The Author: Richard Neumann is Associate Professor of Teacher Education at San Diego State University. He received his Ph.D. in social and multicultural foundations of education from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has taught in two public alternative high schools and has published articles on alternative education, student alienation, and school dropouts.

«With the current neo-conservative agenda of state standards and testing rigidifying educational practices, Richard Neumann’s ‘Sixties Legacy: A History of the Public Alternative Schools Movement, 1967-2001’ reminds us of the rebellion against similar practices in the 1950s and early 1960s. This important history provides a wealth of examples of how educators and students have resisted attempts to undermine democratic education and the use of critical thinking and imagination in the classroom.» (Joel Spring, Professor of Teacher Education, New School University)«This timely, fair, thoughtful, and extremely readable account of public school choice describes the huge impact of a movement for greater public school options, as part of the broader push for justice in the 1960s. This is an important, valuable, and ultimately encouraging book.» (Joe Nathan, Director, Center for School Change, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota)«Richard Neumann has written a remarkable book, with extraordinary detail about the free schools and alternative schools of the Sixties and Seventies. It repeatedly generates a ‘he must have been there and been part of it’ feeling. But other sections show him to be a scholar as well – a historian of ideas, and a master of context, rounding out the picture with the sources and inspiration that moved those who launched the new schools.Anyone who had anything to do with what is now the Sixties legacy should take a look at this book. But so should anyone who’s ever wondered how schools might differ from what we know, and what they might mean to the children and adults who are part of them, and what they can do and be. It is truly a remarkable effort.» (Mary Anne Raywid, University of Hawaii; Professor Emerita, Hofstra University)