I want
to let you know about a collection of essays by historian Michael Katz and me
that is coming out this month. The book grew out of a series of articles
Michael and I commissioned for Dissent magazine during 2011-2012. We
added a number of new chapters, along with an introduction and conclusion to
provide a compendium of brief, jargon-free treatments of a broad range of
issues that should be part of current school reform discussion but typically
aren’t. For example, we hear continually about the achievement gap, but not
about income inequality, residential segregation, or imbalances in the way
schools are financed. We hear little about language policy. The focus of
mainstream school reform is on the schools, as it should be, but frequently
with a pitifully thin knowledge of what goes on within schools themselves—the
dynamics of classroom life—or of the social or economic history of the
neighborhoods in which schools are embedded.
We hope that Public Education
Under Siege can be a kind of sourcebook for people who want to expand the
discussion of school reform.
I’ll reprint below the “roadmap” of
the contents that we provide at the end of the introduction—which will give you
a quick sense of the book. Then I’ll reprint the Table of Contents.
Unfortunately, the book is not cheap
(Amazon lists the hardback at $45.68 and the Kindle at $37.43). I apologize for
the price of the book. Both Michael and I did our best to get the price
reduced, and neither of us nor the contributors make anything on it. Still, we
hope the book finds its way into the hands of those who can use it to open up
the national conversation about school reform.
Here’s the roadmap:
Public Education Under Siege is divided
into three sections. Part I, The Perils of Technocratic Educational Reform,
begins with Mike Rose’s use of his observations of classrooms combined with his
research to explore the negative effects of current reform initiatives on
schooling. This theme is picked up in Joi Spencer’s reflection on teaching
mathematics to low-income African American students in the current reform
environment. David Larabee argues that school reform proposals, notably
value-added evaluation, ignore the actual characteristics of teaching as a
complex and demanding form of professional practice, and Joanne Barkan
investigates the education reform movement’s “high profile, well-financed, and
seriously misguided campaign to transform the [teaching] profession.” Richard
Kahlenberg is concerned about the “bipartisan and unfounded” assault on teachers’
unions, while Kevin Welner shows how conservative think tanks have influenced
the adoption of market-based approaches to school reform by “progressive”
reformers. Historians Harvey Kantor and Robert Lowe offer a trenchant overview
of the mixed influence of human capital thinking on federal education policy,
from the Smith-Hughes Vocational Reform Act in 1917 to the No Child Left Behind
Act in 2001. In the section’s last chapter, Janelle Scott examines the civil
rights claims of market-based reformers to argue that such reforms not only are
disconnected from the issues that animated historical civil rights organizing,
but also fail to tap into existing and vibrant grassroots organizing around
educational inequality.
Part
II focuses on the intersection of education, race, and poverty. Historian
Michael Katz shows why public education is part of the American welfare state
and how its recent history exacerbates income inequalities by following the
same market-based trajectory as the rest of the welfare state. Pamela Walters,
Jean Robinson, and Julia Lamber examine the use of school finance reform to
equalize educational opportunities and find that shifts in the meaning of
equality have allowed opponents of finance reform to undermine its equalitarian
potential. Maia Cucchiara raises uncomfortable questions about public-private
relations in school reform. She uses the example of a public school in a
gentrifying city neighborhood to examine the equity issues involved in using
public funds to increase the school’s resources in an effort to draw and hold
middle-class families. Ansley Erickson compares the rhetoric of choice in the
language of both desegregation and charter schools to obscure the reality of
historic and present-day policies that structure inequality. In the section’s
closing chapter, Heather Thompson examines the impact of the huge rise in
incarceration on schools and children, arguing that massive incarceration is a
neglected source of the achievement gap between whites and racial and ethnic minorities.
Part
III proposes alternatives to technocratic reform. In the opening chapter,
prominent education reformer Deborah Meier draws on the material elsewhere in
the volume to reflect on recent reforms. Tina Trujillo and Sarah Woulfin
profile a principal who exercises strong leadership in creating a successful
public school for English-language learners, and Claire Robertson-Kraft
highlights the polarized debate on teacher unionism and proposes a model of
professional unionism to reconcile opposing positions. Paul Skilton-Sylvester
cuts through polarities in the charter school debate with his description of
how the environmental mission of K-8 charter school has helped the faculty hold
their ground against pressures to narrow the curriculum to achieve higher test
scores. Pedro Noguera connects the achievement gap to broader patterns of
inequality in American society and presents lessons learned from schools that
successfully educate poor children of color, while Eugene Garcia argues that
reductive language policies have restricted learning and contributed to
inequality of outcomes for English-language learners. The last two chapters
focus on the role of public accountability and low-income parents in school
reform. Eva Gold, Jeffrey Henig, and Elaine Simon draw on their research on
mayor Michael Bloomberg’s assumption of control of the New York City public
schools, and Rema Reynolds and Tyrone Howard give examples of the work of
low-income parents in reforming their local schools.
In
the final section, the editors look at what these chapters collectively tell us
about education reform, followed by Mike Rose’s advice to young teachers.
And here’s the full Table of
Contents:
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I.
The Perils of Technocratic Education Reform
Chapter
1. The Mismeasure of Teaching and Learning: How Contemporary School Reform
Fails the Test
Mike
Rose
Chapter
2. Views from the Black of the Math Classroom
Joi
A. Spencer
Chapter
3. Targeting Teachers
David
F. Labaree
Chapter
4. Firing Line: The Grand Coalition Against Teachers
Joanne
Barkan
Chapter
5. The Bipartisan, and Unfounded, Assault on Teacher’s Unions
Richard
D. Kahlenberg
Chapter
6. Free-Market Think Tanks and the Marketing of Education Policy
Kevin
G. Welner
Chapter
7. The Price of Human Capital: The Illusion of Equal Educational Opportunity
Harvey
Kantor and Robert Lowe
Chapter
8. Educational Movements, Not Market Moments
Janelle
Scott
Part II.
Education, Race, and Poverty
Chapter
9. Public Education as Welfare
Michael
B. Katz
Chapter
10. In Search of Equality in School Finance Reform
Pamela
Barnhouse Walters, Jean C. Robinson, and Julia C. Lamber
Chapter
11. “I Want the White People Here!”: The Dark Side of an Urban School
Renaissance
Maia
Cucchiara
Chapter
12. The Rhetoric of Choice: Segregation, Desegregation, and Charter Schools
Ansley
T. Erickson
Chapter
13. Criminalizing Kids: The Overlooked Reason for Failing Schools
Heather
Ann Thompson
Part
III. Alternatives to Technocratic Reform
Chapter
14. Abandoning the Higher Purposes of Public Schools
Deborah
Meier
Chapter
15. Equity-Minded Instructional Leadership: Turning Up the Volume for English
Learners
Tina
Trujillo and Sarah Woulfin
Chapter
16. Professional Unionism: Redefining the Role of Teachers and Their Unions in
Reform Efforts
Claire
Robertson-Kraft
Chapter
17. Pushing Back: How an Environmental Charter School Resisted Test-Driven
Pressures
Paul
Skilton-Sylvester
Chapter
18. The Achievement Gap and the Schools We Need: Creating the Conditions Where
Race and Class No Longer Predict Student Achievement
Pedro
Noguera
Chapter
19. !Ya Basta! Challenging
Restrictions on English-Language Learners
Eugene
E. Garcia
Chapter
20. Sharing Responsibility: A Case for Real Parent-Student Partnerships
Rema
Reynolds and Tyrone C. Howard
Chapter
21. Calling the Shots in Public Education: Parents, Politicians, and Educators
Clash
Eva
Gold, Jeffrey R. Henig, and Elaine Simon
Part IV.
Conclusions
Chapter
22. What Is Education Reform?
Michael
B. Katz and Mike Rose
Chapter
23. A Letter to Young Teachers: The Graduation Speech You Won’t Hear, But
Should
Mike
Rose
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Congratulations on this wonderful compilation. This is a great piece for education courses for graduate and undergraduate students; for parents; and for community members. My heart is with those in Chicago and Philadelphia and many other cities across the country who are losing their schools. Let's keep fighting Dr. Rose.
ReplyDeleteJoi
Congratulations on this wonderful compilation. This is a great piece for education courses for graduate and undergraduate students; for parents; and for community members. My heart is with those in Chicago and Philadelphia and many other cities across the country who are losing their schools. Let's keep fighting Dr. Rose.
ReplyDeleteJoi