Josh Cowen – The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers
October 19 @ 11:30 am
Josh Cowen is Professor of Education Policy at Michigan State University, and an author on topics related to education politics, school choice, and culture wars in the United States. In addition to each of the major academic outlets in his research field, his popular writing has appeared in outlets such as The Conversation, the Dallas Morning News, the Detroit Free Press, The Hechinger Report, the Houston Chronicle, The New Republic, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Slate, The Tennessean, the Washington Spectator and more. He lives in mid-Michigan with his family.
In The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers, Cowen lays bare the surprising history of tax-funded school choice programs in the United States and warns of the dangers of education privatization. A former evaluator of state and local school voucher programs, Cowen demonstrates how, as such programs have expanded in the United States, so too has the evidence-informed case against them.
Cosponsored by the Iowa City Public Library’s Carol Spaziani Intellectual Freedom Festival, an annual event series promoting our right to seek information, read, and speak freely.
