Since the beginning, Jacobin has paid special attention to the struggle of public workers against austerity. Our critiques of neoliberal education reform have been especially well-received — with reprints penetrating even into mainstream venues like the Washington Post and Salon. Megan Erickson, Lois Weiner, Micah Uetricht, Liza Featherstone, Will Johnson, Shawn Gude, and other Jacobin-affiliated writers have dedicated themselves to the issue.

It was the right decision. With so much of the education reform movement’s impetus coming from liberals, communities resisting the push have been left with few allies. As a publication that has a young core audience, we thought it important to make clear that K–12 education issues are salient to everyone, not just teachers, students, and parents. That meant connecting the education “reform” project specifically to the larger trend towards market solutions as an orienting vision not just for the public schools but for society as a whole.

American public schools are increasingly seen by politicians, business people, and philanthropists as a sorting facility where children either seize opportunity or surrender it. Education “reformers” like Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein rhetorically connect standards and accountability to egalitarianism, using liberal language to advocate for a radically conservative reform agenda which consists of union breaking, “merit” pay, and sometimes budget cuts for schools.