If someone was just browsing, I would encourage them to start with the first sentence of the first chapter: “June 7, 2023, was the day a group of homophobic Armenians from Glendale, California, almost got me canceled.”If that doesn’t whet your appetite, I don’t know what will! And I don’t know of any other academic book that starts this way.The opening section tells the story of a huge controversy in Glendale about the local school district’s decision to fly the gay pride flag during Pride Month, and why I think the controversy illustrates everything that is wrong with how we adults approach public education.The first chapter ends with another cancellation—of a local Columbus school board member named James Ragland. He was accused (unfairly, in my view) of making a misogynist post on Facebook. In reality, the local teachers’ union long had knives out for him and took advantage of this post to destroy his reputation and his political future. They convinced the local Democratic Party to not endorse him when he ran for re-election, and he ended up losing in a landslide.Here is how the first chapter ends: “This book is not about what happened to James Ragland, but rather what his defeat symbolizes. It is about the roles of teachers’ unions, political parties, identity commitments, and the media all play in influencing what schools do. It is about how local democracy actually works in practice—not in some idealized Nirvana—and how politics shapes our education system and its ability to effectively serve our kids.”
It doesn’t matter to me whether people agree with me or not. I just want them to read the book, take my arguments seriously, and truly think about them.One of the people who blurbed my book is a retired professor at Columbia University. Here is what he said: “Some of the books I’ve most valued are those that rankled and perturbed me because they challenged my presumptions and led me to sharpen my thinking and arguments. While there’s much here with which I disagree, No Adult Left Behind is stimulating, forceful and too important to ignore.”He said he was a little worried I would be offended, but I was absolutely over the moon! I couldn’t think of a response that better demonstrates exactly what I want the book to accomplish.