Peter Sacks
Books and Essays by Peter SacksBooks
Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class Divide in American Education (Look for it in May 2007 from the University of California Press)
While we often hear about the growing economic divide between the rich and the poor in America, Tearing Down the Gates locates the fountainhead of these growing economic disparities, our education system, and shows how the widening class divide results in an untold loss of human talent that will derail the American Dream --not just for some, but for us all. Standardized Minds: The High Price of America's Testing Culture and What We Can Do to Change it (Perseus Publishing)
A critical examination of America's 'testing culture' in schools, higher education, and the workplace, and how the American meritocracy can be more fair for all citizens. Generation X Goes to College: An Eye-Opening Account of Teaching in Postmodern America (Open Court).
An inquiry into "postmodern" American culture and its sometimes corrosive effects on qualilty in higher education. Essays and Commentary
How Colleges Perpetuate Inequality
From the Chronicle of Higher Education, Jan. 12, 2007 "The Geography of Privilege"
Essay in the Spring, 2004, issue of Encounter: Education for Meaning and Social Justice Class Rules: the Fiction of Egalitarian Higher Education
From the Chronicle Review (Chronicle of Higher Education, July 25, 2003. "Class Struggle"
Review essay in The Nation, May 5, 2003. "The GRE and Me: Prestige Versus Quality in American Higher Education"
Essay appears in the Spring 2003 issue of Encounter: Education for Meaning and Social Justice "Turning Schools into Profit Centers"
From the Jan. 8, 2003, issue of Education Week "A Nation at Risk"
Review essay of In Schools We Trust by Deborah Meier in The Nation, Nov. 18, 2002. "On Changing the SAT: A Contrarian's View of Our 'Culture of Standardized Testing.'
Education Week, June 5, 2002. "Testing Times in Higher Ed"
A review essay on the book, Fair Game?, by Rebecca Zwick for The Nation. "Pseudo-meritocracy"
The Boston Review, December/January 2001 "How Admissions Tests Hinder Access to Graduate and Professional Schools."
The Chronicle of Higher Education (Chronicle Review), June 8, 2001. "Predictable Losers in Testing Schemes"
The School Administrator, Dec. 2000 |
WELCOME About my new book: Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class Divide in American Education (University of California Press) "Tearing Down the Gates" is about educational injustice. While we often hear about the economic divide between the rich and the poor in America, this book locates the fountainhead of these growing economic disparities in one of our most cherished democratic institutions: our education system. The book tells the stories of several young people born into different sides of America’s class divide and how their educational opportunities are being shaped by their class status more than ever. The book shows how the actions of schools, colleges and universities, and even government agencies, exacerbate the widening opportunity gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged young people. Educational opportunity is the key to a middle-class life in the United States, yet the widening class divide results in an untold loss of human talent. Over time, this emerging crisis will derail the American Dream -- not just for some, but for us all. Tearing Down the Gates is published by University of California Press. The UC Press has nominated the book to participate in a new marketing venture called the Caravan Project, funded by a grant from John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, intended to make serious non-fiction books more widely available to the reading public. For a full description of the Caravan Project, see the PDF file below. Stay tuned for the latest updates and speaking events about the book. Also check out my education column at Huffingtonpost.com.  The Caravan Project (34 KB) Near Fairfield, Idaho, between Boise and Sun Valley. (c) Peter Sacks FOR THE LIBRARIANS low-income students college access educational opportunity higher education elite colleges affirmative action standardized testing income inequality sociology of education admissions tests college rankings college admissions inequality meritocracy social class and education |
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