We learned a new word today. “Spaghetti-hate” refers to the barrage of book bans, anti-CRT, anti-DEI, anti-social emotional learning, anti-LGBTQ and trans rhetoric, accusations of litter boxes in schools, etc. that we’ve seen over the past several years. As explained in The Education Wars, “Well-funded groups are throwing issue after issue at the wall to see what sticks, [but people] are waking up and are beginning to understand that this is a political campaign aimed at tearing us apart.”
We highly recommend The Education Wars by Jennifer C. Berkshire and Jack Schneider. It does a great job of connecting the dots, outlining what public education supporters are up against and what we can do to protect it against threats to its very existence. This book, released earlier this year, is available at the Johnson County Library.
Next, Professor of Education Policy at Michigan State University, Josh Cowen recently released The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers.
This book takes a deep-dive investigation of education privatization that reveals voucher programs as the faulty products of decades of work by wealthy patrons and influential conservatives
“In The Privateers, Josh Cowen lays bare the surprising history of tax-funded school choice programs in the United States and warns of the dangers of education privatization. A former evaluator of state and local school voucher programs, Cowen demonstrates how, as such programs have expanded in the United States, so too has the evidence-informed case against them.”
If you use the social media platform X, we highly recommend following Professor Cowen.