School Choice and the Betrayal of Democracy

School Choice and the Betrayal of Democracy PDF Author: Robert Asen
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271091509
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 325

Book Description
Evidence shows that the increasing privatization of K–12 education siphons resources away from public schools, resulting in poorer learning conditions, underpaid teachers, and greater inequality. But, as Robert Asen reveals here, the damage that market-based education reform inflicts on society runs much deeper. At their core, these efforts are antidemocratic. Arguing that democratic communities and public education need one another, Asen examines the theory driving privatization, popularized in the neoliberalism of Milton and Rose Friedman, as well as the case for school choice promoted by former secretary of education Betsy DeVos and the controversial voucher program of former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. What Asen finds is that a market-based approach holds not just a different view of distributing education but a different vision of society. When the values of the market—choice, competition, and self-interest—shape national education, that policy produces individuals, Asen contends, with no connections to community and no obligations to one another. The result is a society at odds with democracy. Probing and thought-provoking, School Choice and the Betrayal of Democracy features interviews with local, on-the-ground advocates for public education and offers a countering vision of democratic education—one oriented toward civic relationships, community, and equality. This book is essential reading for policymakers, advocates of public education, citizens, and researchers.

School Choice and the Betrayal of Democracy

School Choice and the Betrayal of Democracy PDF Author: Robert Asen
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271091517
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Book Description
Evidence shows that the increasing privatization of K–12 education siphons resources away from public schools, resulting in poorer learning conditions, underpaid teachers, and greater inequality. But, as Robert Asen reveals here, the damage that market-based education reform inflicts on society runs much deeper. At their core, these efforts are antidemocratic. Arguing that democratic communities and public education need one another, Asen examines the theory driving privatization, popularized in the neoliberalism of Milton and Rose Friedman, as well as the case for school choice promoted by former secretary of education Betsy DeVos and the controversial voucher program of former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. What Asen finds is that a market-based approach holds not just a different view of distributing education but a different vision of society. When the values of the market—choice, competition, and self-interest—shape national education, that policy produces individuals, Asen contends, with no connections to community and no obligations to one another. The result is a society at odds with democracy. Probing and thought-provoking, School Choice and the Betrayal of Democracy features interviews with local, on-the-ground advocates for public education and offers a countering vision of democratic education—one oriented toward civic relationships, community, and equality. This book is essential reading for policymakers, advocates of public education, citizens, and researchers.

School Choice and the Future of American Democracy

School Choice and the Future of American Democracy PDF Author: Scott Franklin Abernathy
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472022229
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Book Description
In School Choice and the Future of American Democracy, Scott Franklin Abernathy shows what is lost in the school choice debate. Abernathy looks at parents as citizens who exert power over the educational system through everything from their votes on school budgets to their membership on school boards. Challenging the assumption that public schools will improve when confronted with market-based reforms, Abernathy examines the possibility that public schools will become more disconnected and isolated as civic life is privatized. Scott Abernathy takes up big questions and provides answers grounded in the complex reality of policy and politics. School Choice and the Future of American Democracy is a book written for those who understand that the world does not fit the simple explanations too often put forward. --Clarence Stone, Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland, and Research Professor, George Washington University Will school choice revive or eviscerate democratic processes and institutions? Will it narrow or exacerbate the range of educational inequities? This book takes several differently angled slices into these questions and draws intriguing answers. --Jeffrey R. Henig, Teachers College, Columbia University, and author of Rethinking School Choice: Limits of the Market Metaphor Through extensive research and refreshingly impartial analysis, Scott Abernathy probes how the use of market principles to reform public schools affects democratic citizenship. Treating citizens first and foremost as customers, he finds, threatens civic engagement and the well-being of schools, especially in the nation's neediest communities. This thoughtful and balanced appraisal is must-reading for those concerned about the future of American education and democracy. --Suzanne Mettler, Alumni Associate Professor, Syracuse University, and author of Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation Scott Franklin Abernathy is Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Minnesota

School Choice Tradeoffs

School Choice Tradeoffs PDF Author: R. Kenneth Godwin
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292778945
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 335

Book Description
Educational policy in a democracy goes beyond teaching literacy and numeracy. It also supports teaching moral reasoning, political tolerance, respect for diversity, and citizenship. Education policy should encourage liberty and equality of opportunity, hold educational institutions accountable, and be efficient. School Choice Tradeoffs examines the tradeoffs among these goals when government affords parents the means to select the schools their children attend. Godwin and Kemerer compare current policy that uses family residence to assign students to schools with alternative policies that range from expanding public choice options to school vouchers. They identify the benefits and costs of each policy approach through a review of past empirical literature, the presentation of new empirical work, and legal and philosophic analysis. The authors offer a balanced perspective that goes beyond rhetoric and ideology to offer policymakers and the public insight into the complex tradeoffs that are inherent in the design and implementation of school choice policies. While all policies create winners and losers, the key questions concern who these individuals are and how much they gain or lose. By placing school choice within a broader context, this book will stimulate reflective thought in all readers.

The Democratic Dilemma of American Education

The Democratic Dilemma of American Education PDF Author: Arnold Shober
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429972512
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
This compelling new book asks: How can American education policy be consistent with democratic ideals? Robust democracy is the combination of participation, self-rule, equality, understanding, and inclusion, but these norms can produce contradictory policy. Local control in education policy can undermine educational equality. Participation in teachers unions can improve working conditions but thwart self-rule by local taxpayers. The Democratic Dilemma of American Education draws on contemporary research in political science and education policy to offer remarkably balanced insights into these challenging issues. Expertly navigating through local, state, and federal layers of education policy, Arnold Shober examines contemporary controversies over education governance, teachers unions and collective bargaining, school funding, school choice, academic accountability, and desegregation. Shober describes the inherent practical dilemmas of current policy and the difficulties policymakers face in overcoming them to produce lasting educational reform in a democratic, federal system of government. Timely, engaging, and accessible, this is the ideal resource for courses in public policy as well as education and politics.

The Case Against School Choice

The Case Against School Choice PDF Author: Kevin B. Smith
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description
This discussion of public school choice considers school choice at all levels. It argues that choice programmes: promote inequity rather than improved quality; are expensive; require a large bureaucracy to administer; and do not necessarily lead to better education.

Democracy's High School

Democracy's High School PDF Author: William G. Wraga
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 9780819191625
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
Traces the development of the comprehensive high school model in the US, evaluating the influence of sociopolitical forces on - and historical interpretations of - the model. He assesses the impact of successive reform movements and offers recommendations for enhancing its effectiveness.

Into the Gateway

Into the Gateway PDF Author: Catherine Chaput
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000594017
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 109

Book Description
This book advances the trend toward field methods in rhetorical scholarship by collecting distinct chapters based on the same object of study – the University of Nevada, Reno’s Masterplan that extends the University into the adjacent community. Exploring the perennial problem of university-community relations from the perspective of multiple publics, this book provides thick description of a local issue that resonates with communities across the country. The fieldwork for each chapter was conducted in groups during a single, week-long site visit that asked scholars to study the asymmetrical traction among different communities to organize, publicize, and advocate positions around a proposed redevelopment project. Surveying the results of this professional experiment – the Project on Power, Place, and Publics – each chapter offers a theoretical intervention into the same material site, illustrates diverse place-based field methods, and models the scholarly results of work that mixes slow, deliberate, and thoughtful analysis with the fast pace and spontaneous demands of participatory research. This volume is unique for a number of reasons: it is the only study to concretely illustrate the compatibility of field methods with a wide range of theoretical perspectives; it attests to the possibility of deeply collaborative research as teams of researchers engaged multiple local partners to produce these chapters; and, it challenges the pervasive intellectual terrain that pits one theory against another by showing how diverse scholarly approaches can bolster one another. With a new introduction, afterword, and post-script material from authors, the other chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Review of Communication.

Reclaiming Our Children, Reclaiming Our Schools

Reclaiming Our Children, Reclaiming Our Schools PDF Author: Eric Shyman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1475829914
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 129

Book Description
Reclaiming Our Children,Reclaiming our Schools offers both a comprehensive censure of the current corporate interest in privatizing public schooling as well as a framework for attaining meaningful education reform based in democracy and the combined will of the public. Using current research and sound philosophical and ethical arguments, Shyman argues for more attention to be paid to teacher expertise, participatory democratic practices, genuine valuation of ethnic and cultural diversity, attention to global citizenship and cooperation, and the prevention of private profit-based interests in public schooling policy and practice.

Remembering the War, Forgetting the Terror

Remembering the War, Forgetting the Terror PDF Author: Ekaterina V. Haskins
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271098473
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 183

Book Description