Leslie T. Fenwick, Jim Crow's Pink Slip: The Untold Story of Black Principal and Teacher Leadership

Americans once had a more robust and inspiring aspiration for what education should in a democracy.Now, as education became a priority, it was stripped of its public meaning.Shelton concludes with recent political backlash against the educated meritocracy, expressed in movements such as Occupy Wall Street and Make America Great Again.Shelton builds on a growing literature that questions the premises of American meritocracy.He draws in particular on Michael Sandel's book The Tyranny of Merit, but other recent works include Will Bunch's After the Ivory Tower Falls and Daniel Markovits' The Meritocracy Trap.Increasingly, observers are pointing out that a system that rewards education generates resentment from those who either do not have degrees or take on huge debts to get one but do not receive the promised benefits.Many of these voters turned to populist politicians like Wisconsin's Scott Walker or Donald Trump.Surprisingly, Shelton is "hopeful that the education myth is falling" (206).He points to both the success of Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign and Trump's election.Both candidates argued that the problem facing most Americans is not their education but the lack of good jobs.As president, Trump promised to bring manufacturing jobs home and to turn back globalization, even if his policies did not always align with his rhetoric.Together, Sanders and Trump opened a space for President Joe Biden to focus again on industrial policy and the creation of jobs.If Shelton is correct, perhaps we might also again refocus on the broader purposes for K-12 and higher education, rather than reduce their value to return on investment.