Class Warfare Inside The Fight To Fix Americas Schools – Steven Brill

Jean Clements’s story seems familiar. As a sophomore at the University of Oregon in 1975, she had no idea what she wanted to do with her life. She was toying with majoring in anthropology, philosophy, or maybe even music. (She had been a star bassoon player growing up in Tampa, Florida.) One day, as she was shooting the breeze with some college friends, somehow a heady discussion about the differences among the species morphed into a discussion of programs designed to teach people who had different learning capacities and methods.

Someone mentioned that their university had a terrific graduate program in special education. Before long, Clements had become a special education major and then enrolled in the graduate school. Her focus, as she puts it, “was on kids in regular classrooms who didn’t connect the dots the way everyone else does. . . . It’s not that they are not intelligent.” (She could have been referring to KIPP founder Dave Levin, who’d been pushed out of the private school in Manhattan for exactly that reason only to become valedictorian at the equally elite private school where he ended up.)

Clements’s passion, she says, “was doing something about a system that simply let these kids go, that refused to accept responsibility for helping them learn, that set low expectations and met them.” Because of a romantic entanglement, Clements ended up going home to Tampa after getting her master’s degree and becoming a special education teacher in the Hillsborough County school system. “I figured I would do it one or two years, before doing something like law school,” she recalls. “I never expected to stay in education.”

But she did—because, she says, “Teaching was a blast every day I was in the classroom, and I was compelled by the challenge of teaching kids who were seen as unteachable.”

Praise for Class Warfare “As an inside account of the Obama administration’s moves to fix schools, Class Warfare is superb. . . . Brill’s access to key players—the famous and the not-so-famous—allows him to give readers privileged glimpses into various meetings that were seldom reported on but had great impact on the thrust of reform.” —The Washington Post “A deeply reported work on the state of the school reform movement in the United States, written in dense bursts that give color to both policy and people.”

—The Daily Beast “Brill’s approach resembles Bob Woodward’s recent volumes on the real wars of the Bush and Obama eras: plenty of inside scoops, vivid quotes, extensive reportage, evocative vignettes and telling examples, lots of short chapters, a fast-paced narrative, and an ample supply of couldn’t- invent-’em characters.

. . . It’s a rollicking romp . . . it works through many issues, conflicts, interests, episodes, and people and comes to a measured set of conclusions that won’t please anyone in particular but deserve serious reflection.” —The Education Gadfly “An in-depth, impeccably researched examination of the education-reform movements that have swept America over the last several decades, as well as the obstacles they’ve faced.

. . . The author tackles this beast of a topic admirably, creating a lucid, often riveting history that will be invaluable to the next generation of reformers.” —Kirkus Reviews “Many parents, even those who are educators, may not be aware of the battles that occur daily in the education world.

This is a fascinating look at those struggles and at the people who determine how America’s children will be educated. . . . Brill’s multilayered account of the education dilemma . . . brings hope that change for the better could be on the horizon.” —Library Journal “A superb book . . . Fun to read.” —CNNMoney.com “His writing is crisp, even breathless at times, with the zeal of a recent convert.

His insider stories of the politics of education reform are fascinating.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “Brill’s book is one of the most in-depth and closely researched looks into the modern workings of the education ‘blob’ in recent memory.” —CNN.com “Class Warfare is a gripping account of the fierce combat between reformers and their opponents . . . Brill generally does a remarkable job of weaving the lives and experiences of students, teachers, and officials into a coherent story.”

—Foreign Affairs “Within the first few pages I was taking the book everywhere—the supermarket checkout line, the dinner table, the movies. It is funny, exciting, surprising and deep.” —Jay Mathews, The Washington Post “Steven Brill’s Class Warfare is hard-hitting, illuminating, and as fast-paced and gripping as a thriller.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 8c60e1c8595ae332
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 3,192,902 bytes (3.045 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 551
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 805.23 minutes
• Total Words: 161,045
• Total Characters: 966,778
• Average Words per Page: 292.28
• Average Characters per Page: 1754.59

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