Do You Wanna Read a Book with Me?
A 1-shot summer book club about our public schools
A Serious Question
Do you want to read a book with me this summer, then discuss it together? I'm looking for a small number of people interested in reading the recently published A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door by Schneider and Berkshire.
My Pitch
The authors of this book have an excellent podcast called Have You Heard that tackles many issues related to public education. Jack Schneider is an educational historian who has written several previous books. Jennifer Berkshire is a journalist that covers the politics of education. Their podcast episodes are insightful and well-researched, and I've learned a lot from them. For example, in an episode last year ("Moving the Goalposts") I discovered at least two things I didn't know before:
I didn't know that school voucher programs, which have been around for decades now, have been an unmitigated policy failure in terms of impact on students. There is now piles of evidence for this conclusion; voucher programs harm student achievement plain and simple. Students who leave public schools to attend private schools using vouchers suffer, on average, learning loss that is greater than that suffered by students in New Orleans following hurricane Katrina; more learning loss than even that caused more recently by the covid shutdowns.
I didn't know that when many education reformers run into data that shows their reforms aren't working, a common move is to simply change the standards by which success is being measured. So, for example, the Heritage Foundation used to advocate strongly for charter schools with the argument that they would improve student test scores. Now that this idea has been thoroughly debunked with research and data, the organization has switched their argument, so they now measure school success by how few "diversity directors" the schools have; they don't mention standardized tests anymore.
I have come to appreciate the variety of topics they cover, the background and expertise they provide on different topics, their commitment to data and facts over ideological talking points, and the clarity of the conversations in their podcast. So when I learned they have recently published a book together, I thought it was worth checking out! I can't promise it will be good, but-- based on their podcast-- I'm hopeful it will be both engaging and potentially useful for thinking about the issues facing the schools in our own community.
The Details
I propose to read this book in July, then gather those who are interested for a discussion in early August (the exact details to be worked out once I know who wants to participate).
If you're interested, please let me know by simply responding to this email, or writing me at zwmunson @ gmail . com. Please do so ASAP so I can start planning the discussion. Then just pick up a copy of A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door and get reading. You can buy your own new copy, use the library, or find a used copy available online for less than $9.
I will create a private group chat among those who take me up on this offer so that we can stay in touch as we read through the book, as well as coordinate our discussion in August.
I hope all of this can be both fun AND useful!
Some related posts you might enjoy: