The author has spent a large part of his adult life criticizing the flawed institutions and policies of public education as a teacher, an education activist, and a policy advocate. But these days he finds himself spending a lot of time defending the very idea of public education against those who say, sometimes literally, it should be blown up. Because the increasingly polarized national debate around education policy is not just about whether teachers feel the sting of public criticism or whether school budgets suffer another round of budget cuts in a society that has its priorities seriously upside down. What's ultimately at stake is more basic. It's whether the right to a free public education for all children is going to survive as a fundamental democratic promise in the society. What is really new and alarming are the large strides that those promoting business models and market reforms have made in attaching their agenda to the urgent need of poor communities who have, in too many cases, been badly served by the current system. In addition, what the country is facing is a policy environment where bad ideas nurtured for years in conservative think tanks and private foundations have taken root in Congress, the White House, and the federal education department. Unless the country changes direction, the combined impact of these proposals will do for public schooling what market reform has done for housing, health care, and the economy: produce fabulous profits for a few and unequal access and outcomes for the many.