Jon Shelton's "The Education Myth"

Jon Shelton is Associate Professor of Democracy and Justice Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. He is the author of Teacher Strike!

Shelton applied the "Page 99 Test" to his new book, The Education Myth: How Human Capital Trumped Social Democracy, and reported the following:

Page 99 of The Education Myth includes the bulk of the conclusion of chapter 4, a chapter that highlights how the transformation of the Democratic Party in the 1970s helped to elevate what I call the “education myth” and limit the political possibilities for winning broader social and economic rights for American workers in the decade. The page reflects on the Jimmy Carter administration’s support for legislation creating a standalone federal Department of Education (extracting it from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare). It argues that that moment was important because it signified to working people, through the prism of President Carter, that the Democratic Party saw education—and not other kinds of reforms like a federal jobs guarantee or labor law reform, both of which failed to materialize in legislation during a time in which Democrats had both the presidency and large majorities in Congress—as the path for economic opportunity. “By only elevating education,” I conclude, “the Carter Administration contributed to the rise of the myth that education could, as if by magic, ensure access to economic security for those willing to get the right skills.”

In the sense that the page highlights the role the Carter Administration played in the rise of the “education myth” page 99 does represent something of a synecdoche for the entire book. But a major part of my argument is that the construction of that myth represented a series of contingent decisions by political actors that included major Democratic politicians like Carter, yes, but also Republican politicians as well as intellectuals and teacher union leaders. So, in that sense the page 99 test gives only a limited sense of the “quality of the whole” book. My view, therefore, is that page 99 provides a partial but inadequate snapshot of The Education Myth’s essential argument. To get the full picture, readers are going to have to check out pages 1-98 and 100-210, as well!

Follow Jon Shelton on Twitter.

--Marshal Zeringue