go to school hungry and others ride in $1,000 strollers
In an age of austerity, elite corporate education reformers have found new ways to transfer the costs of raising children from the state to individual families. Public schools, tasked with providing education, childcare, job training, meals, and social services to low-income children, struggle with cutbacks. Meanwhile, private schools promise to nurture the minds and personalities of future professionals to the tune of $40,000 a year. As Class War reveals, this situation didn’t happen by chance.
In the media, educational success is framed as a consequence of parental choices and natural abilities. In truth the wealthy are ever more able to secure advantages for their children, deepening the rifts between rich and poor. The longer these divisions persist, the worse the consequences.
Drawing on Erickson’s own experience as a teacher in the New York City school system, Class War reveals how modern education has become the real “hunger games,” stealing opportunity and hope from disadvantaged children for the benefit of the well-to-do.
In an age of austerity, elite corporate education reformers have found new ways to transfer the costs of raising children from the state to individual families. Public schools, tasked with providing education, childcare, job training, meals, and social services to low-income children, struggle with cutbacks. Meanwhile, private schools promise to nurture the minds and personalities of future professionals to the tune of $40,000 a year. As Class War reveals, this situation didn’t happen by chance.
In the media, educational success is framed as a consequence of parental choices and natural abilities. In truth the wealthy are ever more able to secure advantages for their children, deepening the rifts between rich and poor. The longer these divisions persist, the worse the consequences.
Drawing on Erickson’s own experience as a teacher in the New York City school system, Class War reveals how modern education has become the real “hunger games,” stealing opportunity and hope from disadvantaged children for the benefit of the well-to-do.
240 pages, Paperback
First published March 10, 2015
14 people are currently reading
738 people want to read
About the author
Megan Erickson
2 books5 followersMegan Erickson is an editor at Jacobin magazine and the assistant director of a youth services program. She was formerly an editor and blogger at Big Think, and has taught in both public and private schools in New York City. She lives in Brooklyn.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
October 2, 2015
This book is fascinating, occasionally for the right reasons, and far too often for the wrong.
To start: this is not at all a book about 'the privatization of childhood,' despite the subtitle and introduction. It is about the history and present of American educational policy. I confess to being bit upset about this; as a recent father, who is deeply disgusted with the baby industry in all its guises (education being one of them), I was hoping for more on that specifically. But no real harm done.
Then there's the classic dilemma of a leftist analysis of anything; the argument must always be that the only solution is a total overhaul of our racist, sexist, capitalist society--but this book, like all similar books, is not content with making that case. It also shows how awful everything is with American education: the inequalities, the inhumanities, the poor treatment of students and teachers alike. And once those issues have been raised, I, at least, find it difficult not to ask, well, what can we do about those inequalities and inhumanities short of socialist revolution? What can I do, right now?
That's not necessarily fair; Erickson might just be writing this book to alert us to problems in American education. But...
Erickson quotes some very interesting figures: "research shows that less than 30 percent of students' academic achievement is even attributable to schools," and even conservative economists have "calculated the effects of teacher quality as accounting for only 7.5 percent of variation in student achievement." So, schools and teachers matter very little in educational achievement, okay. Why, then, should we care that so many poor students go to decrepit schools? It literally makes no difference! Let's just give up!
Of course, that's not the lesson here. Those figures are quoted in a chapter dedicated to defending teachers from the incessant demands of politicians and bureaucrats, and quite right, too: teachers can only do a little, but they get punished when students fail.
But on the very next page Erickson attacks a government initiative to keep experienced and qualified teachers in schools attended by poorer students. Why? Because it dares to suggest that teachers can make a difference. In other words, even though this initiative really could make a small difference, and help disadvantaged kids, Erickson opposes it because it isn't theoretically perfect.
If you're going to oppose theoretically imperfect, but practically beneficial policies, I want to hear your policies. And Erickson's are confusing, to say the least.
Although she's rightly hard on those who suggest that education will improve when teachers, students and parents just kind of try harder, she has a similarly hand-wavy wish to make education more 'empathetic' and less 'competitive.' There's some Vygotsky quoting here, naturally, but why should "be nicer to each other" be any more socially effective than "try harder"? It's the same move, with more collectivist language.
Similarly, she accepts that parents can't be asked to make personal sacrifices: the problems with American education won't be solved by rich parents sending their kids to bad public schools, even if a world existed in which that was plausible. Instead, she argues, this is a decision that has to be made democratically. But that is meaningless: if the decision is made democratically, the richer parents will vote to send their kids to better schools. There is a republican solution, in which everyone comes together and decides that the best thing for the society as a whole is universal, egalitarian education, but that is unlikely to come from any democratic process. In short, Erickson knows that rich people won't act against their interests, but insists that they will vote against their interests. This is not so. There are real, big problems that democracy cannot solve.
Finally, this book is a great advertisement for the rhetorical bankruptcy of the left. By far the best section of the book is Erickson's attack on home-schooling, unschooling, and their focus on personal authenticity and liberation from control. But Erickson struggles to free herself from these concepts: school, she thinks, should teach students to rebel against an unjust society. Students should not be thought of as receptacles for knowledge, but as active learners. And so on.
I wish more people would rebel against injustice; I wish students could be active learners. But school is also a place to learn the skills one needs to function in the world we have. If you can't function in the world, you cannot change it. And we do need concrete changes. The most obvious is a change to the funding structure of schools in the U.S.: cut the link between school funding and property tax (which Erickson argues for, effectively). Raise teachers' salaries, and provide what students need (books, small classrooms, adequate after-school care) rather than what is bright and shiny. My sister-in-law works at a fairly wealthy school in California. All of her students have an ipad. But she had to crowd-source funding for markers.
This book is worth reading, but would have been much more worth reading had it toned down the rhetoric, accepted partial solutions, and just considered the possibility that child-centered learning and its corollaries might be doing more harm than good.
To start: this is not at all a book about 'the privatization of childhood,' despite the subtitle and introduction. It is about the history and present of American educational policy. I confess to being bit upset about this; as a recent father, who is deeply disgusted with the baby industry in all its guises (education being one of them), I was hoping for more on that specifically. But no real harm done.
Then there's the classic dilemma of a leftist analysis of anything; the argument must always be that the only solution is a total overhaul of our racist, sexist, capitalist society--but this book, like all similar books, is not content with making that case. It also shows how awful everything is with American education: the inequalities, the inhumanities, the poor treatment of students and teachers alike. And once those issues have been raised, I, at least, find it difficult not to ask, well, what can we do about those inequalities and inhumanities short of socialist revolution? What can I do, right now?
That's not necessarily fair; Erickson might just be writing this book to alert us to problems in American education. But...
Erickson quotes some very interesting figures: "research shows that less than 30 percent of students' academic achievement is even attributable to schools," and even conservative economists have "calculated the effects of teacher quality as accounting for only 7.5 percent of variation in student achievement." So, schools and teachers matter very little in educational achievement, okay. Why, then, should we care that so many poor students go to decrepit schools? It literally makes no difference! Let's just give up!
Of course, that's not the lesson here. Those figures are quoted in a chapter dedicated to defending teachers from the incessant demands of politicians and bureaucrats, and quite right, too: teachers can only do a little, but they get punished when students fail.
But on the very next page Erickson attacks a government initiative to keep experienced and qualified teachers in schools attended by poorer students. Why? Because it dares to suggest that teachers can make a difference. In other words, even though this initiative really could make a small difference, and help disadvantaged kids, Erickson opposes it because it isn't theoretically perfect.
If you're going to oppose theoretically imperfect, but practically beneficial policies, I want to hear your policies. And Erickson's are confusing, to say the least.
Although she's rightly hard on those who suggest that education will improve when teachers, students and parents just kind of try harder, she has a similarly hand-wavy wish to make education more 'empathetic' and less 'competitive.' There's some Vygotsky quoting here, naturally, but why should "be nicer to each other" be any more socially effective than "try harder"? It's the same move, with more collectivist language.
Similarly, she accepts that parents can't be asked to make personal sacrifices: the problems with American education won't be solved by rich parents sending their kids to bad public schools, even if a world existed in which that was plausible. Instead, she argues, this is a decision that has to be made democratically. But that is meaningless: if the decision is made democratically, the richer parents will vote to send their kids to better schools. There is a republican solution, in which everyone comes together and decides that the best thing for the society as a whole is universal, egalitarian education, but that is unlikely to come from any democratic process. In short, Erickson knows that rich people won't act against their interests, but insists that they will vote against their interests. This is not so. There are real, big problems that democracy cannot solve.
Finally, this book is a great advertisement for the rhetorical bankruptcy of the left. By far the best section of the book is Erickson's attack on home-schooling, unschooling, and their focus on personal authenticity and liberation from control. But Erickson struggles to free herself from these concepts: school, she thinks, should teach students to rebel against an unjust society. Students should not be thought of as receptacles for knowledge, but as active learners. And so on.
I wish more people would rebel against injustice; I wish students could be active learners. But school is also a place to learn the skills one needs to function in the world we have. If you can't function in the world, you cannot change it. And we do need concrete changes. The most obvious is a change to the funding structure of schools in the U.S.: cut the link between school funding and property tax (which Erickson argues for, effectively). Raise teachers' salaries, and provide what students need (books, small classrooms, adequate after-school care) rather than what is bright and shiny. My sister-in-law works at a fairly wealthy school in California. All of her students have an ipad. But she had to crowd-source funding for markers.
This book is worth reading, but would have been much more worth reading had it toned down the rhetoric, accepted partial solutions, and just considered the possibility that child-centered learning and its corollaries might be doing more harm than good.
August 11, 2015
I received a copy for review from netgalley.
This book struck a chord with me. It directly correlates with my experiences with the "competitive" nature of Chicago Public Schools.
My sister taught at a historically African American H.S. in the inner city. She asked me to send my White suburban daughter to this school. My daughter was the first White student to graduate from this school in almost a century. I can verify everything that was written about in Class Wars is happening.
The Magnet and Charter schools bleed off the best and the brightest after the yearly testing, or academic competitions; and then the poor schools are punished for being unable to bring up the scores. The schools put a tremendous amount of work in bringing up the scores of underachieving students, and then are told that the students "tested out" of their neighborhood schools, and will be attending the "smart school." When my daughter won gold medals in the academic decathlon, "academic recruiters" from High Schools, all over the city, wanted to have lunch to recruit my daughter into the Charter and Magnet Schools. It is easy to have a great school, with great scores, if the system is rigged.
The entire system is set up so that each of the schools cannabalize the schools underneath them; with the minority schools at the bottom. These schools are set up for failure because the magnet, and charter schools, receive the lion share of resources. This is based on the principle that these schools are more productive. Which creates a self defeating prophecy; lower scores mean fewer resources being allocated.
Megan Erickson has written a powerful indictment of the privatization of the school systems. For the most part, this system has been created to funnel public resources to creating elite schools for the wealthy; and make sure the vast majority of minorities, and the poor, only receive educations good enough to be good workers. In essence, to continue the status quo.
This is a must read for any parent, educator, or politician. The inequities of the funding of wealthy and poor schools needs to be addressed.
This book struck a chord with me. It directly correlates with my experiences with the "competitive" nature of Chicago Public Schools.
My sister taught at a historically African American H.S. in the inner city. She asked me to send my White suburban daughter to this school. My daughter was the first White student to graduate from this school in almost a century. I can verify everything that was written about in Class Wars is happening.
The Magnet and Charter schools bleed off the best and the brightest after the yearly testing, or academic competitions; and then the poor schools are punished for being unable to bring up the scores. The schools put a tremendous amount of work in bringing up the scores of underachieving students, and then are told that the students "tested out" of their neighborhood schools, and will be attending the "smart school." When my daughter won gold medals in the academic decathlon, "academic recruiters" from High Schools, all over the city, wanted to have lunch to recruit my daughter into the Charter and Magnet Schools. It is easy to have a great school, with great scores, if the system is rigged.
The entire system is set up so that each of the schools cannabalize the schools underneath them; with the minority schools at the bottom. These schools are set up for failure because the magnet, and charter schools, receive the lion share of resources. This is based on the principle that these schools are more productive. Which creates a self defeating prophecy; lower scores mean fewer resources being allocated.
Megan Erickson has written a powerful indictment of the privatization of the school systems. For the most part, this system has been created to funnel public resources to creating elite schools for the wealthy; and make sure the vast majority of minorities, and the poor, only receive educations good enough to be good workers. In essence, to continue the status quo.
This is a must read for any parent, educator, or politician. The inequities of the funding of wealthy and poor schools needs to be addressed.
March 23, 2021
Class War is a socialist critique of the crisis of U.S. (elementary) education. The title succinctly sums up the theme of this book: socio-economic class inequality inevitably leads to classroom inequality. Those already familiar with critiques of capitalism are unlikely to find anything particularly new here, but I'm not sure we are Erickson's intended audience. The intended audience is "well meaning" policy makers from both sides of the aisle who purport to care about children, but whose "solutions" to the crisis systematically undermine student success.
November 2, 2015
This book is so poignant and covers one of the most important topics that permeates society today. I love that Erickson uses extensive research to point out the major problems plaguing the school and societal systems of education in the U.S. AND pulled from her educator experience as well. I'm a second year high school teacher that truly wants the best for students and am continually trying to improve my own approach to instruction and involvement. I feel the drag placed on teachers personally and financially - but I WANT to continue to teach regardless. Erickson writes about the importance of everyone caring for ALL children, theirs and others, in a true communal approach to education. I hope more voices in prominent places feel the same way as her and that they will be heard and heeded.
December 31, 2023
“What is at stake when some children go to school hungry, and others go to school in $1,000 strollers?”
A deft explication of the American school system as the site of unequal class relations, aspects of which are all too easily mapped onto the UK’s. Erickson demonstrates how the recent history of education reform, and contemporary middle- and upper-class parenting, are intertwined with the neoliberal project. A situation in which schools are modelled on corporations and corporations are even involved in the design of schools, to the detriment of pupils and teachers. Where schools become factories solely for the creation of future workers. A rallying cry for the importance of radical pedagogy as a liberating force not just for children, but for all.
A deft explication of the American school system as the site of unequal class relations, aspects of which are all too easily mapped onto the UK’s. Erickson demonstrates how the recent history of education reform, and contemporary middle- and upper-class parenting, are intertwined with the neoliberal project. A situation in which schools are modelled on corporations and corporations are even involved in the design of schools, to the detriment of pupils and teachers. Where schools become factories solely for the creation of future workers. A rallying cry for the importance of radical pedagogy as a liberating force not just for children, but for all.
June 28, 2017
Probably a little bit strange for someone with no children and no plans on ever having children to even pick up this book, but one of its main points reaffirmed my reading it, and that is this: The American school system as it is currently run is based on a free-market, capitalist system. The schools is affluent areas get more funding and thus the rich get richer and have all the opportunities while the poor stay poor and have less and less opportunities. While this is no shock to anyone, what this does for parents is it forces them to treat their children as personal property or assets, looking out only for their OWN children's best interests, not the interests of children (and thus society) collectively. Shouldn't we, as a society, want ALL of our children to succeed? And should we be at all surprised when we pit them against one another right from the get-go, that they turn out to be greedy, capitalist assholes when they get older? Maybe a school system that focuses more on the collective would be just a bit better. Food for thought.
March 20, 2016
For an issue that I'm already sympathetic to, the author fails to provide any realistic solutions. Instead she depends on cheap political talking points and buzzwords to drum up anger in the reader so they get behind her proposal of complete societal and political change (and not just in relation to education). The most frustrating part is that she seems to have strong evidence of how we need to evolve our education system, but she doesn't translate it into reasonable proposals. I'm not suggesting she should have refrained from advocating large scale change, but something more practical than political and societal revolution would have made this more palatable. The author lets her anger get in the way of her argument, which is too bad because this book will likely never get read beyond the people who are already interested in this topic.
As a side note, I'm not sure if the author finds teachers important or not. She talks out of both sides of her mouth on this issue multiple times.
As a side note, I'm not sure if the author finds teachers important or not. She talks out of both sides of her mouth on this issue multiple times.
June 19, 2021
A wandering but nevertheless sporadically persuasive broadside against education policy in the United States. Some chapters focus fairly narrowly on New York City, which is always a bit of a blind alley given how singular NYC is, but others open up a little more and breathe. Erickson comes out swinging against both the existing system and its libertarian competition, which - as she rightly points out - could never resolve the needs of a nation as large as the United States. There isn't a lot about her ideal solutions, which would seem to be state-led, progressive policy, but for one of Jacobin's pamphlet-like issues, this is a good quality offering.
September 22, 2018
there's some good stuff here, don't get me wrong, I'm on board with the thrust of it, but the argument seems a little haphazard in its organization and for me it's mostly stuff I've read elsewhere more compellingly. If this is a relatively new area of reading though, I'd go for it, it's a nice synthesis/compilation of important stuff. Last chapter and conclusion by far the most interest imho.
February 10, 2018
An excellent look at education in America from a leftwing perspective, both as a diagnostic tool and as a framework for change. Terrifying and inspirational.
December 16, 2021
I really enjoyed the bits on the education system, the history of standardized testing and NCLB, and the analysis of education within capitalism.
However, I have reservations. The book is rather disorganized, and I found it really hard to follow; the book starts focused on the problems of the US school system and then jumps to a wider view of capitalism, with a segue on the emphasis on parental responsibility and the conceptions of motherhood.
Also, I would have liked more discussion of how policies in other countries have led to better outcomes, instead of a vague discussion socialism and a radical reconceptualization of family and work as the solution. The only mentions of education systems in other parts of the world are brief; they're used as positive examples, but the book doesn't really dig into how they work or use them to construct an argument of how to improve the school system.
There are also some dubious asides in the text.
For instance, a sentence on Skinner: "Four decades later, B.F. Skinner, a man who believed in neither free will nor hope for the world's salvation, stood in front of a new kind of classroom and announced that the future was here..." There's no need for that ad hominem in the middle. Believing in behaviorism doesn't preclude someone from taking an interest in or having opinions about education (and also, in general soft compatibilism exists). Also, from a cursory scan on the Internet, it is wrong: B.F. Skinner did, in fact believe in salvation, to the point where he wrote a utopian novel advocating for using science to achieve better outcomes. Sure, you can argue against his methods and his view of the good life -- but you can't just claim that he didn't believe in those things.
Another example is an entirely unnecessary footnote describing a Peruvian billionaire's history, including his lawsuit when he discovered his NY penthouse required him to share a common area. The entire focus of this anecdote seemed to be there to make the reader reflect on how rich and entitled the billionaire is, which fine, why not. But the anecdote begins describing him as immigrating from Peruvian and finishes with, "He returned to Peru shortly after [the lawsuit]" . I have to admit this left a bad taste in my mouth, to the point where I found it offensive: it felt a little too edged about the man's immigration status. I'm happy to read about the hubris of billionaires, but not when the lens is "he's a Peruvian immigrant".
I also blinked at a description of "South Africa-based Bumbo sells baby seats that encourage the practice of postural head and trunk control and a crawl ball advertised as stimulating hand-eye coordination and motor skills, all in the name of protecting your most valuable asset. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find something that doesn't stimulate the curiosity or inspire the development of hand-eye coordination of 'your most valuable asset'".
At first I thought this sentence referred to the Bumbo copy itself, so I went and looked the Bumbo copy. At no point does Bumbo describe a child as a valuable asset. Their copy is all about supporting the best interests of the child and parental care, etc. So sure, it's an unclear metaphor. But the book itself doesn't argue for the view of the child as an asset (that parents care about class transmission, yes, and parents have a lot of control over their children in the US, but those aren't the same thing), and that does not match the thinking of the middle-class parents I know who are very concerned about the development of their children.
Overall, this makes me wonder if there's anything else in the the book that's misrepresented. It made me want to learn more about the subject and I think it's a useful topic introducer, but I'm hesitant to trust it as a source.
However, I have reservations. The book is rather disorganized, and I found it really hard to follow; the book starts focused on the problems of the US school system and then jumps to a wider view of capitalism, with a segue on the emphasis on parental responsibility and the conceptions of motherhood.
Also, I would have liked more discussion of how policies in other countries have led to better outcomes, instead of a vague discussion socialism and a radical reconceptualization of family and work as the solution. The only mentions of education systems in other parts of the world are brief; they're used as positive examples, but the book doesn't really dig into how they work or use them to construct an argument of how to improve the school system.
There are also some dubious asides in the text.
For instance, a sentence on Skinner: "Four decades later, B.F. Skinner, a man who believed in neither free will nor hope for the world's salvation, stood in front of a new kind of classroom and announced that the future was here..." There's no need for that ad hominem in the middle. Believing in behaviorism doesn't preclude someone from taking an interest in or having opinions about education (and also, in general soft compatibilism exists). Also, from a cursory scan on the Internet, it is wrong: B.F. Skinner did, in fact believe in salvation, to the point where he wrote a utopian novel advocating for using science to achieve better outcomes. Sure, you can argue against his methods and his view of the good life -- but you can't just claim that he didn't believe in those things.
Another example is an entirely unnecessary footnote describing a Peruvian billionaire's history, including his lawsuit when he discovered his NY penthouse required him to share a common area. The entire focus of this anecdote seemed to be there to make the reader reflect on how rich and entitled the billionaire is, which fine, why not. But the anecdote begins describing him as immigrating from Peruvian and finishes with, "He returned to Peru shortly after [the lawsuit]" . I have to admit this left a bad taste in my mouth, to the point where I found it offensive: it felt a little too edged about the man's immigration status. I'm happy to read about the hubris of billionaires, but not when the lens is "he's a Peruvian immigrant".
I also blinked at a description of "South Africa-based Bumbo sells baby seats that encourage the practice of postural head and trunk control and a crawl ball advertised as stimulating hand-eye coordination and motor skills, all in the name of protecting your most valuable asset. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find something that doesn't stimulate the curiosity or inspire the development of hand-eye coordination of 'your most valuable asset'".
At first I thought this sentence referred to the Bumbo copy itself, so I went and looked the Bumbo copy. At no point does Bumbo describe a child as a valuable asset. Their copy is all about supporting the best interests of the child and parental care, etc. So sure, it's an unclear metaphor. But the book itself doesn't argue for the view of the child as an asset (that parents care about class transmission, yes, and parents have a lot of control over their children in the US, but those aren't the same thing), and that does not match the thinking of the middle-class parents I know who are very concerned about the development of their children.
Overall, this makes me wonder if there's anything else in the the book that's misrepresented. It made me want to learn more about the subject and I think it's a useful topic introducer, but I'm hesitant to trust it as a source.
August 20, 2025
I grew up between stability and scarcity. Sometimes middle class, sometimes poor, occasionally wealthy although rarely.. public schools shaped me, until I reached grad school in NYC. I stood far behind next to peers with private schools, polished internships, and family networks. That contrast left me bitter yet determined.
The data points were eye opening. Erickson captures well how advantage compounds and I of course compared it to my own personal life, on how difficult it can be to catch up. Where I disagree, is where she sees privilege as a system to dismantle, and I see parental duty. To me, sacrifice for one’s children, securing the best schools and opportunities possible, is not a flaw in capitalism but a responsibility.
Insightful, yes. Persuasive in parts. But I closed the book more convinced that giving one’s children every possible edge is not an injustice, even though I have experienced it.. it is simply the essence of parenthood.
The data points were eye opening. Erickson captures well how advantage compounds and I of course compared it to my own personal life, on how difficult it can be to catch up. Where I disagree, is where she sees privilege as a system to dismantle, and I see parental duty. To me, sacrifice for one’s children, securing the best schools and opportunities possible, is not a flaw in capitalism but a responsibility.
Insightful, yes. Persuasive in parts. But I closed the book more convinced that giving one’s children every possible edge is not an injustice, even though I have experienced it.. it is simply the essence of parenthood.
August 15, 2022
"Class War: The Privatization of Childhood" by Megan Erickson is a decent book critiquing the current state of education in America, with a primary focus on the issues in education caused by various inequalities. In summary, the education system can not be fixed until greater issues in society are addressed, such as racism, sexism and income inequality. Technocratic and meritocratic solutions will not cut it. I particularly enjoyed when Erickson related her own experiences and wish she had included more.
This is the 14th book I've read in the series of books published by Verso in collaboration with Jacobin. I enjoy that each of these books are short and help me become more well informed on topics that I am not wholly familiar with.
This is the 14th book I've read in the series of books published by Verso in collaboration with Jacobin. I enjoy that each of these books are short and help me become more well informed on topics that I am not wholly familiar with.
November 17, 2017
This was not the book that I was expecting. I thought it would be more about education and less about child rearing. That said I also wanted it to be a lot less Amerio-centric. Far too many of the examples and stories are about America's particular problems with both schools and race politics.
That said, there are lots of good, interesting and informed ideas here about the role of the child in society and the role of parents and teachers in changing things and in raising and looking at the position of children in the world.
Good, but not great. It also almost instantly feels dated in a post Trump world.
That said, there are lots of good, interesting and informed ideas here about the role of the child in society and the role of parents and teachers in changing things and in raising and looking at the position of children in the world.
Good, but not great. It also almost instantly feels dated in a post Trump world.
April 21, 2020
Absolutely visionary! Erickson makes the best use of policy, feminism, history, theories of pedagogy, and economics to decisively and convincingly argue for a truly just education system (and a world around it) that values each human being equally. She demonstrates how we arrived at our current system and the ways we could work ourselves out of it. And how we could create something liberatory for all of our children and families. I don’t fully agree with all of her proposed solutions, but I believe this book should be regarded as a modern landmark piece in how we do and should think about caring for and educating our children.
December 26, 2017
In general, this was a good read although it was definitely a piece from the days of Duncan as head of the Department of Education, so it was lacking in current contexts. It did have an interesting section on gender and labor, specifically teaching as "women's work" and the class issues that arise from it, which was fresh for me because I do not actively read a lot of materials that analyze gender. It's worth a read, but I wish I had found this book when it was published to realize its full impact.
March 27, 2018
A powerful critique of education reform without structural critique, Erickson weaves her way through American Education reform and the pitfalls conservatives and liberals have gotten us into. The end chapters open up the social imaginary to new configurations of motherhood, parenthood, and collective education. I'll continue to grapple with these ideas for a long time
December 10, 2020
Exposed many of the neoliberal fallacies of education reform and how to integrate equity into the educational system, made the points that needed to be made, and then continued on without introducing any new arguments, observations, or perspectives for the entire second half of the book. Could have just as easily been a longform periodical piece.
September 15, 2015
This is a brilliant book about the privatization of schools and its impact on children, families and communities. Living in Boston, I have seen how the growth of charter schools, at first slowly, and now more quickly, is degrading the public school system and creating a new set of "haves" and "have not's" within our city. Ms. Erickson clearly captures how hedge investors have been capitalizing on poor communities and enriching themselves by creating a two tier system for schools where the children who need the most get the least. Ms Erickson shows us how deplorable the conditions are in the public schools for children and how corporate entities are starving these schools in service of the rich. In many, if not most public schools in Boston, parents and teachers have had to bring in their own supplies like paper and pencils to class while the charter schools are filled to the brim with everything that is needed for the school year. It is truly heartbreaking. What I like about Ms Erickson's book is that her she is simple and clear and she makes her case in a strong and powerful way. It is a book that can be given to anybody who doesn't understand the issues and wants to learn more and a really good book for those who are beginning to wonder what is happening in their city but does not have words for it.
November 1, 2017
Erickson argues that the United States education system has been privatized on all fronts: extracurricular activities and tutoring that should be provided by the state are now solely the province of well-heeled parents; corporate reformers have immeasurable influence over how children are educated; teachers and principals are trained to mimic the private sector by being "entrepreneurial" and competing with one another via value-added measurement; we swallow the canard that the state simply cannot afford to foster educational equality, while lionizing corporate philanthropy and undertaxing the rich. These are undoubtedly critical themes that undergird many current debates on education, "the civil rights issue of our time."
I initially found Erickson's writing style to be off-putting. Unlike an academic that synthesizes and appends current scholarship or a journalist that constructs a narrative from in depth interviews, Erickson braids myriad sources--such as prominent books and articles and even her personal experience as an educator--to build her argument. Perhaps this is par for the course, since "Class War" is an "interrogation" published by the socialist magazine Jacobin. True to form, "Class War" is a quick and resonant read.
I initially found Erickson's writing style to be off-putting. Unlike an academic that synthesizes and appends current scholarship or a journalist that constructs a narrative from in depth interviews, Erickson braids myriad sources--such as prominent books and articles and even her personal experience as an educator--to build her argument. Perhaps this is par for the course, since "Class War" is an "interrogation" published by the socialist magazine Jacobin. True to form, "Class War" is a quick and resonant read.
January 26, 2017
In Class War: The Privatization of Childhood, Megan Erickson makes a wideranging but compelling argument that the root of our unequal child care and education systems is our unequal society. Erickson traces a number of examples of this, beginning with public and private schools, and the ways that US public schools that serve wealthier students receive more funding. She discusses segregation (of both the class and racial varieties). However, she doesn't just leave her argument in the realm of education - the last third of the book is spent detailing feminist arguments on childhood, child-rearing, and how this affects mothers and women in general in society.
Erickson's ultimate conclusion is that the only way to achieve fairness for children is to do the same for adults, while also advancing radical ideas for restructuring of our public education system, our culture around childhood, and the way we think about women's labor.
Erickson's ultimate conclusion is that the only way to achieve fairness for children is to do the same for adults, while also advancing radical ideas for restructuring of our public education system, our culture around childhood, and the way we think about women's labor.
February 9, 2017
The only reason I did not finish this book is because it was "preaching to the choir." I have already read about these issues extensively. This is very well researched and written and I would recommend to anyone wanting to learn more.
January 13, 2016
The first three chapters of this book are a thoughtful, piercing take down of the proposals and philosophy behind the corporate education 'reform' movement - how the calls for charter schools, high-stakes testing and punitive teaching rules mask an agenda to subordinate schooling to business imperatives. However, what really sets this book apart is its magnificent fourth chapter, which builds on this base to articulate a powerful Marxist critique of childhood and family life in capitalist America. Erickson demonstrates that the devaluation and corruption of classroom education is rooted in exploitation of women, the working class, and people of color, and that 'fixing' education requires tackling exploitation, rather than believing that uplift can be an apolitical side benefit of an improved education system.
December 7, 2023
An informative book detailing the problems with public and private education in the United States, creating a systemically undereducated population and keeping the lower class poor. The only reason this book was not given five stars is due to the author often not using primary sources, but rather citing news organizations such as The Guardian, NYT, etc. Overall, I would recommend reading this to anyone interested in education reform and how the current school system is failing American children.
September 6, 2016
By personal experiences, Erickson really convinced me of changing my opinion of possible futures involving public education through intense recounts of her encounters and past, in general. I think this is an extremely useful book for teachers. It also has several references to others books that sound very interesting.
June 2, 2016
Wonderful research and analysis on how we got to that state of neoliberal school policies. The problems are clear and frustrating, and the solutions seem to be in place, if only we could wake up and make the change our society needs.
June 15, 2016
Brilliant critique of United States education system. Blends contemporary education theory and criticism with an unrelenting class (structural) analysis of labor. Essential reading for any new educator.
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April 8, 2016379.1 E684 2015
January 14, 2016
This book tells it like it is, but who's listening?
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