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Charter schools. The destruction of New Orleans. The Asian tsunami. Gentification. No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Race to the Top (RttT). The invasion and occupation of Iraq. What do these all have in common? For Kenneth Saltman, they are each illustrations of the latest phase of the neoliberal assault on the hard won gains of people to expand the role of government to ensuring public education, housing and public ownership over natural resources among other vital social services.
Saltman’s new book Capitalizing on Disaster, inspired by both Naomi Klein’s recent book Shock Doctrine (2007) and David Harvey’s A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005), explores these interconnections in the struggle over public education and should give pause to those wondering what Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s “Race to the Top” project is all about.
For Saltman, natural catastrophes, acts of war and education policies can each provide a context to “set up public schools to be dismantled and made into investment opportunities.” Saltman’s account of Duncan’s neoliberal attacks on public education “CEO” of the Chicago Public Schools should be a warning to those of us working in public education.
Meticulously documented, the central focus of Saltman’s relatively short book is on the privatization of Chicago’s public schools under Duncan’s leadership. As a professor at DePaul University in Chicago, Saltman has a personal stake in what is happening in that city. Saltman documents how the business sector’s Renaissance 2010 plan was picked up by the local school districts and city elites in order to dually pave the way for gentrification and backdoor privatization of public education.
Saltman’s new book Capitalizing on Disaster, inspired by both Naomi Klein’s recent book Shock Doctrine (2007) and David Harvey’s A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005), explores these interconnections in the struggle over public education and should give pause to those wondering what Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s “Race to the Top” project is all about.
For Saltman, natural catastrophes, acts of war and education policies can each provide a context to “set up public schools to be dismantled and made into investment opportunities.” Saltman’s account of Duncan’s neoliberal attacks on public education “CEO” of the Chicago Public Schools should be a warning to those of us working in public education.
Meticulously documented, the central focus of Saltman’s relatively short book is on the privatization of Chicago’s public schools under Duncan’s leadership. As a professor at DePaul University in Chicago, Saltman has a personal stake in what is happening in that city. Saltman documents how the business sector’s Renaissance 2010 plan was picked up by the local school districts and city elites in order to dually pave the way for gentrification and backdoor privatization of public education.
