Badass Teachers Unite!: Writing on Education, History, and Youth Activism

by Mark Naison

Overview

In this incisive collection of essays, educator and activist Mark Naison draws on years of research on Bronx history and his own experience on the front lines of the education wars to unapologetically defend teachers and students from education “reform” policies that undermine their power and creativity.

Naison shows how dominant education policy systematically hurts the very children it claims to support and instead forces them to “race to the top.” He exposes the Duncans, Rhees, and Gateses for schemes that intensify racial and economic inequality. And he refocuses the conversation on teaching and organizing strategies that should be implemented in communities everywhere.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781608463619
Publisher:	Haymarket Books
Publication date:	05/13/2014
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Mark Naison is professor of African American studies and history at Fordham University. He is author of many books and articles including Communists in Harlem During the Depression and White Boy: A Memoir. The founder of the Bronx African American History project, Naison has emerged in the last five years as a passionate defender of America's public school teachers and students, founding groups like Dump Duncan, the Teachers Talk Back Project, and most recently, the Badass Teachers Association.

Table of Contents

Foreword Brian Jones ix

Introduction xiii

Part 1 Education Policy Critique and Advocacy 1

Part 2 Youth Issues and Student Activism 97

Part 3 Lessons of Bronx Schools 149

Afterword

The Rise of the Badass Teachers

Association; A Brief History 185

Acknowledgments 189

Index 191

Editorial Reviews

Mark Naison has woven a series of provocative essays into a powerful book. No traditional scholarly treatise, Badass Teachers Unite! is an education manifesto for the people’s school reform movement. With clarity, verve, and passion, Naison outlines the challenges we face in transforming public schools and he forges a guide to our actions. This book is must reading for anyone concerned about the plight of public schools in the USA today.”
—Henry Louis Taylor Jr., director, UB Center for Urban Studies, Universityat Buffalo

“Mark Naison is a badass—and it took one to write this rousing pronouncement to the militancy emerging among today’s schoolteachers. There was an era when educators were feared by the corporate establishment. As Time magazine wrote in 1963, ‘The U.S. teacher used to be afraid to smoke, chew, cuss or ask for a raise. Now he denounces crowded classrooms, upbraids lawmakers, and goes on strike almost as readily as a dockworker.’ Mark Naison’s Badass Teachers Unite! brings back the attitude we need to confront the corporate reform bullies and reclaim our schools.”
—Jesse Hagopian, history teacher, Garfield High School, Seattle, Washington, and associate editor for Rethinking Schools magazine

From the Publisher