Teaching is a wildly contentious profession in America, one attacked and admired in equal measure. In The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession, Goldstein—a journalist who comes from a family of public school educators—guides us through American education’s many passages, including the feminization of teaching in the 1800s and the growth of teachers unions, and shows that the battles fought over nearly two centuries echo the very dilemmas we confront today. Who should teach?  What should be taught?  Who should be held accountable for how our children learn?

Goldstein uncovers answers in the past to the controversies that plague public schools today. She uncovers the surprising roots of hot-button issues, from teacher tenure to charter schools, and finds that recent popular ideas to improve schools – instituting merit pay and recruiting “elite” graduates to teach – are all approaches that have been tried in the past without producing widespread change.

The Teacher Wars—now a New York Times bestseller—upends the conversation about American education by bringing the lessons of history to bear on the dilemmas we confront today. In conversation with Ezra Klein, Editor-in-Chief of Vox. Book signing to follow.