Original Sins

While our schools are being scrutinized for their alleged "woke-ness," an award-winning education scholar and former teacher shows that America’s classrooms were built to maintain the country’s racial hierarchy—and that they perpetuate inequality to this day.

“When I teach courses on education policy and race, I always begin on the first day of class by asking my students a simple question: What is the purpose of schools?”

American public schools have been called “the great equalizer.” If all children could just get an education, the logic goes, they would have the same opportunities later in life. But this historical tour-de-force makes it clear that the opposite is true: the educational system has played an instrumental role in creating racial hierarchies, preparing children to expect unequal treatment throughout their lives.

In Original Sins, Ewing demonstrates that schools were designed to propagate the idea of white intellectual superiority, to "civilize" Native students and to prepare Black students for menial labor. Schools were not an afterthought for the "founding fathers"; they were envisioned by Thomas Jefferson to fortify the country's racial hierarchy. And while those dynamics are less overt now than they were in centuries past, Ewing shows that they persist in a curriculum that continues to minimize the horrors of American history. Ewing argues that the most insidious aspects of the system are under the radar: standardized testing, tracking, school discipline, and access to resources.

By demonstrating that it's in the DNA of American schools to serve as an effective, and under-acknowledged, mechanism maintaining inequality in this country today, Ewing makes the case that there should be a profound re-evaluation of what schools are supposed to do, and for whom. This book will change the way people understand the place they send their children for eight hours a day.

Eve L. Ewing is the award-winning author of several books, including the poetry collections Electric Arches and 1919, the nonfiction work Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side, and a novel for young readers, Maya and the Robot. She is the co-author (with Nate Marshall) of the play No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks. She has also written several comics for Marvel Comics, most notably the Ironheart series. Dr. Ewing co-wrote a story with Janelle Monáe as a contributor to the collection of Black queer Afrofuturist fiction The Memory Librarian, and she also co-wrote the young adult graphic novel Change the Game with Colin Kaepernick. She was born in Chicago, where she lives and teaches.

• Publisher: One World
• Publish Date: February 11, 2025
• Pages: 400
• Dimensions: 1.25 pounds
• Language: English
• Type: Hardcover
• EAN/UPC: 9780593243701
• BISAC Categories: History, African American, Discrimination & Race Relations