Category Archives: Education Reform

Working toward tuition free post-secondary education in BC

I was interviewed for this story in The Georgia Straight, which raises the question of free post-secondary education in British Columbia and the lack of uptake on the topic in the current BC election discourse.

In my interview with The Straight, I highlighted the staggering debt load post-secondary students currently face. In Canada, student debt (not including provincial and private loans) is over $15 billion according to the Canadian Federation of Students. The high cost of post-secondary education in BC is a significant barrier to attendance by lower and middle income students. At least one in four non-attendees identify financial issues as an obstacle to further education.

The CFS notes that “Canadian research suggests that debt levels have a direct impact on success in post-secondary education. One study found that as student debt rose from less than $1000 to $10,000 per year, program completion rates for those with only loans (and no grants) plummeted from 59% to 8%. Similar conclusions can be drawn from Statistics Canada’s Youth In Transition Survey (YITS), which found that of those who cease their studies early, 36% cited financial reasons.”

Tuition at Canadian universities is rising faster than inflation, climbing 5% in 2012 (compared 2% inflation rate).

Neoliberal social policies have exacerbated the problems with student debt and access to higher education. Christy Clark’s BC Liberal government cut higher education by $46 million this year. In Alberta, higher education took a $100 million cut at the hands of the Alison Redford’s governing Progressive Conservative Party. As budgets are cut, colleges and universities (as well as K-12 schools) are encouraged to look for market-based solutions. BC colleges and universities are now ramping up efforts to recruit international students, who will pay five times the tuition charged to BC residence, in an effort to increase revenue. These recruitment efforts further restrict access to BC residents when there are already too few seats available in colleges and universities.

The ever increasing cost of higher education ultimately threatens existence of education as a public good in Canada (and the USA) and has deleterious effects on career choices and financial futures of millions of students as they face debt bondage. And this is not a circumstance limited to young people as many baby boomers who have gone back university are now struggling to repay their loans.

Lastly, student debt works to dampen critical thought and actions aimed at resisting the status quo. Noam Chomksy argues that “students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can’t afford the time to think. Tuition fee increases are a disciplinary technique, and, by the time students graduate, they are not only loaded with debt, but have also internalized the disciplinarian culture. This makes them efficient components of the consumer economy.” Exactly the kind of results neoliberal education policy makers are looking for.

Read The Georgia Straight article here:

Candidates should discuss free postsecondary education, say critics

by Carlito Pablo on Apr 25, 2013 at 3:11 am

Politicians on the campaign trail always say that education is a good thing. Yet many are silent about free university and college education.

Perhaps that’s because making this suggestion inevitably invites the question about money. What would it cost?

It doesn’t seem much, really. For fiscal year 2013-14, the B.C. government expects to collect about $1.4 billion in tuition and other fees. That’s only a small fraction—three percent—of a provincial budget totalling $44 billion.

The fact that many candidates don’t talk about free postsecondary education as a goal worth pursuing—one practical step at a time—indicates two things to Enda Brophy, an assistant professor of communications at SFU.

“On the one hand, I would argue that it demonstrates a lack of vision on their part,” Brophy told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview. “On the other, it quite obviously underscores their lack of commitment to a genuinely public education system. In other words, they can talk the talk regarding their commitment to public education, but walking the walk would mean taking concrete steps toward a free, public postsecondary system.”

According to the academic, there is an ethical argument to be made that “education should not be a commodity that is bought and sold.”

“In other words, that education and the production of knowledge, like health care, need to be accessible to anyone who wants it,” Brophy said.

As a nation, Canada committed to this ideal when it ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in 1976. The treaty states: “Higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means, and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education.”

A study released in January 2012 by the B.C. office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives demonstrates that university-educated people pay, on average, $106,000 to $159,000 more in income taxes over their working lives than those with only a high-school diploma.

In Paid in Full: Who Pays for University Education in BC?, author and economist Iglika Ivanova notes that in contrast, a four-year degree costs $50,630, of which 40 percent is paid by students in tuition fees.

Ivanova concludes that “undergraduate education stands out as a profitable investment for the public treasury when all students’ payments for their education—both up-front tuition fees and additional income taxes paid over their careers—are compared with the costs of providing university education.”

In many countries in Europe and elsewhere, like Algeria and Cuba, free postsecondary education is more a rule rather than the exception, according to Simon Tremblay-Pepin. He is a researcher with IRIS (Institut de recherche et d’informations socio-économiques), a Quebec-based think tank that argues that the abolition of tuition fees is economically viable and socially just.

“If we’re talking about a progressive way to free education by lowering the fees year after year, it could be a good way,” Tremblay-Pepin told the Straight by phone when he was in Vancouver for a speaking engagement. “It’s not something that you need to do overnight. Still, you must have the objective in your head that you’re going to a free education and not just lowering fees for electoral reasons because you want to have the youth vote. That’s the difference between having a plan for society and trying to collect votes.”

B.C.’s Green party has declared that “universal and free” education at all levels is one of its long-term goals, promising an immediate reduction of 20 percent in tuition fees.

“The Green party is really out in front on this issue, much more so with a greater vision than either the [B.C.] NDP or the Liberals have offered at this point,” UBC education professor E. Wayne Ross told the Straight in an April 19 phone interview.

The ruling B.C. Liberals have pledged to cap tuition-fee increases at two percent. But with tuition fees having doubled since the Liberals returned to power in 2001, Ross noted that education is already “unaffordable”.

New Democrats have talked about a $100-million needs-based grant system. “That’s important because those needs-based grants have disappeared under the Liberals, but that’s a Band-Aid,” Ross said. “It doesn’t really address the overall problem that we face with student debt and the impact of the lack of access to higher education because of the tuition levels.”

Although the Greens are an “outlier” in the mainly Liberal–New Democrat contest, that’s a good thing, according to Ross. If their idea of free postsecondary education gets traction during this election campaign, the Greens may “pull parties like the NDP, in particular, maybe back towards the left side of the spectrum a little bit more”.

But Ross also noted that because neoliberalism, or the belief that the supremacy of the market trumps public good, is dominant in this age, perhaps the Greens might have a different message if their political fortunes were somewhat different: “If the Green party was more competitive, would the Green party ever say that? And I’m not trying to knock the Green party. I’m also trying to say that [as] the NDP moves towards what they see as the electable centre the closer, the better their [electoral] chances get.”

Source URL: http://www.straight.com/news/375006/candidates-should-discuss-free-postsecondary-education-say-critics

Some BC and Alberta schools dump percentage grades for students

Should schools move away from grading students? Yes!

Of course, it’s a time “honoured” tradition to use grades as the key means of sorting students to meet the demands of business. But, if you’re more more interested in motivating students to learn and less interested in treating education like a commodity, there’s really little room to debate the point.

School boards in Ridge Meadows, BC and Battle River, AB have decided to stop giving percentage grades to their students.

The Vancouver Sun recently ran a story on the Ridge Meadows Schools (Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows BC) that have adopted an alternative approach to student assessment in which elementary teachers are no longer required to give letter grades to students.

Rather than assigning As, Bs or Cs to kids from grades 4 to 7, teachers can instead use the conference model to assess how well children are grasping course material, as well as their learning style, readiness to progress and comprehension of overall concepts. The standard reporting system does not assign letter grades for students in kindergarten to Grade 3, but under the new system, students in all elementary grades will be invited to participate more fully in their evaluations by completing self-assessments and setting future learning goals.

The alternative system will engage students while providing more meaning to parents than a simple letter grade, said Ridge Meadows school trustee Susan Carr, who has two children in the school system.

Ridge Meadows school trustees were unanimous in their support for the new approach, which was developed over the past two years by a district committee. The Ridge Meadows News reported that “Committee members noted the feedback from parents who have been involved so far is “through-the-roof positive.”

In Alberta, the Battle River School District’s has adopted an alternative grading system that replaces percentage grades with categories.

Under the assessment model, students are marked with an achievement level that indicates they are within a percentage range. A student scoring between zero and 50 per cent would be at the “beginning” level. A “developing” student is within the 50-66 per cent range, “achieving” is between 67 and 83 per cent and “excelling” ranges from 84-100 per cent. (The Edmonton Journal)

Camrose, AB parents don’t seem to be has uniformly positive about Battle River’s decision as about 150 recently protested the move.

Today on CBC Radio’s The 180 with Jim Brown, Sandra Mathison, a UBC education professor and member of the Institute for Critical Education Studies discussed the issue of grading students and provided some sharp counter-point to Michael Zwaagstra, a high school teacher who is affiliated with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy (a Fraser Institute clone that is primarily funded by right-wing outfits like the Donner Foundation).

The Frontier Centre and Zwaagstra’s views on education get a lot of play on the editorial pages of Vancouver’s daily papers, both of which prominently embrace and espouse neoliberal public policy, which places the interests of corporate capital and their shareholders over the interests of people.

It was interesting to hear Zwaagstra shift to center when confronted with Mathison’s counter-point.

Get the podcast of this episode of The 180 with Jim Brown here.

NATIONAL ASSESSMENT REFORM LEADERS ENDORSE SEATTLE TEACHERS’ SCHOOL TEST BOYCOTT; CALL FOR MORE EDUCATORS, PARENTS TO “JOIN IN”

FairTest
National Center for Fair & Open Testing

for further information:

Dr. Monty Neill (617) 477-9792

Bob Schaeffer (239) 395-6773

for immediate release Monday, January 14, 2013

NATIONAL ASSESSMENT REFORM LEADERS ENDORSE

SEATTLE TEACHERS’ SCHOOL TEST BOYCOTT;

CALL FOR MORE EDUCATORS, PARENTS TO “JOIN IN”

The country’s leading testing reform organization today announced its support for the boycott of Seattle Public Schools’ Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) exam launched by teachers at Garfield High School. National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest) Executive Director Dr. Monty Neill said, “Children across the U.S. suffer from far too much standardized testing that is misused to judge students, teachers and schools. We applaud Garfield High educators who refused to administer these useless exams and urge others to join in.”

Dr. Neill explained, “Seattle requires administration of the MAP tests three times per year. This eliminates days of valuable teaching time and ties up the school’s computer labs for weeks. The tests are used to judge teachers even though they are not aligned with the state’s standards and not instructionally helpful. The Northwest Evaluation Association, which makes the test, says the MAPs are not accurate enough to evaluate individual teachers. No wonder some Seattle parents began opting their children out of these pointless tests even before the teachers’ boycott.”

“Nationally, students are inundated with tests far beyond the ‘No Child Left Behind’ (NCLB) requirement to assess students annually in reading and math in grades 3-8 and once in high school,” Dr. Neill continued. “States and especially large city districts have piled on many more tests. For example, Chicago tests kindergarteners 14 or more times per year. Many of these tests were added to obtain federal NCLB waivers, which force states and districts to impose more exams so they can judge teachers by student scores.”

According to FairTest, the high stakes attached to tests have led to narrowing curriculum, teaching to the test, score inflation and cheating scandals. Despite the focus on tests, scores gains on the independent National Assessment of Educational Progress have slowed since the 2002 start of NCLB and are well below pre-NCLB score increases. Score gaps between whites and African Americans and Latinos have stopped narrowing.

“High-stakes testing is undermining the quality of U.S. schools and the education our children deserve,” Dr. Neill concluded. “Teachers and parents who boycott standardized exams are taking the lead to reduce over-testing and the consequences attached to it. President Obama, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the Congress, governors, state legislators, and local school officials need to heed these voices and stop imposing unnecessary and educational harmful testing.”

Our Pass-Fail Moment: Livable Ecology, Capitalism, Occupy, and What is to be Done | Paul Street

CRITICAL EDUCATION
Vol 3, No 10 (2012)
Our Pass-Fail Moment: Livable Ecology, Capitalism, Occupy, and What is to be Done
Paul Street

Abstract

The ecological crisis is the leading issue of “our or any time” posing grave threats to a decent and democratic future. If the environmental catastrophe isn’t forestalled, “everything else we’re talking about won’t matter” (Noam Chomsky). Like other issues leftists cite as major developments of the last half-century, the environmental crisis is intimately bound up with numerous other deep changes (growing inequality, authoritarian neoliberalism, corporate globalization, U.S. imperial expansion, and more) and grounded in the imperatives of capital and the profits system. Tackling the crisis in a meaningful way will bring numerous related and collateral benefits (including significant opportunities for socially useful and necessary work/employment) beyond and alongside environmental survival. To prioritize ecology is not to demote or delay radical social reconstruction. It means the elevation and escalation of the red project. It is highly unlikely that the crisis can be solved within the framework of capitalism.

This article was originally delivered as a Keynote Address at the Rouge Forum 2012: Occupy Education! Class Conscious Pedagogies and Social Change, on June 21, 2012 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Keywords

Social Movements; Capitalism; Ecology; Occupy; Green Jobs; The Profits System; Revolution; Envrionment, Green Marxism; Rouge-Verde; ecological crisis

Great Schools Project Teach-In: How Should We Assess Our Schools?

You are invited to the Great Schools Project Teach-In:
How Should We Assess Our Schools?

Saturday, December 1
10 am to 12:30 pm–coffee from 9:30
Simon Fraser University Surrey Campus (Surrey Central Sky Train)
250 – 13450 – 102nd Avenue

The Great Schools Project is a collaboration among individuals who want to strengthen and protect public education in British Columbia. For almost four years, educators, parents, researchers, and leaders, both inside and outside the education system, have met to discuss how to improve the way we evaluate and assess our schools.

We feel the current system is both too narrow (focused on only a portion of the important work schools do) and too punitive (with substantial negative impact on individual students and educators).

After extensive discussions of the current system of Foundation Skills Assessment (FSAs) and their use to rank schools, the GSP working group has developed ideas about alternatives that would better serve both students and public schools.

The Great Schools Teach-In provides an opportunity for us to present some of these ideas and for you to debate them and provide your input.

Program:
1. Alfie Kohn, outstanding critic of standardized testing and proponent of richer ways of understanding how well our children and their schools are doing (by videocast).
2. Speakers from the Great Schools Project
3. Discussion and debate.

Please RSVP to: dlaitsch@sfu.ca

For more information see our website:
greatschoolsbc.wordpress.com/

Great Schools Project Working Committee:

David Chudnovsky (retired teacher; former MLA; BCTF President 1999-2002)
Janet Dempsey (retired teacher; ESL specialist)
Iglika Ivanova, (Ecomomist and Public Interest Researcher CCPA)
Bill Hood (recently retired teacher; current PDP Faculty Associate SFU)
Larry Kuehn (Director Research and Technology BCTF)
Daniel Laitsch (Associate Professor Education Leadership, SFU Surrey; Founding Director SFU Centre for the Study of Educational Leadership and Policy; Co-Editor International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership)
Sandra Mathison (Professor of Education UBC; Co-Director Institute for Critical Education Studies)
Adrienne Montani (Provincial Coordinator First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition; former Chair, Vancouver School Board)
Marion Runcie (former Chairperson BCTF Teacher Personnel Services Committee; Facilitator, Programme for Quality Teaching; co-designer, Burnaby School District Professional Growth Programme)
Paul Shaker (Professor Emeritus, Dean of Education SFU 2003-2008)
Michael Zlotnik (retired teacher; retired BCTF staff person: President, Public Education Network Society 2007-2012)

“Against Obedience” by Susan Ohanian (New issue of Critical Education)

Critical Education has just published its latest issue at http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled. We invite you to review the Table of Contents here and then visit our web site to review articles and items of interest.

Thanks for the continuing interest in our work,

Stephen Petrina
Sandra Mathison
E. Wayne Ross
Co-Editors, Critical Education
Institute for Critical Education Studies
University of British Columbia

Critical Education
Vol 3, No 9 (2012)
Table of Contents
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/issue/view/182380

Articles
——–
Against Obedience
Susan Ohanian

Abstract

This article was originally delivered as the Second Annual Adam Renner Education for Social Justice Lecture at the Rouge Forum’s Occupy Educaton! Class Conscious Pedagogies and Social Change Conference held at Miami University in Oxford, OH, June 22-24, 2012. Starting with a personal journey in learning that political activism isn’t as scary as many teachers believe, the article highlights the highly political nature of press coverage of Race to the Top and the Common Core State Standards initiative, zeroing in on the quisling nature of teacher union and professional organization antics to keep a seat at the political table. Questioning the silence on critical issues of higher education providers of educational products to consumers—aka professors—the author insists that whining isn’t the same as doing. The article concludes with several points on how educators can take action.

The Problem with Zeros

When Lynden Dorval, a physics teacher at Ross Shepard High School in Edmonton, was suspended last May for defying the school’s grading policy by giving zeros to students for incomplete assignments, a nationwide debate erupted on the role of grades, student responsibility and motivation, as well as the professional judgment of teachers.

Over the summer, no-zero grading policies generated a no small amount of opinions and dubious claims about research on the impact of grading of student learning and achievement.

Dorval, a veteran of 35 years in the classroom, received his termination notice from Edmonton Public schools on September 14 for “repeated acts of insubordination, unprofessional conduct, and refusal to obey lawful orders”. An Edmonton School Board committee is currently reviewing the district’s assessment policy, which does not prohibit the use of zero grading (Dorval violated his school’s grading policy). Edmonton school superintendent Edgar Schmidt might have given a hint as to the direction the district policy is heading with a letter to parents last week declaring the district “expect[s] students to do their work … we will hold them accountable … we have not and will not pass students who do note complete their course requirements”. (There are no rules in British Columbia to prevent teachers from assigning zeros to students for incomplete work.)

Dorval was on his way back to the classroom in less than a week, at a private school where he’s allowed to give students zeros, but the logic for and research behind no-zero policies continues to be the subject of gross distortion in the mainstream media.

A common complaint voiced by opponents of no-zero grading policies is there is little or only flawed research to support such policies. For example, The Vancouver Sun and The Province have both recently run a column by Michael Zwaagstra in which he goes so far as to claim that research evidence to support no-zero policies are based on a single flawed study.

Zwaagstra, a teacher and research fellow at Winnipeg’s Frontier Centre for Public Policy—which the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has described as a Fraser Institute “clone”—also echoes the common-nonsense criticism that no-zero grading policies teach students they can fail to do their work and still get a reward.

These are specious claims.

Many of the arguments against no-zeros policies are based on outmoded and potentially harmful ways of thinking about the effect of grades on students’ behaviors and motivations to learn.

Historically, psychological theories viewed rewards as motivating people (and animals) to work and earn them. Over the past 50 years, research in cognitive psychology has shown that rewards are not motivators. Indeed, offering a reward (a good grade) contingent on behavior can actually decrease students’ intrinsic motivation to learn. One explanation for this is that students view the rewards as controlling their behavior, which is clearly the intent when teachers use zero grades.

The goal of schools should be to create motivated learning—motivation to acquire new knowledge and skills—rather than motivation to comply. Motivated learning requires schools to take multiple factors into account, including the use of rewards, but also the importance of social interaction, the role of emotions, self-regulation, and the fact that motivational processes work differently in different situations (for example, the need for achievement varies within individuals so that some students may be motivated to achieve in one subject, but not another, or in social domains, but not in athletics, etc.).

While most educators eschew the use of grades as a form of punishment, the fundamental and often unstated logic behind arguments against no-zero policies is “students need to suffer the consequences for not doing the work!”

This is not to say that grades are unimportant, studies confirm that students view high grades as positive recognition of their accomplishments and that some students will work to avoid the consequences of a low grade. But, there are no research studies that support the use of low grades as punishments.

Instead of prompting greater effort from students, using zeros in grading decreases motivation to learn and can promote a sense of helplessness to improve. When zeros are averaged into course grades their effects are intensified as students quickly see that a single zero gives them little chance for success. Often, to protect their self-images, students will then regard grades (and school) as irrelevant and meaningless.

Moreover, assigning zeroes to students’ work seldom reflects what a student has learned or is able to do. This was illustrated when my son produced some fabulous photographs from his trip to Alaska this summer. When he was reminded of his less than stellar grade in photography class at his East Vancouver high school he replied, “just because I got a bad grade doesn’t mean I didn’t learn anything!” If students’ grades are to reflect what they have learned or mastered then assigning zeros is a failed approach.

There are alternatives to zero-grading that support and encourage motivated learning (as opposed to compliance). Students can learn to accept responsibility for their actions and be held accountable by using an “I” or “Incomplete” grade with detailed requirements for successful completion of work and requiring afterschool or Saturday classes. These alternatives require resources and adopting an approach to schooling that focuses on helping all students to become successful, motivated learners, rather than attempting to bend students to the will of the school.

When grades are used as weapons to force compliance, which is typically the case when zero grades are assigned, what does this say about a school’s approach to education? There is no evidence that assigning zeros teaches students to be responsible or accountable. There is plenty of evidence that assigning zeros can undermine students’ motivation to learn, while emphasizing that the school is more interested in students’ behavioral compliance than their learning.

Thoughts on BC Education Ministry’s new curriculum

Public school curriculum in British Columbia is undergoing a transformation, at least that’s the claim of the Education Ministry, which for the past two years has been conducting consultations with the public and an curriculum framework advisory group on a new curriculum.

The ministry’s efforts have largely been conducted without teacher input or participation, which is problematic, but the general aims of the new curriculum as represented in ministry documents are surprisingly promising, has I pointed out in a letter published in yesterday’s Vancouver Sun:

While it remains to be seen what the B.C. education ministry’s curriculum plans will produce, especially since teachers are not at the table, their aims are promising.

Reducing prescriptiveness and the sheer volume of the curricular mandate is laudable. As it stands, the breadth of the curriculum makes in-depth study of topics a pipe dream in most classrooms.

Curricular flexibility should allow teachers to foster more motivated learning, that is motivation of students to acquire new knowledge and skills, rather than expecting a standardized curriculum to meet the needs of all students.

Less of an emphasis on transmitting facts and more of a focus on big ideas will encourage increased student engagement and create graduates who are more likely to possess personally meaningful understandings of subjects they study.

A curriculum that focuses on concepts is not a curriculum that ignores facts. Concepts are abstract ideas generalized from particular instances or evidence (e.g., “facts”).

A fact is just a piece of information, which schools generally ask students to memorize. Concepts are understood.

Lastly, curriculum is more than a document or set of guidelines. It is what students experience, the dynamic interactions of teachers, learners, subject matter, and the context. The true measure of success in any curriculum will be found in its effects on students thinking and actions, not in how many facts students can regurgitate.

Predictably, there has been some negative reaction to the idea of a concepts-based (as opposed to facts-based) curriculum, from folks who think students are blank slates and education is about memorization. See, for example, this column by a former teacher in the Vancouver Sun.

I’m not without skepticism regarding the Ministry’s effort to transform the curriculum.

The ministry’s project is essentially about changing the content of the curriculum container. That is, when it comes to conceptions of what curriculum is, the BC Education Ministry operates on a hierarchical/industrial model of curriculum. For the ministry,“curriculum defines for teachers what students are expected to learn and be able to demonstrate in their grade or course of study.”

Thinking of curriculum this way separates the conception of teachers’ work from its execution. In other words, teachers are merely conduits through which “the curriculum” flows. The result is a de-skilling of teachers (and a degradation of the work of teaching) that is, teachers’ work is narrowly defined as delivering a product that has been produced elsewhere. Ironically, most teachers in BC and the teacher education programs that prepare them, accept this division of labor as natural.

An additional irony: the dominant conceptions of curriculum and teachers work in BC contradict the stated goals of reduced prescriptiveness and increased flexibility and responsiveness of the curriculum. Think about it, what we have here is a government mandating reduced prescriptiveness and more flexibility. Really?

Perhaps the rhetoric around curriculum transformation is just a cover the governing BC (neo)Liberal Party to advance profiteering in the education sector just has they have in others. See this analysis of what “personalizing” the curriculum might mean.

CFP: Critical Theories in the 21st Century

Call For Proposals
Critical Theories in the 21st Century

Due to the success of last years’ inaugural event, we are very excited about the upcoming Critical Theories in the Twenty-First Century conference at West Chester University. Due to the deepening crisis of global capital and the anti-capitalist movement in embryo (since last November), this year we added a special theme: Critical Education Against Capitalism. As many reactions to the ravages of capital are reformist in nature, failing to identify and target the true causes (i.e. private property as a complex historical process) of exploitation, injustices, war, educational expansion as well as educational budget cuts, ideological indoctrination, and so on, especially in critical pedagogy, this discussion targeting the root capitalist cause of life at the present moment is particularly relevant and needed.

Consequently, whereas last year “the call for proposals” was “general enough to be inclusive of many critical approaches to transformative or revolutionary pedagogies and theory,” this year we ask the critical pedagogy community to present their works in a way that demonstrates how it contributes to achieving a post-capitalist society. As such, we can suggest a few relevant themes for proposals: Marxist educational theory, Anarchist pedagogies, austerity/educational budget cuts, ignoring poverty, racialization and hegemony, (anti)settler-colonialism/imperialism, indigenous critical theory/autonomous governance, anti-capitalist eco-pedagogy, atheism and education, queer theory against capital, etc.

While this conference will include important presentations and debates between key figures in critical pedagogy, it will not be limited to this focus. In other words, as critical theory becomes more inclusive, global, and all encompassing, this conference welcomes more than just academics as important contributors. That is, we recognize students and youth groups as possessing authentic voices based on their unique relationship to capitalism and will therefore be open to them as presenters and discussion leaders (as was done in 2011). While this inclusivity is obviously designed to challenge traditional distributions of social power in capitalist societies, it will not be done romantically where participants’ internalized hegemonies are not challenged. Put another way, while students will be included as having something valuable to contribute, they will both be subjected to the same scrutiny as established academics, as well as invited to share their own critiques. All participants will therefore be included in the discussions of why and how to achieve a post-capitalist society.

when:

November 16th and 17th 2012

duration:

Friday evening and all day Saturday

where:

West Chester University, West Chester, PA

purpose:

To contribute to the wide and deep network of critical educators throughout the world working with students and workers building a vast coalition of critical thinkers who know that a meaningful life after capitalism is possible.

More info here.

CFP: “Teach for America and the Future of Education in the US”

Call for Submissions
Critical Education Special Series

“Teach for America and the Future of Education in the US”
Guest Editor: Philip E. Kovacs, University of Alabama, Huntsville

Founded in 1990 by Princeton graduate Wendy Kopp, Teach for America (TFA) has grown from a tiny organization with limited impact to what some supporters call the most significant force in educational reform today. Indeed the organization has recently been embraced by both the president of the National Educational Association and U.S. Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan as a force for tremendous good.

Critics argue otherwise, pointing to data that is mixed at best while questioning the almost $500 million annual operating budget of the non-profit, a significant portion of which comes from U.S. taxpayers. In light of questionable results and practices (such as using non-certified TFA recruits to work with special education students in direct violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) organizations are working to end TFA’s “highly qualified teacher” provision in 2013, an effort TFA is aggressively trying to thwart.

In an effort to provide assistance to those organizations working to maintain the integrity of the teaching profession, the Critical Education seeks research on TFA’s practices, procedures, outcomes, and impacts. We are looking for empirical and theoretical pieces written in a style that congressional staffers can easily access and understand. We are not interested in pieces that sacrifice intellectual rigor for ease of reading, but we are also wary of overly theorized pieces that alienate readers outside of the academy.

In addition to full-length manuscripts (5,000-8,000 words), we are also soliciting short accounts of TFA’s impact in specific cities to be presented as “field reports.”

Proposals of no more than 200 words due by September 15, 2012.

Notice of acceptance of proposal by October 1, 2012

Final Submission due by February 1, 2013.

For more information on submission contact Philip Kovacs at: pk0001@uah.edu

Critical Education is an international peer-reviewed journal, which seeks manuscripts that critically examine contemporary education contexts and practices. Critical Education is interested in theoretical and empirical research as well as articles that advance educational practices that challenge the existing state of affairs in society, schools, and informal education.