These are books, documents, and websites that helped us understand the context for Free City! We will update this list as new resources are available.
Ashby, Steven K. and Robert Bruno, A Fight for the Soul of Public Education. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016. about the Chicago Teacher’s Union strike of 2012.
Au, Wayne, A Marxist Education. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2018.
Biondi, Martha, The Black Revolution on Campus. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014.
Blanc, Eric, Red State Revolt: the Teachers Strike Wave and Working Class Politics. London and New York: Verso Books, 2019.
Brint, Steven and Jerome Karabel, The Diverted Dream: Community Colleges and the Promise of Educational Opportunity in America, 1900-1985. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Byrne, Peter Going Postal: US Senator Dianne Feinstein’s husband sells post offices to his friends, cheap. Amazon: http://amzn.to/19owuse, 2013.
Coles, Gerald, Miseducating for the Global Economy: How Corporate Power Damages Education and Subverts Students’ Futures. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2018. a deconstruction of the myth of meritocracy through education.
Dougherty, Kevin J. et. al, Performance Funding for Higher Education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.
Fabricant, Michael and Stephen Brier, Austerity Blues. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2016. CUNY in New York and California’s state universities.
Federici, Silvia, George Caffentzis, Ousseina Alidou, “A Thousand Flowers: Social Struggles Against Structural Adjustment in African Universities,” Africa World Press, 2000.
Folbre, Nancy, Saving State U. New York: The New Press, 2010.
Gilmore, Ruth, Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis and Opposition in a Globalizing California. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
Giroux, Henry, Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education. Chicago: Haymarket Press, 2013.
Glass, Fred, From Mission to Microchip: a History of the California Labor Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016.
Journey for Justice Alliance, Death by 1000 Cuts: Racism, School Closures and Public School Sabotage. https://b.3cdn.net/advancement/3739088d8cb8488bdf_6jm62a5i6.pdf. May 2014.
Klein, Naomi, The Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Allen Lane, 2007.
Lipman, Pauline, The New Political Economy of Urban Education: Neoliberalism, Race and the Right to the City. New York: Routledge, 2011. a uniquely insightful analysis by a scholar-activist on the connection between school reform and gentrification; formative in our work.
Marsh, John, Class Dismissed: Why We Can’t Teach or Learn Our Way Out of Inequality. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2011.
Mettler, Suzanne, Degrees of Inequality: How the Politics of Higher Education Sabotaged the American Dream. New York: Basic Books, 2014. long history of for-profit college lobbying
Morel, Domingo, Takeover: Race, Education, and American Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
Newfield, Chris, Un-making of the Public University: The Forty-year Assault on the Middle Class. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011.
Pastor, Manuel, State of Resistance: What California’s Dizzying Descent and Remarkable Resurgence Mean for America’s Future. New York: The New Press, 2019.
Ravitch, Diane, dianeravitch.net, blog, excellent compilation of multi-blogs, recently reviewed as “most influential in education history.”
Rhoades, Gary, Closing the Door, Increasing the Gap: Who’s not going to (community) college? Center for the Future of Higher Education Policy Report #1, April 2012.
Robinson, William, “Global Capitalism and the Restructuring of Education,” Social Justice, Vol. 43, No. 3, 2016 pages 1-24.
Ryan, Howard, Educational Justice: Teaching and Organizing Against the Corporate Juggernaut. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2016. Combines strong analysis with narratives on organizing.
Samuels, Robert, Why Public Higher Education Should Be Free: How to Decrease Cost and Increase Quality at American Universities. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2013.
Soederberg, Susanne, Debtfare States and the Poverty industry. New York: Routledge, 2014.
Sunkara, Bhaskar, editor, Class Action: An Activist Teacher’s Handbook. Brooklyn: Jacobin Magazine, 2014. a collection of articles which also includes a section on the CTU.
Trinational Coalition to Defend Public Education. An important international coalition of education organizers formed in 1995, bringing together people from Mexico, Canada, the US including the colony of Puerto Rico. http://www.faccc.org/event/trinational-coalition-to-defend-public-education
UCLA Civil Rights Project, https://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/. “We generate and synthesize research on key civil rights and equal opportunity policies that have been neglected or overlooked.” for example: Gandara, P., Alvarado, E., Driscoll, A., & Orfield, G. (2012). Building Pathways to Transfer: Community Colleges That Break the Chain of Failure for Students of Color. Civil Rights Project, http://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu
Uetricht, Micah, Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity. New York: Verso/Jacobin, 2014. Chicago Teachers Union 2012 strike.
Walker, Richard, Pictures of a Gone City: Tech and the Dark Side of Prosperity in the San Francisco Bay Area. Oakland: PM Press, 2018.
Zemsky, Robert, Making Reform Work: The Case for Transforming American Higher Education. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2009. tell-all report on the Spellings Commission by disgruntled (mainstream) commissioner.