Lift Us Up, Don't Push Us Out!

Parents, young people, community organizers, and educators describe how they are fighting systemic racism in schools by building a new intersectional educational justice movement.Illuminating the struggles and triumphs of the emerging educational justice movement, this anthology tells the stories of how black and brown parents, students, educators, and their allies are fighting back against systemic inequities and the mistreatment of children of color in low-income communities. It offers a social justice alternative to the corporate reform movement that seeks to privatize public education through expanding charter schools and voucher programs. To address the systemic racism in our education system and in the broader society, the contributors argue that what is needed is a movement led by those most affected by injustice--students of color and their parents--that builds alliances across sectors and with other social justice movements addressing immigration, LGBTQ rights, labor rights, and the school-to-prison pipeline.Representing a diverse range of social justice organizations from across the US, including the Chicago Teachers Union and the Genders and Sexualities Alliance Network, the essayists recount their journeys to movement building and offer practical organizing strategies and community-based alternatives to traditional education reform and privatization schemes. Lift Us Up! will outrage, inform, and mobilize parents, educators, and concerned citizens about what is wrong in American schools today and how activists are fighting for and achieving change.

“" Lift Us Up! Don't Push Us Out! is a bold and exciting book that presents the stories we never hear--powerful stories of successful grassroots organizing in schools and communities across the nation led by parents, students, educators, and allies. The lessons we can learn from these inspiring activists and campaigns need to be spread far and wide. They show how social justice unionism plays a vital role in the fight for equity and justice for all our children and in the growing movement against privatization of public education." --Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union”

“A welcome addition to most public and academic library collections.”
—Library Journal

“[An] impressive collection by a diverse array of education activists . . . Contributions are written as first-person narratives, giving this collection the feel of shared knowledge toward movement building.”
—Rethinking Schools

“Lift Us Up! Don’t Push Us Out! is a bold and exciting book that presents the stories we never hear—powerful stories of successful grassroots organizing in schools and communities across the nation led by parents, students, educators, and allies. The lessons we can learn from these inspiring activists and campaigns need to be spread far and wide. They show how social justice unionism plays a vital role in the fight for equity and justice for all our children and in the growing movement against privatization of public education.”
—Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union

“Full of powerful ideas, powerful examples, powerful policy strategies, and powerful people, this book touches both mind and heart. These compelling stories—told by those who lived them—teach us about and advance the much-needed educational justice movement.”
—Jeannie Oakes, Presidential Professor Emeritus, University of California at Los Angeles, and author of Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality

“Each one of the essays is a tour de force. You are captivated by the passion, the fury, the courage, the honesty, and the determination that is expressed so brilliantly by the writers, who have found a way, by working arm-in-arm with others, to fight for educational justice for all children. This book brings the powerful and authentic voices of parent and community movement leaders into our classrooms and communities.”
—Karen Mapp, senior lecturer on education, Harvard Graduate School of Education

“Featuring diverse and powerful stories of fights against the corporate degradation of American schooling, Lift Us Up, Don’t Push Us Out! weaves an inspiring vision of what education could and should be if we valued all children and their potential. It could hardly be more timely.”
—Charles Payne, author of So Much Reform, So Little Change: The Persistence of Failure in Urban Schools

“At last! This book of victorious stories guides us through the resistance to racism and assaults on public schools. It is incredibly inspiring to see how educators, students, parents, and community organizations—people of color, in particular—are joining in the fight back to defeat school closures, charter expansions, and other privatization schemes. Organizing is key as uplifting policy solutions, community schools, and intergenerational movement-building replace appalling alienation and rampant disinvestment in education.”
—Dr. Joyce E. King, Benjamin E. Mays Endowed Chair for Urban Teaching, Learning, and Leadership, Georgia State University

“Lift Us Up, Don’t Push Us Out! weaves together the stories of parent organizers, student activists, and committed educators who are forging a powerful movement for educational justice across the United States. Through compelling first-person narratives, the book highlights grassroots activism as a strategy for making schools culturally responsive, inclusive, and equitable.”
—John Rogers, professor of education, University of California at Los Angeles, and director of UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access (IDEA)

Mark R. Warren is professor of public policy and public affairs at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and the founder and cochair of the Urban Research-Based Action Network. The author of three books, including most recently A Match on Dry Grass- Community Organizing as a Catalyst for School Reform, Warren studies and works with community and youth organizing groups seeking to promote equity and justice in education.David Goodman is an award-winning independent journalist and the author of ten books, including four coauthored with his sister, Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman.

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