Includes bibliographical references and index.

PART I: Jefferson's Ghost and the Purpose(s) of School -- An American Classic -- Making Citizens: Schools for White People -- Saviorism and Social Control: Schools for Black People -- Disappearance by Design: Schools for Native People -- PART II: Defective Strains -- The Gospel of Intellectual Inferiority -- A Nation for the Fittest: Measurement and the Architects of Progress -- Race and IQ: The "Debate" that Never Dies -- Whose Knowledge? -- PART III: Hands Clasped -- Carceral Logics -- To Resist is to Be Criminal -- Absolute Obedience and Perfect Submission -- PART IV: Somebody's Got to Mow the Lawn -- A Crooked Playing Field -- Slavery, Settler Colonialism, and American Wealth -- Dispossession by Degrees: Universities and the Legacy of Theft -- A Place to Learn Your Place: Education and Racial Capitalism -- Conclusion: Strands Together.

"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"-- Provided by publisher.