Dr. Love is a writer and professor at Columbia University and a co-founder of the Abolitionist Teaching Network (ATN), whose mission is to develop and support teachers and parents fighting injustice within their schools and communities. She has had major positive impacts in the field of education. Punished for Dreaming builds on the arguments presented in her previous book, We Want to Do More than Survive.

There is so much talk about education reform and why it is important. Society is constantly changing and with that, so is public education, to ideally meet the needs of children of all backgrounds. But in her latest work, Love takes the opportunity to say that the last 40 years of reform has only functioned “to punish Black people for believing in and fighting for their right to quality public education.” She has compiled a ton of data and research to shine a critical light on the failure of many policies and organizations, such as No Child Left Behind, standardized testing and Teach for America.

Alongside her detailed research, Love includes personal experience, as well as interviews with colleagues and friends. These all help make her book even more impactful.

Love not only provides critiques of the problem, but proposes solutions, that include educational reparations that would help fund “well-resourced state-of-the-art schools with curricula that honor different cultures and traditions with love and admiration.” I question how this would be put into practice, but agree that it is necessary. We need to work towards providing an education that serves and lifts up all students.

I am not an educator myself, but as a parent (and public school supporter) I got a lot out of this book. Love’s message that it is not enough for white folx to be “allies” but that we must make the shift to “co-conspirators” really stood out to me. Highly recommend this book!

A very important book for all adults involved in politics at any level as well as educators. Love has done the work to show how the last 40 years of education reform has made schools worse, not better for Black students. Every president, including Obama, has contributed to the problem. The book looks harshly at the harm that both charter schools and philanthropic foundations have done. There is a ton to unpack in this book and individual chapters as well as the whole book is worthy of discussion in several different types of graduate courses.

Thank you to the publisher for my review copy of Punished for Dreaming!

In Punished for Dreaming, Bettina L. Love compiles decades of history and data on the effect of education reform on Black students.

If you are an educator who has been involved in social justice work and research, much of this information will not be new to you, nor will the stories be something you haven’t heard. However, I think it is extremely helpful to have all of this research compiled into one book, along with real world examples. There are people who work in education who need statistics and data in order to have their opinions swayed, and others who will be more interested in what systemic racism can look like to individuals.

It can be difficult to learn about racism, and it can feel very uncomfortable to walk away feeling as though you cannot solve a problem that is causing devastating harm. The case for authentic reparations has been made many times, but it is not something the average teacher or citizen may know how to help work towards, even if they did agree with Love. Many educators may be used to the curriculum sales pitch version of problem and solution, and wish there were easy steps that they could take in their classroom in order to fix the situation. Unfortunately, the issues raised in this book are systemic and put upon public schools by the government, so it stands to reason that the government needs to be involved in the solution.

Again, thank you to the publisher for my review copy. I hope this book can usher in a new wave of reform that works towards creating schools that serve all students, where education can be a joyful experience, and schools are given the resources needed to serve their students.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy. Overall, I think this book should be mandatory reading for anyone running for a local school board or any similar office - especially in this current climate of Moms For Liberty folks taking over many school boards and enacting hateful policies. The book is incredibly detailed and well-researched and I also appreciate how Love attempted to put a dollar amount on the educational reparations that are needed. Reparations are a fraught, mammoth task and I admire the thought and calculation put into the figures listed in that chapter.

A well researched book and a topic we should be discussing more. Our school system is failing the younger generations. This is a difficult topic but one that needs to be heard.

Punished for Dreaming is an eye-opening, phenomenal book about the terrible consequences of racist school reform policies in the US since the 1980s. It is in the same vein as The New Jim Crow, Caste, and The Sum Of Us.

Over the last 40 odd years, so many policies have been put into place that have hurt the lives of black and brown children. From the War on Drugs, harsh carceral policies, increased focus on standardized testing, philanthropic overreach, and privatization of schools for profit.

I was largely unaware of the consequences of Brown vs. the Board of Education, which forced the integration of schools in the 1960s. Though this is presented as an overwhelmingly positive ruling, 38,000 black teachers lost their jobs because of how the policies were implemented.

Though Punished for Dreaming spells out myriad injustices, it is hopeful and inspiring. Improving education for black and brown children will improve it for all children. Everyone should read this book.

I listened to the audiobook, which was perfectly narrated by Karen Chilton, with an introduction read by the author.

Thank you, NetGalley, and the publishers for providing this ebook and audiobook ARC. All thoughts are my own.

This is a book that is important. It speaks to the systemic structures put into play, the structures that uphold the very fabric of the issues we are facing in our country. It starts with education. It starts with the school system. But it doesn't end there. Bettina L. Love writes confidently, clearly, and provides plenty of evidence to back up the points explored in this text. This book is essential for educators - whether they work within the public school system, a private sector, university, etc.

Dr. Love does it again. In this book, Dr. Love expertly speaks to the systemic forces and structures that uphold racism (as well as the other -isms). One of these structures: the school system. Dr. Love clearly paints the picture of the issue we are facing and its impact using data, evidence, interviews, and anecdotes.

This book is so important, not just for individuals working the the field of education, but for all those invested in bettering our society for our children––particularly our children of color.

Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal (Hardcover)
by Bettina L. Love
An honest and detailed look at the historic and political sphere of education. The implementation of many policies of educational reform is very detrimental to the Black and brown students it was to support. I see these departmental policies as causing problems for all students. Many of the personal stories in the book shows how these policies affect students. Today I see similar stories and results in schools. Ms. Love spends a majority of the book showing how defunding of public schools, racial segregation, divestment, and implementations of standardization testing and policies that create a "carceral" inevitability of schooling. Causing many of the concepts that promoted social injustice and financial benefit to organizations from publishing, to the supremacy of white politicians and wealthy companies.
This is an alarming book in its presentation, but may be something needed to be heard by the public. The Idea that technology is the only solution for students is detrimental to rural and impoverished areas. This book shows a multicultural look at education reform and it affects.

I never cease to be amazed, impressed, and deeply motivated by Dr. Love's research and her call to action for those of us directly connected to the field of education and those who might feel their work is adjacent. No one is truly adjacent, however. Dr. Love's work calls out injustices while calling in the voices of people whose realities have largely remained under-appreciated and devalued. She deploys qualitative and quantitative data in her mission to effect meaningful, long-awaited change in our country's education system. There were moments that required more digestion than others and chapters that prompted more thinking about my personal experiences and culpabilities, but they were all a welcomed interruption and invitation to reflect even deeper about my role in the fields of education and youth development. Powerful read that I highly recommend!

Punished for Dreaming is a much needed book about how our education system continues to fail Black children in a multitude of ways. I found this book absolutely fascinating and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning about the education system.

If Dr. Love writes it, I am going to read it. Interwoven with data and facts are personal stories that help bring the data to life for the reader. We need to do better, as a nation, as teachers and as humans. This book should be read by every single teacher. Most teacher prep programs have a history of education course; this book should be their text book.

Thank you to @netgalley and Macmillan Publishers for the eARC. I highly suggest that this book is bought in print form as the reader may want to flip back and forth to truly understand the message.

5 stars

Wonderful, informative read on a difficult topic. As a former educator in Title I schools for over a decade, it was difficult to read about the orchestration of segregation and funding issues for black and brown students. Difficult, but important to know the history.

As a white school psychologist working in title one buildings in 2023, I was so excited to read this book. Although a difficult read, it is an important read. I would recommend this book not only to all educators, but anyone who cares about our country, it's history, and how to move forward.

Punished for Dreaming is well-researched, well-written, and an important book that everyone should read. I will definitely recommend this book to the educators I work with. Looking at the systemic structures and inequities and how they impact students of color should be required reading for all educators.

Punished for Dreaming builds on the arguments Dr. Love presents in We Want To Do More Than Survive and presents more historical context and personal stories demonstrating the horrific educational inequalities in the United States. As a teacher who has worked for some of the districts and networks Dr. Love examines, I can verify that she accurately assesses the damage done by educational reform and the problems caused by running schools for profit. While Dr. Love makes bold claims like using the term superpredators to identify school reformers, her assertions are backed up by her evidence. Her final call to action for educational reparations is a necessary resolution to decades of damaging educational reforms. I will recommend this book to my fellow educators, and I hope that it spurs conversations about the real and urgent changes actually needed in education.

This was clearly a well researched book written by an author very passionate on the topic. As an educator I was very excited to get a copy of Punished for Dreaming to read it and evaluate how I can be a better educator for my students. A lot of the book was spent detailing all the educational policies and systems of the past that are not working. At the end of the book some suggestions were given about ideas for what we can do to begin making reparations and begin moving forward. This is a book I think a lot of policy makers should read to see how the decisions they make hurt others. This was an eye opening and well written book. I received an ARC and this is my honest review.

I read this book for free thanks to NetGalley in exchange for my honest feedback

As an educator I found this book eye opening. I was already aware of disparity in education, but I didn't realize how deeply it went. I live-in Canada, so some of this is, and some of it isn't relevant to my own students.

A strong book with many powerful personal stories. This book is at its strongest when detailing how various “reform” movements, even well meaning ones, over time have hurt Black students. People will probably be a bit turned off at the end as it goes over policy ideas (mainly educational reparations). The author does pursue this in a very logical way though that shouldn’t be discounted.

Such a well written and thought-provoking book! This is a must read for everyone but especially those in education.