Punishing Schools: Fear and Citizenship in American Public Education (Law, Meaning, and Violence)

In a society increasingly dominated by zero-tolerance thinking, Punishing Schools argues that our educational system has become both the subject of legislative punishment and the instrument of punishment for children. Authors Lyons and Drew analyze the connections between a culture of economic punishment of our schools (by the diversion of funding to charter schools, the imposition of unfunded mandates, and the enforcement of dubious forms of teacher accountability) and the imposition by those schools of punitive controls on their own students - a vicious cycle that creates fear and encourages the development of passive and dependent citizens. Based on in-depth interviews and detailed analysis of official documents, newspapers, and popular texts, Punishing Schools offers a rich and incisive critique of our public education system and its role in our national political culture.