Publicization: How Public and Private Interests Can Reinvent Education for the Common Good

How public are America’s public schools? They may be tax funded and free, but the effects of market-based policies, exclusionary governance, insufficient funding, and structural inequities impair schools’ ability to prepare future citizens, workers, neighbors, and stewards of the planet. Gyurko offers a fresh look at the “publicness” of American education through historical accounts, scholarly research, first-hand reporting, and political analyses. Chapters on funding, governance, standards, accountability, and equity show what must be done to better identify and strengthen the shared aims of public schools. Novel insights explain how even controversial topics like charter schools, testing, teacher tenure, and unions can be part of a broad “Publicization Project.” Champions of public education will find a compelling vision and achievable roadmap that moves the country beyond decades of privatization. is an essential introduction to major debates of past years with a hopeful vision of what it means to be an educated American.