Writer and journalist Melissa Benn will talk about her new book, written in collaboration with Janet Downs. The Truth About Our Schools is a blistering attack on the myths perpetuated about our schools by successive governments and the establishment.

Fiona Millar, the Guardian columnist and educational journalist, will introduce the night's speakers. The Truth About Our Schools - which will be available to buy on the night - was written as part of a campaign mounted by the website www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk (founded by Melissa, Fiona, Janet and Goldsmiths' Francis Gilbert) to promote inclusive schools.

Columnist, author and activist Owen Jones described The Truth About Our Schools as "a superb, crucial, blistering expose of all the myths about our education system that are all too often used to attack it ... Melissa Benn again proves why she is one of the country's most formidable education campaigners – and why the powerful should fear her."

The book calls for us to urgently and articulately challenge unquestioned myths about state education, as Benn and Downs meticulously build an argument for its still enormously vital role.