Books
Dangerous Learning: The South’s Long War on Black Literacy
The enduring legacy of the nineteenth-century struggle for Black literacy in the American South
Few have ever valued literacy as much as the enslaved Black people of the American South. For them, it was more than a means to a better life; it was a gateway to freedom and, in some instances, a tool for inspiring revolt. And few governments tried harder to suppress literacy than did those in the South. Everyone understood that knowledge was power: power to keep a person enslaved in mind and body, power to resist oppression. In the decades before the Civil War, Southern governments drove Black literacy underground, but it was too precious to be entirely stamped out.
This book describes the violent lengths to which southern leaders went to repress Black literacy and the extraordinary courage it took Black people to resist. Derek W. Black shows how, from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the end of Reconstruction, literacy evolved from a subversive gateway to freedom to a public program to extend citizenship and build democratic institutions—and how, once Reconstruction was abandoned, opposition to educating Black children depressed education throughout the South for Black and white students alike. He also reveals the deep imprint those events had on education and how this legacy is resurfacing today.
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“Today political actors are fighting what teachers can teach, what students can learn, and how the truth can be bent to distort our history. Derek Black lays out a powerful corrective to the war on academic freedom and the pursuit of a deeper understanding of our complex history. It is a resource that teachers and parents need to make sense of our current moment.”
—Gloria Ladson-Billings, past president, National Academy of Education
“The story of the fight for literacy of Black people in the United States is one of great hope and of profound frustration. Professor Derek Black has written a magnificent book that tells this story from the earliest days of the country through today’s continuing struggles. Black’s beautifully written book reminds us of a largely forgotten history that must be remembered and be a basis for action now.”—Erwin Chemerinsky, author of Worse Than Nothing
“As Derek W. Black rightly concludes this bracing, moving history, ‘something dangerously reminiscent of the pre–Civil War South is happening in education today.’ Read Dangerous Learning to grasp the heritage of the perilous path MAGA-elected officials have chosen to suppress learning among those they seek to silence and dominate.”—Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America
“Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the origin of public education in this country, the role it plays in our democracy, and the dangers of the current attacks on public education and ideas labeled ‘controversial.’ Black chronicles the backlash in the South against literacy, schooling, and ‘dangerous learning’ that followed Denmark Vesey’s planned revolt and Nat Turner’s rebellion, and he chronicles the powerful work of educators in the wake of the Civil War who formed schools to educate students at great peril to themselves, which laid the very foundations for our public education systems.We owe it to our students to understand that history.”—Becky Pringle, president, National Education Association
“Derek Black’s history of Black literacy is a powerful testimony to the importance of literacy for freedom and self-determination. The stories he tells about the Black struggle for learning are inspiring. We are now locked in an epic struggle over the freedom to learn and the survival of public schools. Black’s book should be required reading for those who treasure learning.”—Diane Ravitch, author of Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools
Derek Black “has written a gem of a book with his latest, Dangerous Learning: The South’s Long War on Black Literacy.” It “arrives at the right time.”
—Brian Gilmore, The Progressive
Derek Black changes “figures of history . . . from myths (or, often, from literary characters distorted through Lost Cause propaganda) to real people with full humanity. . . . Even if it wasn’t his original intent . . ., Dangerous Learning speaks to many of the most significant anxieties and crises of our own era, in its depiction of the anxieties and crises of America’s past.”
—Steve Nuzum, Other Duties (as assigned)
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Schoolhouse Burning
Public Education and the Assault on American Democracy
A stirring and passionate defense of the central importance of public education to American democracy, vividly illustrating how the forces of reaction are chipping away at a constitutional right.
We are in the midst of a full-scale attack on our nation’s commitment to public education. From funding, to vouchers, to charter schools, public education policy has become a political football, rather than a means of fulfilling the most basic obligation of government to its citizens.
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“I loved Schoolhouse Burning for its stirring defense of the central importance of public education to American democracy, and for Derek Black’s groundbreaking research. He definitively shows that the founders of the nation enthusiastically promoted public schools, that public schools enjoyed overwhelming bipartisan support, and were established in every state as central to democracy. The current efforts to privatize them with vouchers began with segregationists in the 1950s and continue today with charter schools, reinvigorated vouchers, and deep cuts to public school funding. I highly recommend Schoolhouse Burning as an important counter to a destructive trend.”
—Diane Ravitch, author of Slaying Goliath and Reign of Error
“Derek Black has written a magnificent book on the history of public education in the United States. Professor Black shows that the future of American society—its equality, its democracy—depends on improving its public schools. This beautifully written book offers a path forward to making a right to a quality education for all children a reality.”—Erwin Chemerinsky, dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley
“Derek Black is the rare education law scholar willing to put his vast skills and knowledge in the service of defending our nation’s public schools. Schoolhouse Burning is a searing analysis of the current assault on public education by those intent on its destruction and, with it, the further erosion of our democratic institutions. It is also an urgent call to action to join with parents, advocates, teachers, and lawyers on the front lines of ensuring the right of every child to a high-quality education remains prominent, paramount and fully protected.”—David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center
“Schoolhouse Burning: Public Education and the Assault on American Democracy explores the privileged place that [public schools] hold in our country’s history. Black, a professor of law at the University of South Carolina and a civil rights lawyer, makes clear that public education was central to the Founding Fathers’ vision of a new kind of democracy that rests on the consent of the governed.”
—New York Review of Books
“There are more than a few books both you and Biden should read to start his presidency off right, and we've pulled together a list. . . Thanks to decades of underfunding, America's public schools are in big trouble, and that's without accounting for the endless proposals for programs that would divert tax dollars into private education. Derek W. Black analyzes the problem with public education in the United States today, and lays out a plan to fix it, in Schoolhouse Burning.”
—K.W. Colyard, Bustle
“Many folks discuss education with semi-formed ideas about whether or not education really is a fundamental part of our democracy. . . . Black’s book is packed with information and analysis, but remains exceptionally accessible, like getting a detailed explanation from a legal scholar who just happens to speak plain English. Beyond the well-researched history, Black also provides a convincing argument in favor of public education in this country, a defense of a foundational institution at a time it is once again under attack.”
—Peter Greene, Forbes
Black “chronicles the history of public education in the United States and makes the unassailable case that this cornerstone of our democracy faces serious threats that we must address head on.”
—Southern Education Foundation
“Derek Black convincingly argues that, historically, public education can, and frequently has, unified a divided country. Black’s deftly rendered historical account stretches from before the American Revolution to the Civil Rights Movement and into modern times. It describes how public education has long been the touchstone for the nation to recommit to its founding principles. And though his book is mostly a historical account, Black is as concerned with the past as with the present, especially in anticipation of a post-Betsy DeVos world where public schools have been falsely portrayed as anachronistic.”
—Jeff Bryant, The Progressive
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Ending Zero Tolerance
The Crisis of Absolute School Discipline
Answers the calls of grassroots communities pressing for integration and increased education funding with a complete rethinking of school discipline
In the era of zero tolerance, we are flooded with stories about schools issuing draconian punishments for relatively innocent behavior. One student was suspended for chewing a Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun. Another was expelled for cursing on social media from home. Suspension and expulsion rates have doubled over the past three decades as zero tolerance policies have become the normal response to a host of minor infractions that extend well beyond just drugs and weapons.
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"Black convincingly explains how the nations inflexible, exclusionary and counterproductive approach to school discipline has swung far out of balance. This extraordinarily important book carefully outlines the legal and policy thinking that should serve as a cornerstone for the lawyers, policymakers and judges who must re-balance this destructive system." ~Kevin Welner, co-editor,Closing the Opportunity Gap: What America Must Do to Give All Children an Even Chance
"In Ending Zero Tolerance, Professor Derek Black sheds light on how both law and policy are inviting schools to harshly punish students in ways that greatly harm the disciplined student, his or her peers, academic outcomes and our national commitment to equal educational opportunity. He also proposes insightful and attainable legal reforms that could end this crisis. Ending Zero Tolerance is a must-read for all who are committed to fair discipline policies." ~Kimberly Jenkins Robinson,Professor, University of Richmond School of Law
"Zero-tolerance policies fuel the school-to-prison pipeline and disproportionately deny educational opportunities to already disadvantaged student populations. In this volume, Derek Black not only describes the problem but proposes a solutionintervention by state and federal courts. In an era when many are losing faith in courts to protect students, Black makes a persuasive case that courts can and should play a productive role in safeguarding the basic rights of students. This book is a cogent, comprehensive, and creative resource for all those who seek to dismantle one of the most pervasive contributors to educational inequality in this country." ~James E. Ryan,Charles William Eliot Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education
"Derek Black has written a magnificent book that shows how the current approach to disciplining children in schools undermines education, discriminates against children of color, and violates the most basic notions of due process. He makes a compelling case that courts must be involved in reforming school discipline. This book is must reading for all involved in education and all who care about the American educational system." ~Erwin Chemerinsky,Dean, University of California, Irvine School of Law
"Now is the time to revisit much of the legal thinking about the constitutional rights of public school students, because so many of them were originally pronounced during the Civil Rights Era There is no question that Ending Zero Tolerance will be of great interest to a diverse audience of people interested in public education." ~Kevin Brown,Richard S. Melvin Professor of Law Indiana University Maurer School of Law-Bloomington
"Black's book is necessary reading for educators and those who work with youth, whether during classroom hours or in an after-school setting." ~Youth Today
"With the intent to address the toxic environment that zero tolerance perpetuates, Black outlines a convincing argument that the courts must step in to speed reform and ensure that all students are cared for equally." ~Library Journal text goes here
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Education Law
Equality, Fairness, and Reform, Second Edition
This second edition casebook develops Education Law through the themes of equality, fairness, and reform. Specifically, Education Law: Equality, Fairness, and Reform, 2E focuses on the laws of equal educational opportunity for various different disadvantaged student populations, the recent reform movements designed to improve education, and the general constitutional rights that extend to all students. Updates included in the second edition include a new chapter devoted to teachers’ rights and reforms, including terminations, tenure, unions, and teacher evaluation, an entirely rewritten chapter on federal policy to incorporate the Every Student Succeeds Act and expansion of sections dealing with sexual orientation and gender identity.
Essays and Op-Eds
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