They Came For Schools: One Town's Fight Over Race and Identity, and the New War For America's Classrooms; Mike Hixenbaugh

USD 12.69

The urgent, revelatory story of how a school board win for the conservative right in one Texas suburb inspired a Christian nationalist campaign now threatening to undermine public education in America.Award-winning journalist Mike Hixenbaugh delivers the eye-opening story of Southlake, Texas, a well-funded district that seemed to offer everything parents would want for their children’s success. But after a series of racist incidents became public, a plan to promote inclusiveness was proposed in response — and a coordinated conservative backlash erupted, lighting the fire of a national movement to return Donald Trump to power and to change the face of public schools across the country.They Came for the Schools pulls back the curtain on this crusade to ban books, rewrite curricula, limit rights for racial minority and LGBTQ students, and, most important, to win what Hixenbaugh’s deeply informed reporting convinces is the holy grail for the powerful forces seeking to impose biblical values on American society: school privatization, one school board and one legal battle at a time.“Propulsive. . . . This razor-sharp book is the masterful culmination of years of reportage. . . . A work of compassion, one that never fails to center the vulnerability or the dignity of students.”—Washington Post May 14, 2024 About the Author Mike Hixenbaugh is a senior investigative reporter for NBC News, co-creator of the "Southlake" and "Grapevine" podcasts, and author of "They Came for the Schools: One Town’s Fight Over Race and Identity, and the New War for America’s Classrooms."Hixenbaugh’s reporting in recent years on the battles over race, gender, and sexuality in public schools won a Peabody Award and was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. While working as a newspaper reporter in Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, and Texas, Hixenbaugh uncovered deadly failures in the U.S. military, abuses in the child welfare system, and safety lapses at major hospitals, winning numerous national awards and triggering reforms aimed at saving lives and keeping families together.His first book, "They Came for the Schools" — winner of the prestigious Lukas Work-in-Progress Award — is set to be published by Mariner in May 2024.Hixenbaugh lives in Maryland with his wife and four children.