A Political Education: Black Politics and Education Reform in Chicago since the 1960s

Justice, Power, and Politics

by Elizabeth Todd-Breland

In 2012, Chicago's school year began with the city's first teachers' strike in a quarter century and ended with the largest mass closure of public schools in U.S. history. On one side, a union leader and veteran black woman educator drew upon organizing strategies from black and Latinx communities to demand increased school resources. On the other side, the mayor, backed by the Obama administration, argued that only corporate-style education reform could set the struggling school system aright. The stark differences in positions resonated nationally, challenging the long-standing alliance between teachers' unions and the Democratic Party.

Elizabeth Todd-Breland recovers the hidden history underlying this battle. She tells the story of black education reformers' community-based strategies to improve education beginning during the 1960s, as support for desegregation transformed into community control, experimental schooling models that pre-dated charter schools, and black teachers' challenges to a newly assertive teachers' union. This book reveals how these strategies collided with the burgeoning neoliberal educational apparatus during the late twentieth century, laying bare ruptures and enduring tensions between the politics of black achievement, urban inequality, and U.S. democracy.

Genres: Education, Nonfiction

344 pages, Paperback

First published October 3, 2018

Reviews

[Lizzie Ramirez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish I had more time to read this book. If I had the chance to read the book at a slower pace, I know I would have understood everything better. there is a LOT of information jammed into this book. I found it really hard to keep track of all the acronyms and organizations going on throughout the book. this book did make me very curious about politics of the city though. It was interesting, and I found myself googling different schools and people mentioned throughout the book. If I have a chance to re-read it I know I will definitely read it on my own pace, not the pace of my course, and I would write down all of the acronyms, organizations, and people so I could reference/understand a bit better the second time around.

[Merricat Blackwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating local history that analyzes big questions, particularly the tension in Black communities between getting what you're entitled to from the state and maintaining local and community control. The writing is not always as engaging as the story--it runs a bit dry and academic--but the research here is priceless.

[Ann Goethals · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an essential work for anyone interested in public education, and the dynamics and history of race in schools. A clear eyed look at what HAPPENED in the Chicago public schools in the last 50 years, with a focus on the Black
Women who moved and changed a system held captive by white men who often had no skin (or kids) in the game.