The following is an excerpt from Charter Schools and the Corporate Makeover of Public Education: What’s at Stake? co-authored by Michelle Fine and Michael Fabricant. The book traces the evolution of the charter school movement from its origins in community- and educator-based efforts to promote progressive change to their role today as instruments of privatization and radical disinvestment in public education. Many parts of the New Jersey story described will likely sound familiar, as will the issues raised below.
A noted scholar and activist, Michelle Fine is a longtime supporter and friend of Rethinking Schools.
-Stan Karp, Rethinking Schools editor
In this book we track the history of charters from social justice alternatives to a campaign to dismantle and decentralize public education, through to the contemporary movements for educational justice. It is within this context that the following six questions animate our writing:
How did a social justice education movement, initiated by teachers and teachers’ union, evolve into a corporate campaign to dismantle existing structures of public education?