Curt Cardine has written an important book about the ripoff of the American taxpayer and the destruction of public schools by the rapacious, profit-driven charter school movement. He demonstrates why authorities must establish clear standards for academic and financial accountability for these schools, or close them down and return their students to public schools. -- Diane Ravitch, former assistant secretary of education; author of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System" Curt Cardine has written a book to remind us all that when it comes to public education, we cannot have it both ways: either we must insist on requiring that all public schools -- neighborhood or charter -- are a public good, subject to the same basic laws of transparency and accountability; or we must redefine public education as a private commodity, and let the market rule. If that choice feels fundamentally important, both to you and to the future of our civic health, this book is for you -- Sam Chaltain, author of "American Schools: The Art of Creating a Democratic Learning Community" The book explains the forces behind the current efforts to privatize education. It also works to debunk the idea that public education should be based on a capitalistic model of action that places the education of our youth into the hands of corporations. Cardine does this by presenting the original six principles of public education as espoused by Horace Mann, which is the basis of most state legislation concerning the creation of public schools. -- Antioch University
