“If We Look to Buy the Cheapest Paper, Why Not the Cheapest Teachers?”
I was asked to contribute Occasional Papers 27, a publication of Bank Street College of Education.
Also included in collection are essays by William Ayers Gail Boldt Greg Dimitriadis Jeff Duncan-Andrade Ann Haas Dyson Celia Genishi Marc Lamont Hill Kevin K. Kumashiro Deborah Meier Erica R. Meiners Pedro Noguera Diane Ravitch Raynard Sanders Gil Schmerler Peter Taubman
Around 1972 I was working at the UniRoyal Tire and Rubber factory in the City of Commerce, an industrial suburb of Los Angeles. The front of the factory faced the Santa Ana freeway. For some odd reason it was designed to look like an ancient Egyptian temple.
Behind the Disney-like façade of pharaohs and slaves was a grime-filled, malodorous factory turning out thousands of automobile tires a day.
In 1972 the making of a tire went something like this: Two women, usually African-American,