On the eve of the official launch of my new book, Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education, I am beyond honored to share the first review from Rethinking Schools. Their thoughtful words capture the heart of what I set out to achieve with Teach Truth—to highlight the growing attacks on public education, empower educators to teach with courage, and inspire action for justice in our classrooms and beyond.

This review underscores the urgency of this moment: public education is under siege, with billionaires and bigots leading a campaign to erase the truth about systemic racism, gender justice, and climate science from our schools. Central to this effort is what I call “uncritical race theory”—the calculated rewriting of history that distorts and denies systemic inequality, reframing oppression as natural and inevitable. These attacks aim to create a generation of students unable to think critically about the past or imagine a more just future. But, as the review so powerfully states, Teach Truth is also a “song of hope”—a testament to the resilience of educators and students fighting back and reimagining schools as places sites of liberation.

I also want to emphasize how critical pre-orders are for the success of this book. Pre-ordering doesn’t just secure your copy—it signals to booksellers and publishers that this message matters. It helps amplify the reach of Teach Truth and ensures it gets into the hands of more educators, activists, and allies at this pivotal moment. Please pre-order and share the link to order the book with your networks.

Finally, I am joining the Executive Director of Rethinking Schools, Cierra Kaler-Jones, in conversation about my new book for the online book launch event this evening, Monday, January 13th at 4pm Pacific (7pm Eastern). This is part of the Zinn Education Project’s “Teach The Black Freedom Struggle” online classes. You can register for the event here, and I’d love to see you there!

Teach Truth
By Jesse Hagopian
(Haymarket Books, 2025)
285 pp.

Rethinking Schools editor Jesse Hagopian’s Teach Truth is a manifesto to defend education from the billionaires and bigots.

Hagopian movingly chronicles today’s relentless — and sometimes violent — attacks on teaching with a conscience. (No doubt about to become much worse.) This is a story of elites desperate to use schools to legitimate race and class privilege — and ultimately to discredit and defund public education.

Hagopian gives us language to describe the pushback to anti-racist education and what it means to be a truth-teacher during difficult times. At the heart of Teach Truth are the stories of courageous students and educators determined to make schools sites of curiosity, equality, and justice.

The book is sharp, story-rich, and carefully researched. Hagopian’s Teach Truth is a warning — but also a song of hope and a call to action.

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