Josh Cowen, "The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers" (Harvard Education Press, 2024)

Josh Cowen, "The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers" (Harvard Education Press, 2024)

School vouchers are often framed as a way to help students and families by providing choice, but evidence shows that vouchers have a negative impact on educational outcomes. In The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers (Harvard Education Press, 2024), Josh Cowen describes voucher programs as the product of decades of work by influential conservatives and wealthy activists to support a vision of America where education is privatized and removed from the public sphere. Far from realizing the purported goal of educational equity, Cowen cites multiple research studies that conclude that voucher programs return poor academic outcomes, including lower test scores on state exams, especially among students who are at greater academic risk because of their race, their religion, their gender identity, or their family's income. The books traces the history of vouchers from it's initial proposal as part of conservative economic policy through its adoption as a method for families to resist school desegregation. Since then, the issue of education "freedom" has been a part of an ongoing culture war waged through policymaking, legislation, and litigation. Cowen describes the advocacy network that funds research and promotion of vouchers as a way to attain ideological goals related to conservative social policy, not educational outcomes. Recommended reading: East of Eden by John Steinbeck Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Episoder(2227)

Eivind Røssaak, "The Cory Arcangel Hack: Digital Culture and Aesthetic Practice" (MIT Press, 2025)

Eivind Røssaak, "The Cory Arcangel Hack: Digital Culture and Aesthetic Practice" (MIT Press, 2025)

The first in-depth exploration of the work of artist Cory Arcangel, a pioneer of DIY-new media art whose influential “hacks” subvert the confines of Big Tech. Cory Arcangel (b. 1978)—perhaps best kno...

4 Apr 43min

Amir Saemi, "Morality and Revelation in Islamic Thought and Beyond: A New Problem of Evil" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Amir Saemi, "Morality and Revelation in Islamic Thought and Beyond: A New Problem of Evil" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Amir Saemi’s exciting book Morality and Revelation in Islamic Thought and Beyond: A New Problem of Evil (Oxford UP, 2024) is a fascinating and deeply thought-provoking study that challenges how we thi...

4 Apr 1h 29min

Daniel Rachel, "This Ain't Rock 'n' Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika, and the Third Reich" (Akashic Books, 2026)

Daniel Rachel, "This Ain't Rock 'n' Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika, and the Third Reich" (Akashic Books, 2026)

Over the last seven decades, some of rock 'n' roll's most celebrated figureheads have flirted with the imagery and theater of the Third Reich. From Keith Moon and Vivian Stanshall kitting themselves o...

4 Apr 57min

Pre-Reading

Pre-Reading

In this episode of High Theory, Milan Terlunen talks to Kim about Pre-Reading. There are many books we will never read and films we will never watch, but it turns out we know quite a bit about them in...

30 Mar 20min

Mark Pennington, "Foucault and Liberal Political Economy: Power, Knowledge, and Freedom" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Mark Pennington, "Foucault and Liberal Political Economy: Power, Knowledge, and Freedom" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Foucault and Liberal Political Economy: Power, Knowledge, and Freedom by Mark Pennington This highly original and innovative book is the first to comprehensively engage the ideas of the French social...

30 Mar 58min

Ainehi Edoro, "Forest Imaginaries: How African Novels Think" (Columbia UP, 2026)

Ainehi Edoro, "Forest Imaginaries: How African Novels Think" (Columbia UP, 2026)

Forests in fiction are often understood simply as settings, symbols, or remnants of a premodern past. Yet many African novelists have turned to the forest to experiment with worldbuilding and to imagi...

30 Mar 1h 2min

Emmanuel Ofuasia, "Ìwà: the Process-Relational Dimension to African Metaphysics" (Springer, 2024)

Emmanuel Ofuasia, "Ìwà: the Process-Relational Dimension to African Metaphysics" (Springer, 2024)

Correction: In the interview, the host mistakenly mentioned that Prof. Ofuasia is teaching the University of Pretoria. In reality, Prof Ofuasia is currently a decoloniality research associate at the U...

29 Mar 1h 31min

Thomas Hegghammer and Diego Gambetta eds., "Fight, Flight, Mimic: Identity Mimicry in Conflict" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Thomas Hegghammer and Diego Gambetta eds., "Fight, Flight, Mimic: Identity Mimicry in Conflict" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Time spent and words spent—what does each signal? Deceptive mimicry—the manipulation of individual or group identity—includes passing off as a different individual, as a member of a group to which on...

28 Mar 1h 5min

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