The Phenomenon of Obama and the Agenda for Education - 2nd Edition

The Phenomenon of Obama and the Agenda for Education - 2nd Edition
Author: Paul R. Carr
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 425
Release: 2015-02-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1623968348

Anyone who is touched by public education – teachers, administrators, teacher-educators, students, parents, politicians, pundits, and citizens – ought to read this book, a revamped and updated second edition. It will speak to educators, policymakers and citizens who are concerned about the future of education and its relation to a robust, participatory democracy. The perspectives offered by a wonderfully diverse collection of contributors provide a glimpse into the complex, multilayered factors that shape, and are shaped by, education institutions today. The analyses presented in this text are critical of how globalization and neoliberalism exert increasing levels of control over the public institutions meant to support the common good. Readers of this book will be well prepared to participate in the dialogue that will influence the future of public education in United States, and beyond – a dialogue that must seek the kind of change that represents hope for all students. As for the question contained in the title of the book – The Phenomenon of Obama and the Agenda for Education: Can Hope (Still) Audaciously Trump Neoliberalism? (Second Edition) –, Carr and Porfilio develop a framework that integrates the work of the contributors, including Christine Sleeter and Dennis Carlson, who wrote the original forward and afterword respectively, and the updated ones written by Paul Street, Peter Mclaren and Dennis Carlson, which problematize how the Obama administration has presented an extremely constrained, conservative notion of change in and through education. The rhetoric has not been matched by meaningful, tangible, transformative proposals, policies and programs aimed at transformative change, and now fully into a second mandate this second edition of the book is able to more substantively provide a vigorous critique of the contemporary educational and political landscape. There are many reasons for this, and, according to the contributors to this book, it is clear that neoliberalism is a major obstacle to stimulating the hope that so many have been hoping for. Addressing systemic inequities embedded within neoliberalism, Carr and Porfilio argue, is key to achieving the hope so brilliantly presented by Obama during the campaign that brought him to the presidency.

The Phenomenon of Obama and the Agenda for Education

The Phenomenon of Obama and the Agenda for Education
Author: Paul R. Carr
Publisher: Information Age Pub Incorporated
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2011
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9781617354519

A volume in Critical Constructions: Studies on Education and Society Series Editor: Curry Stephenson Malott, Queens College/CUNY Who should read this book? Anyone who is touched by public education - teachers, administrators, teacher-educators, students, parents, politicians, pundits, and citizens - ought to read this book. It will speak to educators, policymakers and citizens who are concerned about the future of education and its relation to a robust, participatory democracy. The perspectives offered by a wonderfully diverse collection of contributors provide a glimpse into the complex, multilayered factors that shape, and are shaped by, institutions of schooling today. The analyses presented in this text are critical of how globalization and neoliberalism exert increasing levels of control over the public institutions meant to support the common good. Readers of this book will be well prepared to participate in the dialogue that will influence the future of public education in this nation - a dialogue that must seek the kind of change that represents hope for all students. As for the question contained in the title of the book--Can hope audaciously trump neoliberalism?--, Carr and Porfilio develop a framework that integrates the work of the contributors, including Christine Sleeter and Dennis Carlson, who wrote the forward and afterword respectively, that problematizes how the Obama administration has presented an extremely constrained, conservative notion of change in and through education. The rhetoric has not been matched by meaningful, tangible, transformative proposals, policies and programs aimed at transformative change. There are many reasons for this, and, according to the contributors to this book, it is clear that neoliberalism is a major obstacle to stimulating the hope that so many have been hoping for. Addressing systemic inequities embedded within neoliberalism, Carr and Porfilio argue, is key to achieving the hope so brilliantly presented by Obama during the campaign that brought him to the presidency.

Testing Regimes, Accountabilities and Education Policy

Testing Regimes, Accountabilities and Education Policy
Author: Bob Lingard
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2017-10-02
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1317354052

Around the globe, various kinds of testing, including high stakes national census testing, have become meta-policies, steering educational systems in particular directions, and having great effects on schools and on teacher practices, as well as upon student learning and curricula. There has also been a complementary global aspect to this with the OECD’s PISA and IEA’s TIMSS and PIRLS, which have had impacts on national education systems and their policy frameworks. While there has been a globalized educational policy discourse that suggests that high stakes standardised testing will drive up standards and enhance the quality of a nation’s human capital and thus their international economic competitiveness, this discourse still manifests itself in specific, vernacular, path dependent ways in different nations. High stakes testing and its effects can also be seen as part of the phenomenon of the ‘datafication’ of the world and ‘policy as numbers’, linked to other reforms of the state, including new public management, network governance, and top-down and test-based modes of accountability. This edited collection provides theoretically and empirically informed analyses of these developments. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Education Policy.

Reimagining American Education to Serve All Our Children

Reimagining American Education to Serve All Our Children
Author: Deborah Greenblatt
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2019-11-28
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0429776713

Reimagining American Education to Serve All Our Children: Why Should We Educate in a Democracy? examines and reevaluates the history and purpose of public education in the United States, in order to provide students of current and future generations with a robust and fulfilling learning experience. The authors approach knowledge from a critical perspective, with the intention of broadening the definition of knowledge and critical thinking, positioning education as a gateway to life’s endless possibilities and participation in a democratic society. In asking "why should we educate in a democracy rather than why do we educate in a democracy," the authors suggest directions that need to be taken to enhance democracy, social justice, and the positive effects of education for all. Divided into ten concise chapters, this volume provides activities and strategies for developing meaning for often contentious concepts, illustrates concepts, and brings together new ideas as well as assessment ideas. Greenblatt and Michelli and their coauthors cover a diverse range of important topics allowing us to understand education in a democracy, including: Sociopolitical barriers to knowledge The importance of all subjects, including the arts, health and physical education Methods of fostering imaginative thinking The political nature of the effects of policies on education Reimagining American Education to Serve All Our Children aims to provide practicing teachers, teacher educators, graduate education students—and all those interested in enhancing education, a discussion on the relationship between education and policy. A topical conversation, this book aids readers to develop a better understanding of the effects of social justice on American learners and the effects of education on social justice and democracy in order to take a position on these critical issues.

Handbook of Urban Education

Handbook of Urban Education
Author: H. Richard Milner IV
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 715
Release: 2021-04-14
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1000364054

This second edition of the Handbook of Urban Education offers a fresh, fluid, and diverse range of perspectives from which the authors describe, analyze, and offer recommendations for urban education in the US. Each of the seven sections includes an introduction, providing an overview and contextualization of the contents. In addition, there are discussion questions at the conclusion of many of the 31 chapters. The seven sections in this edition of the Handbook include: (1) Multidisciplinary Perspectives (e.g., economics, health sciences, sociology, and human development); (2) Policy and Leadership; (3) Teacher Education and Teaching; (4) Curriculum, Language, and Literacy; (5) STEM; (6) Parents, Families, and Communities; and (7) School Closures, Gentrification, and Youth Voice and Innovations. Chapters are written by leaders in the field of urban education, and there are 27 new authors in this edition of the Handbook. The book covers a wide and deep range of the landscape of urban education. It is a powerful and accessible introduction to the field of urban education for researchers, theorists, policymakers and practitioners as well as a critical call for the future of the field for those more seasoned in the field.

Social Context Reform

Social Context Reform
Author: Paul Thomas
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2014-06-20
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1317656989

Currently, both the status quo of public education and the "No Excuses" Reform policies are identical. The reform offers a popular and compelling narrative based on the meritocracy and rugged individualism myths that are supposed to define American idealism. This volume will refute this ideology by proposing Social Context Reform, a term coined by Paul Thomas which argues for educational change within a larger plan to reform social inequity—such as access to health care, food, higher employment, better wages and job security. Since the accountability era in the early 1980s, policy, public discourse, media coverage, and scholarly works have focused primarily on reforming schools themselves. Here, the evidence that school-only reform does not work is combined with a bold argument to expand the discourse and policy surrounding education reform to include how social, school, and classroom reform must work in unison to achieve goals of democracy, equity, and opportunity both in and through public education. This volume will include a wide variety of essays from leading critical scholars addressing the complex elements of social context reform, all of which address the need to re-conceptualize accountability and to seek equity and opportunity in social and education reform.

Educating for Peace in a Time of Permanent War

Educating for Peace in a Time of Permanent War
Author: Paul R. Carr
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2012-05-31
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1136281983

What is the meaning of peace, why should we study it, and how should we achieve it? Although there are an increasing number of manuscripts, curricula and initiatives that grapple with some strand of peace education, there is, nonetheless, a dearth of critical, cross-disciplinary, international projects/books that examine peace education in conjunction with war and conflict. Within this volume, the authors contend that war/military conflict/violence are not a nebulous, far-away, mysterious venture; rather, they argue that we are all, collectively, involved in perpetrating and perpetuating militarization/conflict/violence inside and outside of our own social circles. Therefore, education about and against war can be as liberating as it is necessary. If war equates killing, can our schools avoid engaging in the examination of what war is all about? If education is not about peace, then is it about war? Can a society have education that willfully avoids considering peace as its central objective? Can a democracy exist if pivotal notions of war and peace are not understood, practiced, advocated and ensconced in public debate? These questions, according to Carr and Porfilio and the contributors they have assembled, merit a critical and extensive reflection. This book seeks to provide a range of epistemological, policy, pedagogical, curriculum and institutional analyses aimed at facilitating meaningful engagement toward a more robust and critical examination of the role that schools play (and can play) in framing war, militarization and armed conflict and, significantly, the connection to peace.

Learning from the Federal Market?Based Reforms

Learning from the Federal Market?Based Reforms
Author: William J. Mathis
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 720
Release: 2016-06-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1681235056

Over the past twenty years, educational policy has been characterized by top?down, market?focused policies combined with a push toward privatization and school choice. The new Every Student Succeeds Act continues along this path, though with decision?making authority now shifted toward the states. These market?based reforms have often been touted as the most promising response to the challenges of poverty and educational disenfranchisement. But has this approach been successful? Has learning improved? Have historically low?scoring schools “turned around” or have the reforms had little effect? Have these narrow conceptions of schooling harmed the civic and social purposes of education in a democracy? This book presents the evidence. Drawing on the work of the nation’s most prominent researchers, the book explores the major elements of these reforms, as well as the social, political, and educational contexts in which they take place. It examines the evidence supporting the most common school improvement strategies: school choice; reconstitutions, or massive personnel changes; and school closures. From there, it presents the research findings cutting across these strategies by addressing the evidence on test score trends, teacher evaluation, “miracle” schools, the Common Core State Standards, school choice, the newly emerging school improvement industry, and re?segregation, among others. The weight of the evidence indisputably shows little success and no promise for these reforms. Thus, the authors counsel strongly against continuing these failed policies. The book concludes with a review of more promising avenues for educational reform, including the necessity of broader societal investments for combatting poverty and adverse social conditions. While schools cannot single?handedly overcome societal inequalities, important work can take place within the public school system, with evidence?based interventions such as early childhood education, detracking, adequate funding and full?service community schools—all intended to renew our nation’s commitment to democracy and equal educational opportunity.

The Palgrave International Handbook of School Discipline, Surveillance, and Social Control

The Palgrave International Handbook of School Discipline, Surveillance, and Social Control
Author: Jo Deakin
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 604
Release: 2018-06-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319715593

Truly international in scope, this Handbook focuses on approaches to discipline, surveillance and social control from around the world, critically examining the strategies and practices schools employ to monitor students and control their behavior. Bringing together leading scholars from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, the chapters scrutinize, analyze and compare schools' practices across the globe, providing a critical review of existing evidence, debates and understandings, while looking forward to address emerging important questions and key policy issues. The chapters are divided into four sections. Part 1 offers accounts of international trends in school discipline, surveillance and punishment; Part 2 examines the merging of school strategies with criminal justice practices; Part 3 focuses on developments in school technological surveillance; and Part 4 concludes by discussing restorative and balanced approaches to school discipline and behavior management. As the first Handbook to draw together these multiple themes into one text, and the first international comparative collection on school discipline, surveillance and social control, it will appeal to scholars across a range of fields including sociology, education, criminology, critical security studies and psychology, providing a unique, timely, and indispensable resource for undergraduate educators and researchers.

Reassessing the Social Studies Curriculum

Reassessing the Social Studies Curriculum
Author: Wayne Journell
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2016-05-03
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1475818130

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 dramatically changed many aspects of American society, and the ramifications of that horrific event are still impacting the domestic and foreign policies of the United States. Yet, fifteen years after 9/11—an event that was predicted to change the scope of public education in the United States—we find that the social studies curriculum remains virtually the same as before the attacks. For a discipline charged with developing informed citizens prepared to enter a global economy, such curricular stagnation makes little sense. This book, which contains chapters from many leading scholars within the field of social studies education, both assesses the ways in which the social studies curriculum has failed to live up to the promises of progressive citizenship education made in the wake of the attacks and offers practical advice for teachers who wish to encourage a critical understanding of the post-9/11 global society in which their students live.