With globalization, humans are more vulnerable to outbreaks from any part of the world; increasingly, the health of each nation depends on the health of all. Yet public health has been pushed down the list of priorities. In India, an outbreak of bubonic plague created international hysteria, ridiculous in an age when the plague can easily be treated with antibiotics--that is, if you have a public-health system in place. India, busy putting its newfound wealth elsewhere, didn't. In Zaire, the deadly Ebola virus broke out in a filthy and completely unequipped hospital, and would have kept up its rampage if the organization Doctors Without Borders hadn't stepped in, not with high-tech equipment or drugs, but with soap, protective gear, and clean water. Most of the world still doesn't have access to these basic public-health necessities. The 15 States of the former Soviet Union have seen the most astounding collapse in public health in the industrialized world. But during a cholera epidemic, officials refused to use the simple cure public-health workers have long relied on--oral rehydration therapy. Many of the problems in these nations can also be found in one degree or another in the U.S., where medical cures using expensive technology and drugs have been emphasized to the detriment of protecting human health. The result? More than 100,000 Americans die each year from infections caught in hospitals, and America has a disease safety net full of holes.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist (for Newsday and others), Garrett has deftly turned what could have been a very dry subject into dramatic reportage, beginning with the eerie silence on the streets of Surat, India, where half the city's population (including doctors) fled the plague, while a thick white layer of DDT powdered the ground. Fascinating, frightening, and well-documented, Betrayal of Trust should be read not only by medical professionals and policymakers but the general public, and should galvanize a change in thinking and priorities. --Lesley Reed --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
On a par with Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, this chilling exploration of the decline of public health should be taken seriously by leaders and policymakers around the world. Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for Newsday (The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance), has written an accessible and prodigiously researched analysis of disaster in the making in a world with no functioning public health infrastructure. In India in 1994, neglect of public health for the poor led to an outbreak of pneumonic plague; the once-dreaded disease is now easily treatable with antibiotics, but the failure of Indian authorities to quickly reach a diagnosis and provide accurate information resulted in a worldwide panic. The former Soviet Union, for all its flaws, according to Garrett, assured every citizen access to health care. After the U.S.S.R.'s breakup, the Russian economy collapsed. With no funding left for health care, Russia was overwhelmed by a tuberculosis epidemic. Even the U.S., historically a pioneer in public health (this commitment was demonstrated by New York City's quick and successful response to an 1888 cholera epidemic, as well as the tenement reform movement of the early 1900s that helped eliminate diphtheria), is lagging today. During the Reagan administration, Garrett says, budget cuts dramatically weakened public health while also denying poor Americans access to medical care. The author believes that the medical challenges posed by the epidemic spread of AIDS in Africa, by drug-resistant microbes carried from one country to another and by the danger of biological warfare can be met only by a cooperative global movement dedicated to strengthening public health infrastructures. Garrett sounds the alarm with an articulate and carefully reasoned account. Author tour; NBC Today appearance. (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

This book provides the first balanced, in-depth analysis of how No Child Left Behind (NCLB) became law. Patrick McGuinn, a political scientist with hands-on experience in secondary education, explains how this happened despite the country's long history of decentralized school governance and the longstanding opposition of both liberals and conservatives to an active, reform-oriented federal role in schools. His book provides the essential political context for understanding NCLB, the controversies surrounding its implementation, and forthcoming debates over its reauthorization.

Using education as a case study of national policymaking, McGuinn also shows how the struggle to define the federal role in school reform took center stage in debates over the appropriate role of the government in promoting opportunity and social welfare. He places the evolution of the federal role in schools within the context of broader institutional, ideological, and political changes that have swept the nation since the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, chronicles the concerns raised by the 1983 report A Nation at Risk, and shows how education became a major campaign issue for both parties in the 1990s. McGuinn argues that the emergence of swing issues such as education can facilitate major policy change even as they influence the direction of wider political debates and partisan conflict.

McGuinn traces the Republican shift from seeking to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education to embracing federal leadership in school reform, then details the negotiations over NCLB, the forces that shaped its final provisions, and the ways in which the law constitutes a new federal education policy regime-against which States have now begun to rebel. He argues that the expanded federal role in schools is probably here to stay and that only by understanding the unique dynamics of national education politics will reformers be able to craft a more effective national role in school reform.

This book is part of the Studies in government and Public Policy series.

Back Cover Copy
"In reader-friendly prose notable for its telling detail, McGuinn sketches the landscape, the actors, and the agendas that took America from 'A Nation at Risk' to the world of No Child Left Behind. This is a must-read for those who would understand the federal role in school improvement and the road that lies ahead."--Frederick M. Hess, Director, Education Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute

"Must reading for anyone interested in the historical origins and recent political developments regarding No Child Left Behind."--Maris A. Vinovskis, author of History and Educational Policymaking

Jean Anyon's groundbreaking new book reveals the influence of federal and metropolitan policies and practices on the poverty that plagues schools and communities in American cities and segregated, low-income suburbs. Public policiessuch as those regulating the minimum wage, job availability, tax rates, federal transit, and affordable housingall create conditions in urban areas that no education policy as currently conceived can transcend. In this first book since her best-selling Ghetto Schooling, Jean Anyon argues that we must replace these federal and metro-area policies with more equitable ones so that urban school reform can have positive life consequences for students.
Anyon provides a much-needed new paradigm for understanding and combating educational injustice. Radical Possibilities reminds us that historically, equitable public policies have been typically created as a result of the political pressure brought to bear by social movements. Basing her analysis on new research in civil rights history and social movement theory, Anyon skillfully explains how the current moment offers serious possibilities for the creation of such a force. The book powerfully describes five social movements already under way in U.S. cities, and offers readers interested in building this new social movement a set of practical and theoretical insights into securing economic and educational justice for the many millions of America's poor families and students.