Increasingly public education's character is under assault. This collection of essays by noted scholars, teacher activists, and teacher union leaders from around the world fuses personal stories, research, and political analysis, explaining why such profound and damaging changes are being made to schools and teaching, and how teachers, their unions, and supporters of public education can make real the goal of quality education for all the world's children.

Table of Contents

Neo-Liberalism, Teachers, and Teaching: Understanding the Assault: The Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers, and Teacher Unions; Mary Compton & Lois Weiner 'Remaking the World': Neo-Liberalism and the Transformation of Education and Teacher's Labor; Susan Robertson Neo-Liberalism's Global Footprint: Education Reform under Strangulation; John Nyambe Teaching for the Factory: Neo-Liberalism in Mexican Education; Rodolfo Rincones, Elaine Hampton, & Cesar Silva Neo-Liberal Education in Denmark; Jette Steensen Higher and Tertiary Education in the West Indies: Ensnared by GATS; Margueritte Cummins Williams The Education World is Not Flat: Neo-Liberalism's Global Project and Teacher Unions' Transnational Resistance; Larry Kuehn The Need for Unions to Defend Public Education: Teachers and their Unions: Why Social Class 'Counts'; Kathleen A. Murphey Campaign Against the Opening of City Academies in England; Ian Murch An Inner-City Public School Teacher's Story from China; Yihuai Cai What Teachers Want from their Unions: What We Know from Research; Nina Bascia Challenging Neo-Liberalism: Education Unions in Australia; Rob Durbridge Teaching, a Profession under Attack: Contradictions and Tensions in the Place of Teachers in Educational Reform: Reflections upon the Role of Teachers in Recent Educational Reforms in the United States and Namibia; Ken Zeichner Universalization of Elementary Education in India: A Dream Deferred is a Dream Denied; Basanti Chakraoborty Educational Restructuring, Democratic Education, and Teachers; Alvaro Moreira Hypolito Neo-Liberalism, Inequality, and Teacher Unions: Sodexho in the Chicago Public Schools; Kyle Westbrook Homophobia in St. Lucian Schools: A Perspective from a Select Group of Teachers; Urban Dolor Work on Aboriginal Education in a Social Justice Union: Reflections from the Inside; Chris Stewart South African Teachers and Social Movements: Old and New; Shermain Mannah & Jon Lewis Schooling and Class in Germany: An Interview with Eberhard Brandt and Susanne Gondermann; Mary Compton Education or Mind Infection?; Nurit Peled-Elhanan Going on the Offensive: Interview with Thulas Nxesi, President of the Education International; Mary Compton The Context of Teachers' Democratic Movements in Mexico; Rodolfo Rincones In Mexico, to Defend Education as a Social Right, We Must Fight for Union Democracy; Maria de la Luz Arriaga Lemus A History of the Search for Teacher Unity in South Africa; Harold Samuel British Teacher Unions and the Blair Government--Anatomy of an Abusive Relationship; Mary Compton Building the International Movement We Need: Why a Consistent Defense of Democracy is Essential; Lois Weiner

About the Author

Mary Compton is Past President of the UK National Union of Teachers, the largest teacher union in Europe, and currently isa practicing classroom teacher of modern languages and English as well as a trade union activist. Lois Weiner is Professor, Elementary and Secondary Education, New Jersey City University and the author of the AERA award-winning book Preparing Teachers for Urban Schools: Lessons from Thirty Years of School Reform, among others.

Reviews

'If you want to understand what is happening to education across the globe in the face of privatisation and marketisation this book is indispensable.' - Laura Miles, Socialist Review