Education Commons^™

Public Schooling For Democracy. A Book Review Of Public Education: Defending A Cornerstone Of American Democracy, Ellis E. Reid V

Democracy and Education

This essay is a book review of Public Education: Defending a Cornerstone of American Democracy.

Social Movements, Deliberation, And Educational Governance. A Response To “Pragmatist Thinking For A Populist Moment”, Ellis Reid

Democracy and Education

In this response essay, the author provides an account of the role of social movements in a democracy as part of a larger argument about democratic school governance. Focusing on Black Lives Matter (BLM), the author contends that social movements like BLM support a vibrant and legitimate democracy because they constitute vital nodes in the ongoing, norm-governed conversation that constitutes democratic politics. To make this argument, the author defends an account of democratic deliberation that recognizes (1) the contribution of emotion to our capacity for reason and (2) the fact that deliberation extends beyond the confines of official democratic fora. …

The Race, Social Class, And Place-Based Gap In Rural Turnaround Policy: A Policy Brief, Karynecia E. Conner

Journal of Multicultural Affairs

Abstract: For teachers, leaders, and policymakers To understand the factors that contribute to the successful implementation of rural school turnaround, there is a need to understand how turnaround leadership implements school improvement in different types of communities of color (Wright, 2019). Studies examining the implications of school turnaround in minoritized educational contexts have solely examined urban school contexts to exclude rural contexts (Mette & Stanoch, 2018). Rural schools of color undergoing turnaround face the fundamental unique educational challenges of rural schools and the education debt that has accumulated over time for people of color (Ladson-Billings, 2006). There is a greater …

Liberating Children, Or Breaking The Backbone Of Our Democracy? A Book Review Of Hostages No More: The Fight For Education Freedom And The Future Of The American Child, Jeffrey Frenkiewich

Democracy and Education

In Hostages No More, former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos provides a 10-chapter memoir in which she argues for school privatization, including the expansion of government funding of charter schools. DeVos argues that the modern public education system, supported by an “establishment” of government bureaucracies, the education industrial complex, and teacher unions, holds American children, especially poor Black and Hispanic children, “hostage” (DeVos, 2022, p. 261) and that her life’s work has been a civil rights struggle to help parents and their children obtain their “education freedom” (p. 216). However, many of her claims are supported with misleading information, and …

Challenges Of The Community Eligibility Provision Of The National School Lunch Program: A Conversation About The Poverty Indicators In Education Working Groups, Tara Thomas, Devon Brenner

The Rural Educator

No abstract provided.

Pre And Post Assessment Of School Management Committee: A Case Study Of Sindh, Lubna Naz, Abdul Aleem Qureshi, Fauzia Sohail

Business Review

In Pakistan, the focus and concern of the educational planners and managers increasing interest in improving the school efficiency has shifted the attention from overall education system, particularly towards the functions of the schools. This study is an attempt to evaluate the causal impact of school-based management reform program namely school management committee (SMC) with a focus on Sindh province of Pakistan. Here, the study assesses the pre-post effect of SMC on various indicators of access and quality of education such as student-flow rates, school environment and teacher quality. Furthermore, for robustness analysis, the study assesses the regression model of …

Remembering The 1918 Influenza Pandemic: Missouri Education Policy And Lessons For Covid-19, Phi Nguyen

Journal of Curriculum, Teaching, Learning and Leadership in Education

Amid the disruptions of COVID-19 are opportunities to reimagine schooling and education. Taking a historical perspective, this article analyzes education policy following an earlier pandemic, the influenza pandemic of 1918-19, to explore if and how educational change might be possible. Drawing on primary source analysis of Missouri education policy, I argue that influenza-related policy talk was practically non-existent, and the talk that was present mainly focused on how the flu disrupted, but not changed, school operations. Without policy talk advocating for change, policy action the years following the influenza pandemic continued along the lines of Progressive reforms that were already …

"Trauma-Informed" Ideas In English Education: Discussing The Scientific Evidence Base And Exploring The Discursive And Practice Effects, Niamh Storey, Sally Neaum

International Journal of School Social Work

The UK has been slower to adopt "trauma-informed" ideas than the United States, and despite policies across the devolved governments of Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, there remains no clear overarching strategy in English policy. Despite this, there is observable interest in adopting "trauma-informed" practices on a more localised level across England, but the range of approaches labelled as such is varied and disparate.

The scientific evidence-base for "trauma-informed" educational practices is discussed and the discursive effects of these ideas when accepted as a basis for practice are explored. Two different conceptualisations of social justice frame this discussion. We argue …

The Privatization Movement Is Not Dead! A Book Review Of A Wolf At The Schoolhouse Door: The Dismantling Of Public Education And The Future Of School, Jeffrey Frenkiewich

Democracy and Education

In January of 2020, Diane Ravitch published Slaying Goliath, in which she claimed the movement to privatize America’s public school system was dying. While this might be true, the movement is not dead, and this review looks at Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire’s A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door, which examines the history of school privatization and calls for renewed vigilance by those who oppose it. Schneider and Berkshire argued that defenders of public education need three conceptual frames to fight privatization efforts: (a) a clear presentation of the aims and objectives of the privatization movement; (b) knowledge of the …

Public And Counterpublics: Rereading The Case Of Riverside Through Critical Pragmatism. A Response To "Community Insurgency: Constituency, Choice, And The Common Good", Kathleen Knight-Abowitz

Democracy and Education

An article of empirically informed philosophical analysis of charter schooling that features local histories, voices of stakeholders, and an optimistic view on the democratic potential of charter school policies, the original piece presents a compelling, if extreme, case of charter school formation. In this response, I offer an alternative theoretical framing to the case. I argue that the scholarship of constitutional scholars is much less relevant as an interpretive lens on the case than more critical, contemporary pragmatist thinkers. I hope to show in this response how Deweyan political philosophy might have been used throughout the argument to produce a …

How Teaching Virtues Became A Movement. A Book Review Of The Rise Of Character Education In Britain: Heroes, Dragons, And The Myths Of Character, Judith L. Pace

Democracy and Education

How did character education become so popular? What does its curriculum look like? And what is its educational impact? Lee Jerome and Ben Kisby answer these and other questions in a bold and brilliant book. Focusing on the character education movement in Britain, they dissect its theoretical foundation, explain its ascendancy, analyze its curricula, and examine its results. The authors construct a compelling argument that character education clashes with education for democracy.

Character education claims to be a panacea for improving individual children’s life chances as well as an array of societal problems. But with its deeply flawed ideology, curricula, …

Undergoing Political Experience. A Book Review Of Educational Politics For Social Justice, Becky L. Noël Smith

Democracy and Education

The persistent reports and video evidence of the brutality against people of color, the swell of protest and community organizing in response, and also the noxious swell of white supremacy in the current political climate all amount to a desperate reminder that we must not only continually interrogate our public institutions but thoughtfully pursue the many fronts necessary to dismantle the structural forms of oppression that most U.S. institutions have been built upon. Catherine Marshall, Cynthia Gerstl-Pepin, and Mark Johnson provide an analysis of the political arenas making up the public education system—what they explain as the micro, district, state, …