1. According to Rooks, as of 2016 the annual expenditure of public funds on the public education sector is $500-600 billion.
2. Willie Sutton, the noted bank robber, when asked once why he robbed banks, replied “Because that’s where the money is.”

Co-mingle those two insights as you ponder why private equity types and venture capitalists might be interested in “fixing” public education.

I will holding my extra office hour on Saturday at 10am. If you are interested in joining me please send me an email and I’ll email you the Zoom link so as not to have to post the link on this open blog.

We’ve consolidated and reduced the reading for the final two class sessions in December, as you can see from the updated syllabus in the pulldown menu above. On December 2nd we are asking you to focus on the Todd-Breland book exclusively, given that she’s joining us for our discussion. And then on December 9th, the final class, we are focusing on charter schools with two readings (Rooks and Lewer) and the “School Colors” podcast.

The final paper assignment is now posted under the “Assignments” tab in the pull-down menu above.

November 11: The Expansion of Public Higher Education, the Birth of CUNY, and the Struggle for Open Admissions, 1946 to 1970

A List Readings: Read All

• Brier & Fabricant, Austerity Blues, Chapters 2 (all) & 3 (pp. 65-80).
• Margaret Nash, “Entangled Pasts: Land-Grant Colleges and American Indian Dispossession.” History of Education Quarterly Volume 59, No. 4 (November 2019): 437-467. (available on group site on Academic Commons)
• Harold Wechsler, The Qualified Student: A History of Selective College Admissions in America, John Wiley & Sons, 1977, Ch. 11, “Higher Education for All: The Mission of the City University of New York” (available on group site on Academic Commons).

B List Readings: Choose One

• Higher Education for Democracy: A Report of the President [Truman]’s Commission on Higher Education, Vol. 1, Establishing the Goals (New York, 1947), selected pages available online at: http://bit.ly/1EsPRD4
• Tahir Butt, “Free Tuition and Expansion in New York Public Higher Education,” TRAUE journal, Vol. III http://bit.ly/1AC6Kpw
• Martha Biondi, The Black Revolution on Campus, Ch. 4: “Brooklyn College Belongs to Us,” pp. 114-141 (available on group site on Academic Commons)
• David Lavin, et. al., Right vs. Privilege: The Open-Admissions Experiment at CUNY (1981), Chs. 1 & 2 (available on group site on Academic Commons)

Primary Sources to Explore, Depending on Your Interest:

• The Morrill Land Grant College Act, 1862, available online at http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=33&page=transcript
• CUNY Digital History Archive (Explore the “Municipal College Expansion” and the “Creation of CUNY and Open Admissions” materials under “Browse by Time Period” tab and be prepared to report in class about what you found in at least one of those collections)
• CUNY, “The Open Admissions Story” (1970) (scanned and available on group site on Academic Commons).

As promised, here is a copy of Shanker’s manipulated flyer. Note the way two different pieces are cobbled together in the middle with a title generated by the union. Charlie Isaacs claims that he and his fellow JHS 271 teachers never received this flyer in their mailboxes, as Shanker (and the flyer) charged.

INFAMOUS UFT Printed FLYER

I hadn’t realized that the Delmont chapter I orginally copied and posted for this week’s readings did not include the footnotes. I have just uploaded them to the Library in the Group site for those interested in exploring the sources Delmont used to write this chapter.

Here are two e-books that the library staff has indicated are now available electronically for our class:

E-Book                                    Nowlie Rooks

Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and The End of Public Education

The New Press 2017

https://cuny-gc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CUNY_GC/mjfrpc/alma9994326479906140

E-Book                                    David Garcia

Strategies of Segregation: Race, Residence, and the Struggle for Educational Equality

University of California Press 2018

https://cuny-gc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CUNY_GC/mjfrpc/alma9994322074506140

Thanks to Rachel Watts, once again, we have a new image for the course site: Progressive educator Charlotte Hawkins Brown. Given her dedicated work, I am officially appointing Rachel the course’s Visual Editor.