Overturning Brown: The Segregationist Legacy of the Modern School Choice Movement

School choice, largely touted as a system that would ensure underprivileged youth have an equal opportunity in education, has grown in popularity in the past fifteen years. The rhetoric of school choice, however, resembles that of segregationists following Brown v. Board, who closed public schools and funded private institutions to block African American students from integrating with their white peers. In Overturning Brown, Steve Suitts examines the parallels between de facto segregationist policies and the modern school choice movement to expose the dangers lying behind the so-called civil rights policies of Betsy DeVos and the education privatization lobbies. Economic and educational disparity has expanded exponentially in the years following Brown v. Board, and post-Jim Crow discriminatory policies drive inequality and poverty today. It is only through recognizing the smoke and mirrors that Suitts deftly exposes in Overturning Brown that we understand the risk America's underprivileged youth face with school voucher programs and as public funds are funneled into charter schools and predominately white and wealthy private schools.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: NewSouth Books
Published: 02/04/2020
ISBN: 9781588384201
Pages: 136
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.10h x 5.70w x 0.70d

Review Citations: Kirkus Reviews 12/15/2019
Publishers Weekly 12/16/2019
Library Journal 01/01/2020 pg. 83
Booklist 02/15/2020 pg. 10