The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession by Dana Goldstein is a book that focuses on the interactions between politics, teachers, and the public over the course of 175 years of US history. In The Teacher Wars, Goldstein provides a history of how the profession has evolved through US history. Goldstein supports her thesis- that the teaching profession acts a microcosm of larger social and political worries, turmoil, and moral panics in the larger national conversation– with ample statistics. This book is relevant to the modern day, especially as what goes on in the classroom is still a subject hotly debated in regions of the country.
This non-fiction piece of literature is exceptionally well-organized, split by time period. Goldstein takes care to analyze trends based on national and international events. This allows her to put events in their broader context, offering a depth to the topic that other nonfiction books often miss. A reader can follow the step-by-step progression of Goldstein’s logic easily, and by the end of the read, they will have emerged far more well-informed than they were previously. To students, this book is essential to providing them a better understanding of the school system, especially considering how it overwhelmingly impacts their lives. Goldstein answers questions common to the educational field, such as: Why is there a gender imbalance in the schooling system? Why do we have standardized tests? Where do Unions come from? What happened to segregated schools after desegregation? and more. For students undertaking QUEST, focusing on professionals in the education sector, Goldstein can function as a source of outside research.
Goldstein offers insight into the way the idea of teachers in public consciousness has always been changing. Different demographics of teachers for example have been targets for various moral panics over the course of the country’s past. Readers will notice that Goldstein has strong opinions on the subject of teaching, though she strives to be fair and balanced.
She offers advice for how to improve student education in her final pages, taking information from previous failures to avoid the same pitfalls past policies have produced. While a reader may not agree with all of them, her ideas are still thought-provoking and worth discussing by students, teachers, politicians, and parents, both in and out of the classroom.
A qualm one may have when reading the book is that Goldstein provides information in a straightforward fashion, neglecting to mention context for quotes or sources. Her writing is a slightly dry read, but essential to understand the current educational landscape, as well as how politics plays a role in education and how it will continue to play a role in the future. The Teacher Wars, written by Dana Goldstein, provides a look into the peculiarities of this seemingly simplistic part of our larger national system.
