The Teacher Insurgency
A Strategic and Organizing Perspective
Leo Casey
paper, 304 Pages
Pub. Date: November 2020
ISBN-13: 978-1-68253-555-4
Price: $35.00
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cloth, 304 Pages
Pub. Date: November 2020
ISBN-13: 978-1-68253-557-8
Price: $66.00
Add to Cart
In The Teacher Insurgency, Leo Casey addresses how the unexpected wave of recent teacher strikes has had a dramatic impact on American public education, teacher unions, and the larger labor movement. Casey explains how this uprising was not only born out of opposition to government policies that underfunded public schools and deprofessionalized teaching, but was also rooted in deep-seated changes in the economic climate, social movements, and, most importantly, educational politics.
With an eye to maintaining the momentum of the insurgency, the author examines four key strategic questions that have arisen from the strikes: the relationship of mobilization to organizing; the relationship between protests and direct action; the conditions under which teacher strikes are most likely to be successful; and the importance of “bargaining for the common good.” More broadly, Casey examines how to organize teachers for collective action, focusing on four discourses of teaching: teaching as nurturance; as professionalism; as labor and craft; and as a vocation of democratic intellectual work.
Casey’s analysis is located within a larger examination of organizing teachers for collective action. He draws upon social science and historical literature in addressing these questions and examines this wave of activism not just as a phenomenon of labor, but in the context of the broader universe of social movements.
Praise
Throughout the country, teachers have been organizing, striking, and speaking up to demand change. Given how little we do to support our nation's teachers, it's hardly surprising and about time. Casey's book looks behind the scenes to analyze the factors that have provoked this movement and the strikes that have accompanied them in ‘red’ states and ‘blue’ cities. For those who recognize the importance of teaching and who believe our nation's teachers must be treated fairly, this book will be an eye-opener.
— Pedro A. Noguera, dean, Rossier School of Education, University of California, Los Angeles
Leo Casey offers a clear-eyed and inspiring analysis of the recent fights that have mobilized teachers, parents, and their community allies in a remarkable effort to save our schools on behalf of the common good. Informed by Casey’s decades as a teacher, organizer, and defender of public education, The Teacher Insurgency dazzles with its wise judgments, historical grounding, and broad strategic vision, as it points the way toward the democratic transformation we so desperately need.
— Joseph A. McCartin, professor of history, Georgetown University, author of Collision Course
Casey is a well-versed, urgent advocate for teacher unionism and reform. Read this book and learn.
— The Progessive Magazine
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About the Author
Leo Casey is the Executive Director of the Albert Shanker Institute, a strategic think tank affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers. He taught and worked in New York City public high schools for twenty-eight years. During this time, he was a union activist and leader, serving for six years as a Vice President of New York City’s United Federation of Teachers. In that role, he led the union’s organizing in charter schools. Casey has won a number of awards for his teaching and was named the 1992 Social Studies Teacher of the Year for the American Teacher Awards. For ten years, his students—all of color, and predominantly immigrants and girls—won city and state championships in the “We the People” civics competition, twice placing fourth in the nation. Casey has worked with teachers in Tanzania and Russia on the development of civics education, and with teachers in China on promoting critical pedagogical methods. He has written extensively on civics, education, unionism and politics, in both print and on-line publications. Casey holds a PhD in political science from the University of Toronto.