E Wayne Ross – Page 17 – Critical Theories in Education

Page Four: BC Ministry of Education to investigate teacher ed research debacle

[Updated]

The British Columbia Minister of Education has announced an investigation into the research contracts that funded a teenager’s “study” of teacher education programs at the University of Victoria and University of Helsinki.

This story has been floating around since last fall, but the Ministry has had nothing to say about these sole-source research contracts until the Canadian Taxpayers Federation of BC obtained and published the final report. A story by Times Colonist reporter Amy Smart about the research contracts and the student’s report, was also a big nudge (see below).

[Following the initial story about the government funded teen researcher by Tracy Sherlock in the Vancouver Sun last September, I’ve written about the situation on WTBHNN and Janet Steffenhagen has covered it on her blog for the BC Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils. But it was Jordan Bateman and the CTF‘s FOI activity that finally forced the Ministry to acknowledge there is at least the appearance of problem here.]

CBC News Vancouver ran the story this evening, watch their report here:

I’m doubtful we’ll get any real insights into this bizarre episode, at least in the short term, because Education Minister Peter Fassbender indicated that the investigation would focus on contract “procedures” rather than substance of the decision making process. Rick Davis, the Ministry’s “superintendent of achievement,” is the official who gave the contracts to Anjali Vyas, who at the time was a recent high school grad and deejay, she is now an undergraduate student at UBC.

Here’s Fassbender’s full interview with CBC News:

Can there be a rational explanation for funding a high school grad to travel to Finland to study teacher education? I’m interested to know what it was Rick Davis and the BC Ministry of Education were expecting? Did they really believe that funding a 10 month “study” of teacher education conducted by a recent high school grad would produce insights into the professional preparation of teachers?

The Victoria Times-Colonist reports:

Education Minister Peter Fassbender says he is investigating how $16,000 in public funds were paid to a teenage researcher on the already well-researched topic of Finnish teacher education.

Stelly’s Secondary School graduate Anjaly Vyas travelled to Finland in 2013 to interview students about teacher education. She also interviewed students at the University of Victoria and wrote a 14-page report of her findings.

Superintendent of achievement Rick Davis signed two contracts for her work — one in 2012 for $8,000 and another in 2013 for “up to $8,000.” In documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation through a freedom of information request, he said Vyas offered “student eyes” on teacher education.

“I think this young lady, of course, was passionate about education and I really celebrate her enthusiasm. But this isn’t really about her, it’s about our procedures,” Fassbender said Tuesday.

“I’ve spoken with the deputy and we’re reviewing our procedures on contracts like this.”

Fassbender said the contracts are concerning, but also called the awarding process “open and transparent,” since all ministry contracts are posted monthly.

Sole-source contracts under a certain threshold can be awarded without contest, but they are traditionally signed off by the deputy minister, he said.

“The current deputy was not the one who signed this particular contract, that’s why we’re reviewing it,” Fassbender said.

“If there are procedures we need to change, we will definitely look at that.”

James Gorman was deputy education minister from 2008 to October 2013, when Rob Wood replaced him.

Earlier in the day Amy Smart reported the story in The Province newspaper: B.C. blasted for paying teen $1,122 per page for report on teacher education in Finland, to which Jordan Bateman of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and I contributed commentary.

The CTF filed the Freedom of Information requests that produced 115 pages of background documents and the Vyas report.

Bateman called the contracts “dubious.”

“There’s a difference between gleaning student input and spending $16,000 to send a 19-year-old to Finland on very flimsy pretenses,” he said.

The ministry didn’t get much for its money, Bateman said. At 14 pages, the “thin” student paper released Monday essentially cost taxpayers $1,122.81 per page.

The first $8,000 contract was signed in 2012, while a second one for “up to $8,000” was signed in 2013.

Bateman filed a freedom of information request after reading a story in the Vancouver Sun celebrating Vyas’s achievements. In the story, she said she met Davis when she was DJ-ing at a wedding.

“There’s something weird about the story that just didn’t sit right,” Bateman said. “They hit it off and then she ends up with this $8,000 contract to go to Finland and study, frankly, the most-studied educational system in the world.”

Davis met Vyas “coincidentally” at her teacher Gord Ritchie’s wedding, the ministry said. But Ritchie had already alerted Davis to Vyas’s research interests and they later arranged a formal meeting.

I told Smart that while Vyas seemed “very bright and motivated,” the project was an insult to education professionals.

“At the most basic level, I think giving a sole-source contract to a teenager to study UVic’s teacher education program and to travel to Finland, shows that the ministry doesn’t really take teacher education seriously.”

“I wonder if the Health Ministry would send a teenager to Finland to study their professional medical preparation.”

Vyas apparently didn’t respond to reporters’ requests for interviews, but she submitted a video statement to CBC News Vancouver defending her project.

I agree with Minister Fassbender that Vyas and her work should not be the primary focus here. As I mentioned in previous posts, I’m not interested in picking apart the report or making judgments about her work. That’s really beside the point.

What is at issue is the agenda of the Ministry.

Why create a situation any thoughtful person could easily predict had the potential to blow up in the faces of everyone involved?

Rick Davis and the Ministry are responsible for putting Vyas in an awkward position. Vyas shouldn’t be a scapegoat. And, Davis and the Ministry should be held accountable, not just for the money spent, but the process and product of government decision-making as well as their frivolous approach to teacher education.

When is Davis going to step up and offer a defence of his actions?

The one thing he could really learn from Vyas is having the courage to defend his own work. Would that be worth $16,000.00?

Page Three: Move along, there’s nothing to see here. Or, how seriously does the BC Ministry of Education take research on teacher education?

Jordan Bateman of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation of British Columbia, has been exploring the question of why the BC Ministry of Education would finance a teenager to conduct research on teacher education in Finland. Through Freedom of Information requests the CFA collected and published 115 pages of communications among Rick Davis, Anjali Vyas, the high school grad who was funded to travel to Finland and write a report on teacher education, and other Ministry employees.

These documents raise a number of questions about how the Ministry, and particularly “superintendent of achievement” Rick Davis makes decisions about doling out single source research contracts. These documents also represent events in ways that are inconsistency with the initial media reports about genesis of this project. (Read my previous posts on the subject here, here, and here.

One thing that has been missing is Vyas’ final report to the Ministry. Bateman posted the report on the CTF website today.

Read the report if you like.

Or not, because as you might expect given the circumstances, there are no insights to be found in the report. Not even the “through a student’s eyes” perspective that Davis said was the point of the project. Instead, the report is a collection of general statements, with little or no data to illustrate or support the claims made. For example, there is exactly one quote from interviews conducted in Finland to go with one quote from a UVic student. There are a few references to and quotes from published works, but no reference list. But I’m not really interested in picking apart the report or judging the author.

Rather, my question is what was Rick Davis and the BC Ministry of Education expecting? Did Davis really believe that funding a 10 month “study” of teacher education conducted by a high school grad would produce insights into the professional preparation of teachers?

I’m at a loss to understand the rationale behind this debacle. Ignorance? Disrespect? A combo platter, with arrogance on the side?

If it’s the first—that is, if the person in the role of “superintendent of achievement” for the province really did believe this was a good use of public funds and could produce useful insights into teacher education—then I respectfully suggest he shouldn’t have that job.

There’s no arguing that Davis and the BC Ministry of Education have, by their actions in this case, illustrated a profound disrespect for teacher education and educational research in general. Perhaps merely an extension of the BC Liberals ongoing disrespect for professional educators.

Mapping the Rouge Forum from 1998-2014

Join us in June 5-7, 2014 in Denver, CO on the campus of Metropolitan State University of Denver for Rouge Forum 2014.

Rouge Forum meetings and conferences
The Rouge Forum holds meetings on a regular basis at both local and national levels. The national conferences have been held on a more or less annual basis; all meetings are action-oriented and the national conferences usually include workshops for teachers and students; panel discussions; community-building and cultural events; as well as academic presentations. Many prominent voices for democracy and critical pedagogy have participated in Rouge Forum meetings.

Detroit, MI (June 1998) International Social Studies Conference of the Rouge Forum
Detroit, MI (January 1999) International Social Studies Conference of the Rouge Forum
Rochester, NY (February 1999) Developing Democratic Citizens: Teaching Social Education K-16 (with Whole Schooling Consortium)
Detroit, MI (June 1999) Whole Schooling Consortium and The Rouge Forum Summer Institute
Albany, NY (June 2000) Standardized Testing in K-12 Schooling: Tool of Reform or Tool of Tyranny? (with Whole Schooling Consortium)
Detroit, MI (June 2000) International Education Summit for a Democratic Society (with Whole Schooling Consortium and Whole Language Umbrella)
Chicago, IL (June 2001) Freedom to Teach, Freedom to Learn: Critical Literacy for Caring Democratic Classrooms (with Whole Schooling Consortium and Whole Language Umbrella)
Bethesda, MD (July 2002) Restoring the Passion: Thriving in a Standards Environment (with Whole Schooling Consortium and Whole Language Umbrella)
Louisville, KY (June 2003) Rouge Forum Summer Institute on Education and Society
Detroit, MI (November 2003) Lessons of War Teach-in for a Democratic Society
Sryacuse, NY (June 2004) Rouge Forum Summer Institute on Education and Society
Detroit, MI (March 2007) Their Wars Left Behind: Education for Action
Louisville, KY (March 2008) Education: Reform or Revolution?
Ypsilanti, MI (May 2009) Education, Empire, Economy & Ethics at a Crossroads
Williams Bay, WI (August 2010) Education in the Public Interest
Chicago (Romeoville) IL (May 20-22, 2011) Education and the State: A Critical Antidote to the Commercialized, Racist, and Militaristic Order
Vancouver, BC, Canada (April 13, 2012) The Rouge Forum at the American Educational Research Association
Oxford, OH (June 22-24, 2012) Occupy Education! Class Conscious Pedagogies for Social Change
Detroit, MI, (May 16-19, 2013) Winning the Class Struggle Against Corporate Education Reform
Denver, CO (June 5-7, 2014) The Struggle for Social Justice Inside and Outside the Classroom

BC’s teacher surplus, is it more than a math problem?

In today’s issue of The Province, columnist Michael Smyth drops some startling numbers about teacher supply in British Columbia (“Let’s all do the math on BC’s teacher surplus”).

There’s no doubt it’s tough for new teachers to find full time positions in the province, it’s tough to even get regular work as a teacher-on-call (TOC) in some districts. I know this from personal experience as professor in UBC’s teacher education and because the guy who cuts my hair received his BEd from UBC four years ago.

Here are the numbers, according to Smyth:

number of people currently holding a valid BC teaching certificate: 69,400
number of full-time-equivalent teachers in the public school system: 30,101.

Of course, as Smyth points out, some of the folks in the first group are not in the public school classroom, but are employed educators, either as administrators in public schools or as teachers in independent schools, etc.

Anyway you cut it, there is a oversupply of credentialed teachers in relation to available jobs in BC. This is circumstance BC educators and teachers educators have been aware of for many years, even as provincial universities have continued to graduate about twice as many BEds per year as there are province-wide vacancies (about 1,800 teacher education grads per year for about 900 teaching vacancies per year). In 1999, there were 5,000 active TOCs and a British Columbia Teachers’ Federation survey indicated that on average TOCs work worked about 73 days per year (40% of the school year) and earned about $11,000.00 per year (20% of average teacher salary).

The Invisible Hand

Smyth brings up the teacher supply issue in the context of the latest round of labor tensions between the government and the BCTF, asking “when there’s a surplus of workers, why would any right-minded employer offer premium wages when they’re swamped with resumés and job applications?”

That’s a fair question, but then again, if we’re looking to the good old invisible hand of the market to provide us with some explanations, how does one explain the fact that BEd students keep flowing into teacher education programs when job prospects are so bleak?

One one hand we could argue that Adam Smith’s metaphor for a self-regulating marketplace is not all it’s crack up to be, but more important is the fact is that many people are highly motivated to become teachers. When I graduated with an education degree in 1978, the job market for teachers was similarly poor. I worked as a substitute teacher, went to grad school, and ultimately had to move hundreds of miles away from home for my first full time classroom position.

Symth says that it’s “insane” for BC universities to train teachers the province doesn’t need, but another way looking at what’s happening is that provincial universities are (and have been) merely responding to a market demand for teacher education programs. Remember, post-secondary education in BC has been subjected to a steady stream of neoliberal economic policies from the governing BC Liberals, which has marketized every area of the public sector.

Do we need to allow for more “self-regulating behaviour of the marketplace” or do we need a centralized “five year plan” for the teacher labour market? As usual that kind of dualist thinking doesn’t help much because reality is much more complex.

The Finland Option

I appreciate Symth’s suggestion that British Columbia “should do what Finland did: drastically reduce the number of available spaces in university education programs.”

About six years ago the Faculty of Education at UBC embarked on a remake of it’s teacher education program, using the title CREATE (Community to Reimagine Educational Alternatives for Teacher Education). The “new” teacher education program has been in place over year now, and while there have been changes within the program, its basic structure and length look quite familiar. There are topical cohort programs with specialized emphases (e.g., arts-based; problem-based learning; IB, etc.), various streams for practica, but it remains, for the most part, a one-size-fits all model (post-baccalaureate, 12 month BEd program, with a 2 year option for elementary teachers).

At the beginning of the UBC CREATE endeavour (circa 2006), the social studies education faculty proffered what amounted to a “Finland option,” which was motivated in significant ways by the oversupply of socials teachers (as well as the increased number of part-time sessional instructors in the program). In short, we outlined a program where preservice social studies teachers would earn a masters degree, emphasizing advanced coursework in history or geography along with education courses necessary for an initial teaching license (essentially what is known in the US as a Master of Arts in Teaching program). At the time we had five full time faculty members ready and willing to put together a world class program working in collaboration with other departments; the numbers of students in social studies education would have been drastically reduced, and standards increased. This proposal was apparently too creative and was given no serious consideration.

Other proposals that would have dramatically re-structured the UBC approach to teacher education, such as adopting a 4-year undergraduate teacher education program, were also rejected.

Curriculum change in universities is a deliberate process to say the least, but I think this case illustrates what happens when the bottom-line rules. To say that the UBC budget is opaque is an understatement. Whether we’re dealing with the “historical budgeting” approach of the past or the decentralized budgeting of the present, budget messages to faculty are always muddled, muddy, mystifying and obfuscated. UBC always facing cuts on the academic side.

But there’s more to the story. We can’t contemplate improving the quality teacher education programs without also considering the financial contexts internal and external to the university. When it comes to program form and content there are the sometimes competing interests of government regulation in teaching profession, views from the profession itself, and from scholars of teaching and teacher education. And to complicate matters university faculty have less and less control over the academic content of courses and programs, with the demise of shared governance and university administrators increasing desire to commodify learning (see UBC’s Policy 81, for example).

Ten years ago the UBC teacher education enrolment was in the 800 per year range. Last year there were 935 applicants to the program and 632 were admitted.

Does that mean we’re headed in the right direction?

UBCFA issues blanket opt-out for faculty in response to UBC’s greedy grab for intellectual property

Today the University of British Columbia Faculty Association presented a letter to the University administration declaring a blanket opt-out from the provisions recently enacted in Policy 81 (Use of Teaching Materials in a UBC Credit Course). In enacting Policy 81, UBC granted itself the right to use, share, and revise teaching materials of its faculty.

Policy 81, is an unprecedented move in Canadian higher education, which violates principles of academic freedom, Canadian copyright law, and UBC’s own copyright guidelines. UBCFA has argued that Policy 81 undermines customary sharing of teaching materials among faculty by commodifying them. UBCFA informed FA membership of “the legitimate concern that Policy 81 was passed so that the University could grant rights to itself of faculty members’ teaching materials so that the materials could be commodified to serve the purposes of the Flexible Learning Initiative.”

On February 20, 2014, the Board of Governors passed Policy 81 outside its regularly scheduled meeting process. The UBCFA has opposed Policy 81 as drafted, revised, and implemented at all stages of discussion with the University.

In an article published by The Ubyssey on April 9, Associate Provost Hugh Brock defended the individual opt-out provision, as opposed to an opt-in approach:

[A database of teaching materials is] “only good if it’s up to date, it’s searchable and compliance is high,” said Brock. “Most professors are updating their courses every year. The likelihood that we could keep, curate and get people to send to a repository is zero.” (The Ubyssey, “Policy on sharing teaching materials opposed by Faculty Association,” 9 April 2014).

The UBCFA has points out that

Brock’s comments demonstrate that the University is not interested in the current practice of voluntary sharing of teaching materials that has historically and traditionally occurred at the University. Instead, it wants to make sharing compulsory unless you state otherwise. The suggestion within the policy that ownership remains vested with the faculty member who created the materials is totally meaningless and hollow once the University can use your teaching materials at will, including revising them and giving them to others to use.

In March, the UBCFA filed a grievance against the University over Policy 81. The Canadian Association of University Teachers has begun the process of censuring UBC in response to Policy 81.

Page 2 — The weird saga of how the BC Ministry of Education funded a teenager to study Finnish teacher education

Hello British Columbians, stand by for news!

As Paul Harvey used to say, now it’s time for “Page 2,” in the weird saga of the $16,000 sole-sourced “research” contract handed out by Rick Davis, the BC Ministry of Education’s “superintendent of achievement,” to a recent high school grad so she could travel to Finland to study teacher education, “from a student’s perspective.” But something tells me we’ll have to wait for the “rest of the story.”

If your memory needs some refreshing check out out the original Vancouver Sun story, Janet Steffenhagen’s blog post, and Where The Blog Has No Name posts (here and here) from when the story first broke.

A big shoutout to Jordan Bateman, the BC Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation who today put the story back into play along with 115 pages of documents the CTF received as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request in an attempt to get to the bottom of why BC Liberals would give two research contracts to Anjali Vyas, an 18 year-old with no qualifications as a researcher, to spend 10 months conducting a “study” of teacher education practices at the University of Victoria and the University of Helsinki (with a 3 day stop over in London for a little holiday).

In his post on the CTF blog today, Bateman adds the following elements to the story:

1. The origin stories don’t match. Anjali Vyas told the Sun that she was deejaying her friend’s wedding when she somehow met Davis and started talking education philosophy. “We instantly hit it off and he was so interested in my project,” Vyas said.

But the emails in our possession leave a different impression. On page 11, a document that appears to have been prepared by Davis claims, “Anjali came to the attention of Rick Davis… she was referred by her teacher to him with the expectation that Mr. Davis may be able to narrow in the central questions around teacher education.” This was reinforced in an email from Anjali to Rick (page 88): “[Anjali’s teacher] Gord mentioned he had talked to you, and that I should get in touch with you [in] regards to my research… I was hoping to meet with you sometime soon and further discuss how this research could benefit not only my own knowledge of educational systems, but more importantly, it could illuminate some new and innovative ideas the BC government could implement.”

2. Rick Davis seems very unhappy with bureaucracy. Normally, I’d agree with cutting red tape in government, but rules that prevent sole-sourced contracts to 18 year olds seem pretty wise to me. In one email to Anjali (p. 34), he writes: “Have not forgotten but waiting for a few things to land on the contract front. Will call soon. It is really difficult in government to do things out of the box – but fun!” In another email to Anjali (p. 43), he writes: “You are on new turf. Cool but a little scary but you have lots of us close at hand.” In that same email, he compares Anjali to a historic, young explorer in charge of his own ship: “That is your destiny.”

3. Rick Davis funnels the money to the Saanich school district and has them contract Anjali Vyas (pp. 54, 57 and 115). Further, he has the Teacher Regulation Branch pay for her airfare to Finland (pp. 50 and 89).

4. When confusion arises that somehow the University of Victoria is sanctioning the Vyas project, UVic makes it clear they are not. “This project is not certified by the UVic Research Ethics Board,” wrote Eugenie Lam of UVic (p. 23). “We ask that on the consent form you remove the reference to the UVic Office of Research Services because the UVic Research Ethics Board has no oversight on this project.”

5. Claims that Anjali Vyas had a special connection to the University of Helsinki appear to be rubbish. Anjali told the Sun she was “obsessed” with the work of University of Helsinki professor Pasi Sahlberg, including his book Finnish Lessons: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland?. Amusingly, Rick Davis gave her that book (p. 96).

Okay, so I understand that for Rick Davis, $16,000.00 for a little trip to Europe is really a drop in the bucket, in 2011 he racked up $77,657.00 in travel, more than any other BC government employee.

But, what about this important “research” project. Based on the emails from Vyas to Davis and other folks in the Ministry, the Finns were as incredulous as the rest of us about this scheme:

Can you believe it? The Finns think someone conducting research on teacher education ought to have some credentials, perhaps even a graduate degree. The Finns were “dubious” of a teenage researcher funded by the BC government to study professional education of teachers, eh? But hey, I guess that’s the way Rick Davis and the BC Ministry of Education rolls when it comes to conducting research. I can almost hear Davis now …

“Credentials? Who needs credentials, we do whatever we the heck we please. Ethics Board clearance for BC government research? That’s just a bunch of red tape and we’re trying to reduce the size of government. By the way, has anyone see my Aeroplan card, I had it right here just here a minute ago when I was checking the latest travel expense standings.”

I haven’t seen Vylas’s final report (the contract stated it was due September 20, 2013), but here is the interview protocol that she planned to use in her study in Finland:

What can we say about these questions? Well, they’re of the sort one might expect from an inquisitive person with an interest in education, and no knowledge of professional or scholarly literature. Completely unnecummbered by the history, theory, research or practice of teaching and teacher education. I’m sure Vylas (and Davis) might learn something from this endeavour, but there’s no other way to describe this scenario than as colossal waste of taxpayer’s money and, as I’ve pointed out before, an insult to the communities of education practitioners, researchers, and serious policymakers.

With no travel budget, but connection to the internet, here’s a short list of things I’ve found that Finland does when it comes to teaching and teacher education:

Higher education is completely free.
There are high standards for entry into teacher education programs and admissions are highly selective (about 10% of applicants are accepted).
Teacher education programs are typically 5 years long and include study of the liberal arts, teaching subject speciality, theory and practice of teaching, including teaching students with disabilities.
There are no “alternative” routes to teaching (no shortcuts, that means no Teach for Finland, no online degrees, no one without pedagogical training is allowed to teach).
Finnish teachers and principals have autonomy to make educational decisions. The national curriculum is a guideline not a road map. Finnish teachers are not mere conduits for the transfer of information and skills dictated from the government.
National student assessment is based upon a sampling model (not every student is tested) and there are no consequences from these assessments for students, teachers, principals, or schools.
There is no standardized testing. And, no “value-added” models of teacher evaluation.
Finnish schools have small class sizes.
Finnish teachers and principals belong to unions.
As a result of the above, teaching is highly respected profession in Finland.

As Pasi Sahlberg writes in his book Finnish Lessons, Finnish schools promote the wellbeing of their students in a model that reflects many of the primary elements of John Dewey’s progressive approach to learning and teaching.

My suggestion to Davis, Education Minister Peter Fassbender, and Premier Christy Clark is, if you’re serious about looking to Finland for ideas on education then stop the ongoing, obsessive attacks on the British Columbia Teachers Federation and start doing what is necessary to bring each of the above elements to reality in BC.

Here’s a short video on Finland’s formula for educational success:

Social Justice in Education: Diversity, Equity, Citizenship

Washington State Kappan: Winter 2015 Call For Manuscripts

Due September 15, 2014

Social Justice in Education: Diversity, Equity, Citizenship

Social justice in education remains crucial to American society and the development of diverse and well-educated citizenry. From issues such as civics and immigrant youth to equity and the transition from high school to college, what it means to support and advocate for social justice in classrooms, schools, communities, and the policy arena is much more than adding statements of tolerance to inherently inequitable systems and structures.

As Sensoy and DiAngelo assert, “Social justice education is not about serving the interests of political correctness. Every single measure of disparity in education is tied to group position — target vs. dominant. Special education and discipline referrals; math, science, and reading literacies; graduation and dropout/push-out rates; test scores, all of what is known as ‘the achievement gap’ are tied to race, class, and gender. This disparity is real. And to ameliorate such disparities and offer meaningful leadership in school contexts at all levels, we must attend to the real, to the concrete and active dimensions — not simply the slogans — of social justice” (2009, p. 348-350).

We invite articles that serve as a catalyst for exploring the real, concrete, active dimensions of social justice from a variety of perspectives. Those interested in submitting a manuscript may want to consider the following questions:

In what ways are districts and schools working to support diverse student populations to gain access to programs and to succeed academically?
How might issues of social justice be meaningfully integrated with university teacher education programs?
What are examples of how social justice education is being implemented through instruction at the classroom level?
·In what ways are ESDs facilitating or supporting social justice initiatives, such as civics education and community-based learning, statewide?
What connections can be made between current high-stakes assessment policies and social justice initiatives?
What does social justice mean to students, parents, or school communities?

We are calling for theoretical/research articles, teacher-focused articles, and professional materials or book reviews on topics related to this theme. For additional information: https://journals.lib.washington.edu/index.php/wsk/announcement
For manuscript submission author guidelines: https://journals.lib.washington.edu/index.php/wsk/about/submissions – authorGuidelines
For past issues of Washington State Kappan, please go to: http://www.pdkwa.org/
If you have questions, please contact Antony Smith, editor: ansmith@uwb.edu

Education, State and Market: Anatomy of Neoliberal Impact

Ravi Kumar‘s new book Education, State and Market: Anatomy of Neoliberal Impact published by Aakar Books (Delhi) is the first volume to comprehensively examine the impact of neoliberal capitalism on education in India.

Kumar is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of South Asia, in Delhi. He blogs here and is also part of the editorial collective at Radical Notes.

Praise for the volume:

The book presents a set of papers that illuminate in profound ways how the wide-angle historical frames provided by Marxist analysis facilitate our understanding of the details embedded in national and more local educational contexts. Neoliberalism attacks human dignity. The consequences of social, economic, and educational policies that exacerbate inequality, magnify exploitation, and undermine personal and social freedoms are clearly analyzed by each of the contributors. The circumstances are dire and readers will most certainly be outraged as they learn how neoliberal policies and practices reduce the process of education to a commodity and teachers and learners to elements in formula for the relentless production of profit. This volume presents a clear and compelling analysis of how neoliberal thought and practice has transformed education at the policy level in India and in the process distorted the official aims of education as well as social relations among teachers and learners. Most importantly, however, these chapters provide insights into how we might channel our rage against neoliberal capitalist mechanisms into the creation of new visions of resistance to educational practices that privilege profits over people.
– E. Wayne Ross, University of British Columbia, Canada

Editor Ravi Kumar has assembled the finest scholarship to investigate key questions in regard to the relationship of the development of modern capitalism, its connections to empire, the role of the state, and the resulting impact on education. The essays within go to the core: what is valued as “knowledge” now? Who shall schools serve? Indeed: Why have school? The critical reader will find new questions, and profound answers.
– Rich Gibson, Professor Emeritus, San Diego State University, USA

The Cuban Literacy Campaign at 50: Formal and Tacit Learning in Revolutionary 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 below and then visit our web site to read articles and items of interest.

While visiting the Critical Education web site please register to receive email alerts on future publication or sign up to be a manuscript reviewer. Also consider submitting a manuscript for considerations (see Information for Authors).

Critical Education
Vol 5, No 4 (2014)
Table of Contents
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/issue/view/182487

Articles
——–

The Cuban Literacy Campaign at 50: Formal and Tacit Learning in
Revolutionary Education
Arlo Kempf

The Cuban Literacy Campaign at 50: Formal and Tacit Learning in Revolutionary Education
Arlo Kempf

Abstract
December 22, 2011, marked the 50th anniversary of the end of the Cuban Literacy Campaign, an initiative that dramatically increased literacy rates across the island and consolidated the presence of the revolutionary government. While Cuban schools are widely celebrated, a paucity of recent scholarship persists treating the structure and tenets, as well as the formal and tacit content of Cuban education. Beginning with an analysis of the political content of the literacy campaign, this article reviews the structure and content of Cuban education with a focus on the role of ideology. While numerous scholars have demonstrated the prescriptive and reproductive function of schooling Euro-American contexts, little comparative international work has treated the interfunction of schooling and ideology in the Global South. This article locates the literacy campaign as the formal genesis of contemporary Cuban ideology. Indeed the literacy campaign was the beginning of a discursive relationship that continues today.

Keywords
Adult Education; Cuban Education; the Cuban Literacy Campaign; Schooling; Ideology; Marxism; Global South

Your social studies teacher is wrong, the United States is not a democracy

No, this is not some arcane argument about democratic versus republican forms of government. Rather it is the conclusion of what has been described as the first ever scientific study of the question of whether the United States is a democracy.

The study, by Martin Gilens, a professor of politics at Princeton University, and Benjamin I. Page, a political scientist at Northwestern University, is titled “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens” and will be published in the fall 2014 issue of Perspectives on Politics, an APSA journal.

The study aims to answer the questions “Who governs? Who really rule? To what extent is the broad body of U.S. citizens sovereign, semi-sovereign, or largely powerless” by examining a huge data set that addresses thousands of policy issues.

Each of four theoretical traditions in the study of American politics – which can be characterized as theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy, Economic Elite Domination, and two types of interest group pluralism, Majoritarian Pluralism and Biased Pluralism – offers different predictions about which sets of actors have how much influence over public policy: average citizens; economic elites; and organized interest groups, mass-based or business-oriented.

A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within a single statistical model. This paper reports on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues. (p. 2)

The findings provide “substantial support” for theories of Economic Elite Domination and Biased Pluralism, in short the U.S. is found to be an oligarchy. No surprise really, unless you’ve had your eyes wide shut for the past 40 years. While the political and media elites, capitalists and other oligarchs (along with social studies textbooks and teachers) continue to promote the fiction that the U.S. is a democracy, this study concludes that the average citizens’ influence on policy making is “near zero.” So, don’t bother writing that letter to your “representative.”

The researchers used a single statistical model to pit the predictions of ideal-type theories against each other using a unique data set that included measures for key independent variables on policy issues. Their “striking findings,” include “the nearly total failure of ‘median voter’ and other Majoritarian Electoral Democracy theories. When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy” (p. 21).

Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But, we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threaten. (p.24)

While some critically minded observers may claim that this study only confirms what we already know, we should not underestimate the importance—and pedagogical power—of this empirical investigation of democracy in the U.S.. which puts a lie the most powerful trope of school curriculum and mass media propaganda. The U.S. is not democracy; the central features of American democracy are illusory.

The narrative of “American democracy” promulgated in schools and in the media is distraction from the triumph of neoliberal capitalism and the rule of oligarchs. If we—social studies educators—are truly committed to the principles and practices of social equality it requires engaging with our students in systematic analysis and inquiry into our present circumstances (as well as historicizing preconditions of the present). From that point we can start to pose questions and envision tactics, strategies, and grand strategies that point toward resolution of problems/contradictions our analyses identify. This study presents findings that will surely provoke dialogue about (and deconstruction of) of what currently passes for “democracy” in the U.S., and, one hopes, inspires not merely more powerful teaching, but actions to reclaim/remake the political landscape.