Educating in Dangerous Times: A Call to Reenvision Public School in America

Against the backdrop of a rising tide of authoritarianism and white nationalism, a new and virulent strain of education politics has arisen, making public schools a primary site of political contention.

Educating in Dangerous Times: A Call to Reenvision Public School in America raises the central question: How should we reenvision public schools and collectively create the public schools we need? The heart of the book centers on short, personal, and engaging chapters authored by leading education scholars who teach, study, and write about learning, school leadership, and the politics of education. Featured scholars include Antero Garcia (Stanford University), Julian Vasquez Heilig (Western Michigan University), Pedro Noguera (University of Southern California), Marcelle Haddix (University of Wisconsin-Madison), and many others.

Issues are wide ranging and stretch from supporting marginalized youth and the rise of authoritarianism to rethinking English language arts and mathematics instruction.

Each chapter reenvisions a different future beyond the constrictions and threats we are facing now and proposes a path forward for public schools in regard to the chapter focus.

This book illuminates the many educators, students, parents, and community leaders who desire more equitable, inclusive, and democratic schools — schools that affirm the value of each student and foster feelings of safety and belonging, and support development toward students’ aspirations. [Adapted from publishers’ description.]

ISBN: 9780807025154 | Beacon Press

Praise

Education is not only in danger but in need of direction — a direction that is bold, inclusive, and relentless in pursuit of justice. Educating in Dangerous Times is exactly that. Each chapter serves as a North Star. In times like these, books like this guide us toward the world that is possible. I am excited to use this book in my classes; I feel it is necessary. — Bettina L. Love, author of Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal

In a moment when public education is under coordinated attack — from censorship laws to privatization schemes — Educating in Dangerous Times is a powerful declaration that schools are not neutral spaces but sites of struggle over truth, dignity, and justice. For anyone committed to teaching truth and transforming public schools into sites of democratic possibility, this book is a compelling invitation to organize for the future our students deserve. Read this book — and then join the resistance. — Jesse Hagopian, author of Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education

John Rogers, George Theoharis, and their colleagues ask us to reject fighting a defensive struggle that would take us back to an imagined lesser evil; they inspire us to reenvision and reimagine what free people need our public schools to become, and then to commit to a battle to rebuild education with a robust vision of what’s worth fighting for. The stakes are high, and Educating in Dangerous Times is an essential text for understanding both the dimensions of the crisis we face and a strategy to fight for the schools we deserve. — Bill Ayers, author of When Freedom Is the Question, Abolition Is the Answer: Reflections on Collective Liberation