Class War: The Privatization of Childhood (Jacobin)

by Megan Erickson

0 ratings • 0 reviews • 1 shelved
Book cover for Class War

Bookhype may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. Full disclosure.

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.
  • ISBN10 1781689385
  • ISBN13 9781781689387
  • Publish Date 8 September 2015
  • Publish Status Forthcoming
  • Publish Country GB
  • Imprint Verso Books
  • Format eBook
  • Pages 230
  • Language English