From pressure to "teach to the test" and the use of quantitative metrics to define education "quality," to the rise of "school choice" and the shift of principals from colleagues to managers, teachers in New York, Mexico City, and Toronto have experienced strikingly similar challenges to their professional autonomy. By visiting schools and meeting teachers, government officials, and union leaders, Paul Bocking identifies commonalities that are shaping how teachers work and public schools function.

While arguing that neoliberal education policy is a dominant trend transcending the realities of school districts, states, or national governments, Bocking also demonstrates the importance of local context to explain variations in education governance, especially when understanding the role of resistance led by teachers’ unions.

Paul Bocking recently earned his PhD in geography from York University and is a sessional lecturer in the School of Labour Studies at McMaster University.

Paul Bocking's profile page

"This book will benefit audiences interested in labor relations and school governance."

<EM>CHOICE</EM>

"Though Public Education, Neoliberalism, and Teachers: New York, Mexico City, Toronto will prove most useful to those studying education in North America, it will give those interested in neoliberalism more generally much to reflect upon. Though it is not a work of history, Bocking is careful to historicize his social scientific work, and the wealth of detail he provides in all three of his case studies — much of it previously untapped by scholars — will undoubtedly enrich the work of educational, economic, and labour historians grappling with the development of the most potent and controversial ideological formation of our time."

<i>Historical Studies in Education</i>