Syllabus

If you’re a student of public education and skeptic of radical reform, you’re probably frustrated by the lack of meaningful edu-journalism in the field. This syllabus is for you.

Stay tuned into unbiased news sources like Chalkbeat, Education Week, The New York Times, and POLITICO.

Follow objective and thoughtful journalists, including Matt Barnum, Dana Goldstein, and Nikole Hannah-Jones.

Be wary of intellectually dishonest attacks on public education by outlets like Education Post and The 74.

Read a book. Below are a few that can help inform your thinking on big issues.

Few policymakers have the political courage to confront inadequate school funding. Bruce Baker takes on the elephant in the room with his 2018 book, “Educational Inequality and School Finance: Why Money Matters for America’s Students.”

Interested in the history of desegregation in American public schools? Check out Ansley Erickson’s 2016 epic saga, “Making the Unequal Metropolis: School Desegregation and Its Limits,” as told through the eyes of Metro Nashville Public Schools.

For an intellectually honest assessment of the school privatization movement, read Diane Ravitch’s 2014 takedown of radical reformers, “Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools.”

If you believe in the power of preschool and the need to elevate America’s teaching profession, run (don’t walk) to consume Amanda Ripley’s 2013 narrative on what happens in countries that truly value public education, “The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way.”

Thanks for caring about our greatest democratic institution — public education. Happy reading.