Manufactured Outrage

A powerful and urgently needed examination of the Conservative Industrial Complex (CIC)’s attack on public education, with practical strategies to push back and uphold education as a democratic, public good

Public education is under attack. At school board meetings, in the media, and in the political sphere, there is a growing wave of anti-public education sentiment and a tendency to twist such concepts as Critical Race Theory, multiculturalism, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) into dog whistles for the supposed brainwashing of students. In Manufactured Outrage, the authors provide an overview of the CIC—a coordinated network of conservative groups that seeks to dismantle our public education system—and explore how educators can push back against harmful education policy agendas.

The past few years have seen an avalanche of conservative education bills across the country. Dozens of states have rolled back protections for minoritized students, implemented book bans and instituted universal school choice, and promoted anti-DEI bills in the name of parents’ rights. These sweeping changes during such a short span of time are no accident. Using original research, including documents and observations obtained from behind the CIC’s closed doors, the authors reveal that these policies could only proceed through highly coordinated campaigns.

In this book, readers will learn who the key CIC players are, how the CIC advances its education policy agendas through webs of network organizations to become blueprints for educational reform, and finally, how activists are organizing to resist assaults on our democracy through public and policy advocacy. District leaders, school leaders, education policymakers, activists, and community members will find the guidance invaluable as they navigate the current fraught educational landscape.