We’re In This Together: Public-Private Partnerships in Special and At-Risk-Education is a timely book that explores the use by public schools of private education companies to meet the needs of some of the nation’s most challenged and challenging students. The book examines variations of use by states as well as the cultural attitudes toward the private sector to address these core functions of public schooling. The book offers grounded and thought provoking perspectives on: the legal framework of PL94-142 and its successor IDEA; the disconnect between the needs of young children with autism and public school special education services; and the significant size of the at-risk population and the shortcomings of efforts to serve those students.

Written as qualitative research in the form of ethnographic participant observation, key sources in the literature are cited and four dozen knowledgeable people in positions of significant authority are interviewed on the interface of public education and the private sector in special and at-risk education. A foreword is provided by Barbara Byrd Bennett, CEO of the Chicago Public Schools.