Test, Measure, Punish

Erin Michaels's excellent book turns much-needed attention to a stressed high school in the New York suburbs. Hard hit by divestment, white flight, unfair state student performance standards, and the constant threat of closure, Sandview High is a window into the continued and evolving neoliberalization of schooling. As the book makes clear, collective willpower is needed to reverse course on regimes of measuring and punishing that disproportionately harm Black and Latinx young people. (Freeden Blume Oeur, author of Black Boys Apart: Racial Uplift and Respectability in All-Male Public Schools) In Test, Measure, Punish, Michaels unveils how punitive regimes of testing and disciplinary sanctions serve to individualize student struggles, reinforcing the cycle of school failure while obscuring deeper systemic issues like racial segregation and economic divestment. Through a powerful exploration of the struggles faced by a New York suburban school, she shows how districts, states, and federal entities impose impossible standards on impoverished schools with high-needs populations, disguised as motivation for improvement. By shedding light on the ways that redistricting allows wealthier families to hoard opportunities, while impoverished, majority Black and Latinx schools, are burdened with surveillance and blame, Michaels provides an eye-opening look at how 'bad' schools are intentionally created and sustained. With limited resources, these schools are subjected to an unforgiving testing culture, where the threat of state takeover looms large. Michaels digs deep into the profound consequences of 'schooling under threat,' offering a vital, sobering analysis of its impact on our most vulnerable youth (Jennifer Jones, author of The Browning of the New South) Test, Measure, Punish is an incisive study about how neoliberal accountability policies shape the educational experiences of marginalized youth. Michaels deftly shows how such policies undermine student access to resources and erode their sense of political agency. Test Measure Punish is an urgent call for us to rethink the role of education and accountability politics in fostering young people's democratic engagement and fights for justice. (C.J. Pascoe, author of Nice is Not Enough: Inequality and the Limits of Kindness at American High)