Chomsky on Mis-Education

Noam Chomsky's prolific writings have made him one of the most-quoted educators in history--the only living writer on a most-cited list that includes Plato, Shakespeare, and Freud. Yet until now, no book has systematically offered Chomsky's influential writings on education. In Chomsky on MisEducation, Noam Chomsky encourages a larger understanding of our educational needs, starting with the changing role of schools today, and broadening our view of new models of public education. Chomsky weaves global technological change and the primacy of responsible media with the democratic role of schools and higher education. A truly democratic society, he argues, cannot thrive in a rapidly changing world unless our approach to educationformal and otherwiseis dramatically reformed. Chomsky's critique of how our current educational system 'miseducates' studentsand his prescriptions for changeare essential reading for teachers, parents, school administrators, activists, and anyone concerned about the future.

Chomsky and Macedo provide a brilliant analysis of schooling that draws upon a language of critique and possibility that reclaims the notion of schooling as a public good and a democratic force. At a time when teachers, students, and public life in general are under assault by the juggernaut of commodification and capital accumulation, it is crucial that educators, parents, youth, and others be offered a language in which politics, power, justice, and social change become central to any notion of educational reform. Chomsky and Macedo's book fulfills this task with great courage and penetrating wisdom. This is a book that should be read by everyone interested in education and the crisis of democracy., Judged in terms of power, range, novelty, and influence of his thought, Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important intellectual alive today., [Chomsky] continues to challenge our assumptions long after other critics have gone to bed. He has become the foremost gadfly of our national conscience., [Chomsky has] a proud defensive independence, a good plain writer's hatred of expert mystification, a doctrine of resistance which runs against the melioristic and participatory current of most contemporary intellectual life. . . . Such men are dangerous; the lack of them is disasterous., Chomsky's intellect continues to be provocative and liberating.

Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the author of more than 80 books. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts. Donaldo Macedo is professor of English and Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Education at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is the author of many books, including Literacies of Power and the forthcoming Ideology Matters, coauthored with Paulo Freire.