Preview
  • Cutting School

  • Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education
  • By: Noliwe Rooks
  • Narrated by: Robin Eller
  • Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (62 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Cutting School

By: Noliwe Rooks
Narrated by: Robin Eller
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $15.47

Buy for $15.47

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

What do public schools have in common with the pyramid schemes of Amway? Absolutely nothing, yet Trump's education secretary Betsy DeVos - part of the family at the helm of this corporation and a fierce advocate for vouchers, school choice, and free market competition in the education system - may soon be deciding the fate of American children. The wholesale privatization of our schools is expected to be at the top of her agenda.

One of the greatest American achievements in the twentieth century was the creation of public schools and universal education, an ideal now deeply at risk. Cornell University professor Noliwe Rooks provides a critical account of the making and unmaking of public education in Cutting School, the first book to foreground how vast racial and economic divides are part and parcel of the push to privatize our education system.

Rooks traces the historical origins and contemporary contours of today's separate and unequal schools to show the disastrous impact of funneling public dollars to private for-profit and non-profit operations that have questionable if not abysmal track records for educating children well - particularly poor children of color.

©2017 Noliwe Rooks (P)2017 Tantor
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

"A convincing argument that the only viable, proven school reform strategy is integration, a solution distressingly difficult to achieve." ( Kirkus)

What listeners say about Cutting School

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    42
  • 4 Stars
    13
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    27
  • 4 Stars
    15
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    5
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    39
  • 4 Stars
    11
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Important and well explained real history here.

I appreciate how this book cuts through the discomfort and heads straight for the truth and stories that should make us all really around people actual trying to do right by the education system. People in power making decisions about schools do a lot of hand waving to make it seem like the problems that got us here are in the past. This book shows how disingenuous that is.
This is a good sister book to another called Slaying Goliath. The two together are powerful.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

I learned so much...

There was a great deal of history presented in this book. Much of it was well known, but the way Rooks connects these historical accounts to education is brilliant. This is definitely a book I will return to on a regular basis.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The information

Insightful book. Charter schools often aid in the destruction of communities. I highly recommend this book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great book, subpar narration

This is a fantastic (and fantastically important) book that is repeatedly undercut by amateurish narration. A lot of weird, idiosyncratic pronunciations, accidental omission of words, saying the number but forgetting to add the unit of measure, etc. make it a bit hard to listen to. But the content makes it a must read for anyone interested in educational reform.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A game changer and must read

One of the most important educational reads I have ever come across! Change the game!!!!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Note to school boards & elected officials

Every elected official should read this book and ensure resources are invested equitably into public education.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

informative not convincing

This books shares a lot of good information about our failed strategies to provide equitable access to a high quality education for historically disadvantaged groups in the USA. She shows how we have flailed to integrate and how the privatization of this public good is failing at scale, and how choice is falling at scale. She does make a convincing argument for an alternative.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Important Book

The reader sounds like she's trying to channel Captain Kirk...with long pauses...at sometimes unexpected...places.

Nevertheless, this is an excellent book about the damaging move to privatize public education and its relationship to segregation.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Important topics

The narrator was terrible with poor choice of tempo and pauses which detracts from the important messages in this work.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

terrible narration

I wanted to listen to this book but could not finish it because the narration was so bad that it became a distraction.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!