Radical Possibilities: Public Policy, Urban Education, and A New Social Movement

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Routledge, 2014 M03 14 - 244 pages

The core argument of Jean Anyon’s classic Radical Possibilities is deceptively simple: if we do not direct our attention to the ways in which federal and metropolitan policies maintain the poverty that plagues communities in American cities, urban school reform as currently conceived is doomed to fail. With every chapter thoroughly revised and updated, this edition picks up where the 2005 publication left off, including a completely new chapter detailing how three decades of political decisions leading up to the “Great Recession” produced an economic crisis of epic proportions. By tracing the root causes of the financial crisis, Anyon effectively demonstrates the concrete effects of economic decision-making on the education sector, revealing in particular the disastrous impacts of these policies on black and Latino communities.

Going beyond lament, Radical Possibilities offers those interested in a better future for the millions of America’s poor families a set of practical and theoretical insights. Expanding on her paradigm for combating educational injustice, Anyon discusses the Occupy Wall Street movement as a recent example of popular resistance in this new edition, set against a larger framework of civil rights history. A ringing call to action, Radical Possibilities reminds readers that throughout U.S. history, equitable public policies have typically been created as a result of the political pressure brought to bear by social movements. Ultimately, Anyon’s revelations teach us that the current moment contains its own very real radical possibilities.

 

Contents

Acknowledgements
Financialization Economic Disaster And An Alternative
The Economic is Political
Federal Policies That Keep People Poor
Income Wealth and Taxes
New Hope for Urban Students
Metro Areas and the Regional Geography of Poverty Job and Public
Housing Reform as Education Reform
Regional and Local Challenges to Inequity
Social Movements New Public Policy and Urban Educational
Building a Social Movement
Putting Educators at the Center of a Social Movement for Economic
Bibliography
Index
Copyright

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About the author (2014)

Jean Anyon is professor of social and educational policy in the Doctoral Program in Urban Education at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is the author of the best-selling and critically acclaimed Ghetto Schooling: A Political Economy of Urban School Reform.

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