Books
Schoolhouse Burning
Public Education and the Assault on American Democracy
A stirring and passionate defense of the central importance of public education to American democracy, vividly illustrating how the forces of reaction are chipping away at a constitutional right.
We are in the midst of a full-scale attack on our nation’s commitment to public education. From funding, to vouchers, to charter schools, public education policy has become a political football, rather than a means of fulfilling the most basic obligation of government to its citizens.
Praise for Schoolhouse Burning
“I loved Schoolhouse Burning for its stirring defense of the central importance of public education to American democracy, and for Derek Black’s groundbreaking research. He definitively shows that the founders of the nation enthusiastically promoted public schools, that public schools enjoyed overwhelming bipartisan support, and were established in every state as central to democracy. The current efforts to privatize them with vouchers began with segregationists in the 1950s and continue today with charter schools, reinvigorated vouchers, and deep cuts to public school funding. I highly recommend Schoolhouse Burning as an important counter to a destructive trend.”
—Diane Ravitch, author of Slaying Goliath and Reign of Error
“Derek Black has written a magnificent book on the history of public education in the United States. Professor Black shows that the future of American society—its equality, its democracy—depends on improving its public schools. This beautifully written book offers a path forward to making a right to a quality education for all children a reality.”
—Erwin Chemerinsky, dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley
“Derek Black is the rare education law scholar willing to put his vast skills and knowledge in the service of defending our nation’s public schools. Schoolhouse Burning is a searing analysis of the current assault on public education by those intent on its destruction and, with it, the further erosion of our democratic institutions. It is also an urgent call to action to join with parents, advocates, teachers, and lawyers on the front lines of ensuring the right of every child to a high-quality education remains prominent, paramount and fully protected.”
—David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center
“Schoolhouse Burning: Public Education and the Assault on American Democracy explores the privileged place that [public schools] hold in our country’s history. Black, a professor of law at the University of South Carolina and a civil rights lawyer, makes clear that public education was central to the Founding Fathers’ vision of a new kind of democracy that rests on the consent of the governed.”
—New York Review of Books
“There are more than a few books both you and Biden should read to start his presidency off right, and we've pulled together a list. . . Thanks to decades of underfunding, America's public schools are in big trouble, and that's without accounting for the endless proposals for programs that would divert tax dollars into private education. Derek W. Black analyzes the problem with public education in the United States today, and lays out a plan to fix it, in Schoolhouse Burning.”
—K.W. Colyard, Bustle
“Many folks discuss education with semi-formed ideas about whether or not education really is a fundamental part of our democracy. . . . Black’s book is packed with information and analysis, but remains exceptionally accessible, like getting a detailed explanation from a legal scholar who just happens to speak plain English. Beyond the well-researched history, Black also provides a convincing argument in favor of public education in this country, a defense of a foundational institution at a time it is once again under attack.”
—Peter Greene, Forbes
Black “chronicles the history of public education in the United States and makes the unassailable case that this cornerstone of our democracy faces serious threats that we must address head on.”
—Southern Education Foundation
“Derek Black convincingly argues that, historically, public education can, and frequently has, unified a divided country. Black’s deftly rendered historical account stretches from before the American Revolution to the Civil Rights Movement and into modern times. It describes how public education has long been the touchstone for the nation to recommit to its founding principles. And though his book is mostly a historical account, Black is as concerned with the past as with the present, especially in anticipation of a post-Betsy DeVos world where public schools have been falsely portrayed as anachronistic.”
—Jeff Bryant, The Progressive
Ending Zero Tolerance
The Crisis of Absolute School Discipline
Answers the calls of grassroots communities pressing for integration and increased education funding with a complete rethinking of school discipline
In the era of zero tolerance, we are flooded with stories about schools issuing draconian punishments for relatively innocent behavior. One student was suspended for chewing a Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun. Another was expelled for cursing on social media from home. Suspension and expulsion rates have doubled over the past three decades as zero tolerance policies have become the normal response to a host of minor infractions that extend well beyond just drugs and weapons.
Education Law
Equality, Fairness, and Reform, Second Edition
This second edition casebook develops Education Law through the themes of equality, fairness, and reform. Specifically, Education Law: Equality, Fairness, and Reform, 2E focuses on the laws of equal educational opportunity for various different disadvantaged student populations, the recent reform movements designed to improve education, and the general constitutional rights that extend to all students. Updates included in the second edition include a new chapter devoted to teachers’ rights and reforms, including terminations, tenure, unions, and teacher evaluation, an entirely rewritten chapter on federal policy to incorporate the Every Student Succeeds Act and expansion of sections dealing with sexual orientation and gender identity.
Essays and Op-Eds
CNN
'Originalism' isn't what you think it is
Washington Post
Many public schools never recovered from the Great Recession. The coronavirus could spark a new education crisis.
