Tag Archives: public education

Call for Submissions: Critical Education special issue on “Neoliberal Capitalism and Public Education”

Special Issue Call: Neoliberal Capitalism and Public Education

Special Issue Editor:
Lana Parker
Associate Professor, Education University of Windsor, Canada Lana.parker@uwindsor.ca

The Status of Public Education: Documenting Neoliberal Capitalism’s Harms and Advocating for the Common Good

Overview and Aims:

“The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.” (Marx, 1859/1977)

Seen as a common or public good, public education offers the foundation for a more equal, just, and democratic society. As Biesta and Säfström (2023) suggest, “public education can be seen as the expression of the democratic values of liberty, equality, and solidarity. … [It has also] played a key role in promoting and sustaining these values” (Public education and the rise of neoliberalism section, emphasis in original). In this vein, a well-funded public school offers opportunities for community, fellowship, ethical relationality, and the development of critical, creative capacities (Parker, 2021, 2023a, 2023b). An economically healthy public system is marked, among other things, by: small class sizes; good teacher wages and the high levels of teacher training attendant to those wages; rich and diverse programming for all students; resources and infrastructure in good repair; and, most significantly, independence from market interests and from reliance on private sources of revenue.

Despite this underlying potential, however, any defense of education as a public good must resist nostalgia, ahistoricism, or conservativism. That is, though public education holds promise, it has also often been rooted in material, cultural, and ideological conditions of exclusion (Nelson et al., 2022). As such, public education as a common good, and the related argument against privatization, must include two parallel, though not mutually exclusive, understandings: First, that the legacy of public education in many countries has often been unjust in its implementation. Second, that although as a system it has been imperfect in its practice of equality and justice, it still represents the most powerful foundation from which to seek and improve these aims.

Decades of neoliberal capitalism have had a corrosive effect on public education systems around the world. Peters (2021) notes that one of the guiding objectives of neoliberalism is to displace the idea of public goods with the notion of public choice. This permits the entry of market ideals, profit motives, and choice through every facet of educational systems and policies. For example,

the neoliberal belief that public education funding is inefficient permits systematic and prolonged underfunding and diversions of tax-payer dollars to private schools. Neoliberal perceptions of choice and the focus on the individual versus the collective serve to similarly undermine arguments for public education for all. Further, the very premise of education — the answer to the fundamental question of what is education for? — has been reshaped by neoliberal values of economic competition and unmitigated capitalist growth. In all, scholars have documented that neoliberalism in education influences all education policy, curriculum, and pedagogy, as well as refashions the underlying economic fiscal supports that uphold the public system.

What is sometimes obscured, and perhaps increasingly so as neoliberalism enjoins neoconservative ideologies, is that the underlying mechanism of neoliberal capitalism is economic. Its project has been about converting previously public goods into terrain for marketization and competition, with an emphasis on generating profits that are concentrated into the hands of a few. As such, this special issue will focus on revealing neoliberal capitalist policies and critiquing the material conditions of inequality, impoverishment, and austerity that these shifts have produced; it is also aimed at advocacy for well-funded public education as a common good worth protecting.

Description of Invited Articles:

For this issue, I invite analysis that foregrounds a critique of the contemporary expression of neoliberal capitalism. I seek submissions from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives (e.g., from within education, but also from public policy studies, progressive economics, sociology, philosophy, and more) to substantively engage with the material and philosophical challenges wrought by a neoliberal, capitalist totality, as it operates on education. A prevailing theme will be how this totality has produced harms for public education as a public good. Papers can be philosophical, theoretical, or conceptual; they can also be empirical, with methodologies such as Critical Policy Analysis, Critical Discourse Analysis, and the like. Some of the questions that you may wish to engage include:

What are the material harms that have been produced in classrooms as a result of underfunding and austerity budgets?
What are the changing economic underpinnings of public education? How has public spending changed and privatization increased?
Neoliberalism presumes one set of goals and accountability measures for public education systems. What alternative goals and measures could be considered?
How has neoliberal capitalism impoverished conceptions of public education’s purpose?
What might an anti-capitalist education look like?

Timeline:

Manuscripts due to Editor: January 31, 2024 Manuscripts under review: February 1 – March 15, 2024

Manuscripts returned to authors for revision: March 31, 2024 Final Manuscripts due to Co-editors: April 30, 2024 Publication of Special Issue: May 31, 2024

About the Editor:

The special issue editor, Lana Parker, is an Associate Professor of Education at the Faculty of Education at the University of Windsor, Canada. She has expertise employing philosophical methods and critical discourse tools to analyze neoliberal trends in education. Her work interrogates these trends in contrast with the possibilities of ethical, responsible, and responsive pedagogy. She served as the Editor for the Journal of Teaching and Learning for three years. Her nationally funded research includes a phenomenological analysis of how capitalism and social media shape how youth engage with information, including mis- and disinformation, which is reflected in her recently published edited collection, Education in the Age of Misinformation: Philosophical and Pedagogical Explorations. In addition, Lana is a co-investigator on the Public Exchange Project, which exposes neoliberal trends of privatization in the Canadian context.

About Critical Education:

Critical Education is an international, refereed, open access journal published by the Institute for Critical Education Studies (ICES). Contributions critically examine contemporary education contexts, practices, and theories. Critical Education publishes theoretical and empirical research as well as articles that advance educational practices that challenge the existing state of affairs in society, schools, higher education, and informal education. ICES, Critical Education, and its companion publication Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor, defend the freedom, without restriction or censorship, to disseminate and publish reports of research, teaching, and service, and to express critical opinions about institutions or systems and their management. Co-Directors of ICES, co-Hosts of ICES and Workplace blogs, and co-Editors of these journals resist all efforts to limit the exercise of academic freedom and intellectual freedom, recognizing the right of criticism by authors or contributors.

Author Guidelines: https://ices.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/about/submissions

References

Biesta, G., & Säfström, C. A. (2023). Introduction: The publicness of education. In G. Biesta &

C. A. Säfström (Eds.), The new publicness of education (pp. 1-7). Routledge. Marx, K. (1977). A contribution to the critique of political economy. Progress Publishers. (Original work published 1859)

Nelson, C., Broom, S., Sisaket, L., & Orphan, C. (2022). Imagining decolonial desires of the public good. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 35(5), 456–477.

Parker, L. (2021). Literacy in the post-truth era: The significance of affect and the ethical encounter. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 53(6), 613-623.

Parker, L. (2023a). Education in the age of misinformation: An afterword. In L. Parker (Ed.), Education in the age of misinformation: Philosophical and pedagogical explorations (pp. 251-256). Palgrave Macmillan.

Parker, L. (2023b). Making the most of it: Thinking about educational time with Hägglund and Levinas. Journal of Philosophy of Education. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopedu/qhad067

Peters, M. A. (2021). Neoliberalism as political discourse: The political arithmetic of homo oeconomicus. In M. Sardoč (Ed.), The impacts of neoliberal discourse and language in education (pp. 69-85). Routledge.

CFP Transformative Researchers & Educators for Democracy: “How public is public education?”

TRED Conference 2014
How Public is Public Education?
Call for Proposals

The Transformative Researchers and Educators for Democracy (TRED) will be holding its third Annual Conference, “How Public is Public Education?”, November 14 and 15, 2014, at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Founded in 2011, UMass Dartmouth’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies has grown to four cohorts of future transformative leaders. Ph.D. and Ed.D. candidates in the program have sought to provide a public space for educational researchers and practitioners to engage in critical and transformative dialogues. Through forums, presentation sessions, panel discussions, and informal gatherings, TRED continues its ambition to place the discussion of educational leadership and policy within the dynamics of ideological production that reflect existing power imbalances that perpetuate inequalities within society.

The theme of the 2014 conference, How Public is Public Education?, reflects the critical elements within and beyond the field of education that need to be discussed, heard, and analyzed as we search for solutions. Professors, students, educational leaders, and the public are all welcome to submit proposals and to attend the conference.

Submitting Proposals
Proposals can be submitted to TREDconf@umassd.edu
Like us on Facebook and look for any new information at Facebook.com/TRED.UMassD
ALL PROPOSALS MUST BE RECEIVED BY: Tuesday September 30th 2014.

Guidelines
TRED will be accepting presentation proposals for papers, symposiums, and research-in-progress roundtables. Upon submission of your proposal, please identify it to one of the following strands:

A. K-12; charter schools, innovation schools
B. Higher Education; adjunct faculty, campus based women’s, gender and cultural centers
C. Public Policy; Race to the Top, high-stakes standardized testing

PAPERS
Paper sessions provide individuals an opportunity to present a condensed version of their study. The research may focus on, but is not limited to, a question from an empirical or theoretical perspective. After all papers within a session have been presented, those in attendance will have the opportunity to dialogue with panelists.

RESEARCH IN PROGRESS ROUNDTABLE
Roundtable sessions are to open critical and insightful dialogue from colleagues familiar with a subject matter to support a developing study. Roundtables will be organized and led by a facilitator.

SYMPOSIUM
Symposiums consist of an integrated set of presentations with a similar topic as the focal point. This format of presenting will be limited to at least three, but no more than five, presentations. The proposal should identify who will be lead discussant or organizer, and, upon review, a TRED committee member may be named as the chair.

Proposal Requirements (For all submissions)
1. Cover Page

Title
Researcher(s)
Contact Information
Organization/University
Panel Category

2. Abstract(300 word limit, not included in 1,000 word limit for proposal)
3. Individual Proposal (1,000 word limit)

Presenters (Identify who is the main contact person)
Theoretical Framework and Connections to Conference Theme;
Purpose;
Research Design/Methods;
Conclusion/Findings;
References

4. Symposium Group Proposal (1,500 word limit)

A common objective or theme should be outlined, providing perspectives on the particular topic.
1-2 paragraphs in which the purpose of the symposium and connections among presenter paper’s is defined;
Overview of each paper being presented including: methods, theoretical framework, research topic, and findings;
Briefly describe the format and structure of the symposium

*If your symposium proposal is accepted, only the first author will be notified, and the first author is responsible for notifying all other co-authors*

For questions or comments, please contact: TREDconf@umassd.edu

CFP: Children’s Human Rights and Public Schooling in the United States

Call for Chapters/Chapter Proposals

Book: Children’s Human Rights and Public Schooling in the United States

Editor:

J. Hall, Associate Professor of Sociology

D’Youville College, Buffalo, NY USA

Under Contract with Sense Publishers

Foreword by Christine Sleeter

Book Description

This volume draws attention to serious human rights violations taking place among children in the US, and the fact that public schools are in many cases implicated in these breaches. The definition of “children’s human rights” under consideration is taken directly from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child [CRC]. More countries have ratified the CRC than any other human rights treaty in history, with only Somalia and the United States yet to ratify this agreement. The CRC is critiqued for its Judeo-Christian bias, and like most conventions put out by the UN, it is not enforceable, and is routinely violated by ratifying nations. The refusal of the US to ratify the CRC has weakened the efforts of those who advocate for children’s human rights as a political concept, both worldwide and in the US (e.g. Ensalaco & Majka, 2005).

The premise behind the CRC is that there are significant vulnerabilities related to childhood that require a special set of protections, especially when it comes to the young from marginalized groups. As outlined in the convention, all children have the right to protection from physical and mental violence and mistreatment. It is also contended that schools be free of violence, and that school discipline be based on the dignity of the child. This volume will address the incongruence between these specific state responsibilities in the CRC and the realities of life in public schools in the US.

Clarifying ways in which US public schools are in direct violation of the high profile CRC may help draw more interdisciplinary attention to already existing work on education inequality. A coalition of those in education, government, NGOs, non-profits, human rights advocacy, law, health care, social work, child development, and those who care about preserving the public must push back against the UN P5, IMF/World Bank, and transnational policy networks (e.g. World Economic Forum, World water Forum) that protect markets instead of human rights (Goldman, 2006). This volume provides a way to enter this conversation.

Contributing chapters –- from a broad range of interdisciplinary perspectives — are sought in the following two areas, each of which are directly reflective of specific protective promises made to children in the CRC (the editor will be responsible for making particular connections to the CRC):

*Schoolchildren as Vulnerable Populations. Seeking research on the schooling experiences of US children who are impoverished, live in isolated urban/rural areas, those from culturally marginalized groups, those with transient lifestyles, those who are migrant workers, refugees, those with disability, those engaged with issues related to sexual orientation, etc.

*Violence, Punishment, and the Juvenile Justice System among Schoolchildren. Seeking research on the schooling experiences of US children who bear witness to domestic and street violence; the school to prison pipeline; the juvenile justice system; metal detectors, zero tolerance policies, searches in schools, and other forms of surveillance and criminalization; the militarization of schooling; types of punishments experienced by children in schools, etc.

Process for Chapter Proposals
Submit the following:

a) Proposed title of chapter

b) Authors, with complete addresses and 150 biography for each author

c) 300-word outline of proposed chapter, including, where applicable, theoretical, methodological, and conceptual considerations

d) To J. Hall jhalledu@yahoo.com

e) By October 1, 2011.

*final chapter requirements: times new roman 12 pt. font., APA 6^th edition, and approx. 25 pp. double-spaced, by January 1, 2012

For questions or queries, contact J. Hall at <a href=:mailto:jhalledu@yahoo.com”>jhalledu@yahoo.com</a>

Call for Manuscripts: A Return to Educational Apartheid? Critical Examinations of Race, Schools, and Segregation

A Return to Educational Apartheid? Critical Examinations of Race, Schools, and Segregation

A Critical Education Series

The editors of Critical Education are pleased to announce our second editorial series. This current series will focus on the articulation of race, schools, and segregation, and will analyze the extent to which schooling may or may not be returning to a state of educational apartheid.

On June 28, 2007, the Supreme Court of the US by a 5-4 margin voted to overturn Jefferson County’s four decade old desegregation plan. The Meredith case from Jefferson County was conjoined with the Parents Involved in Community Schools case from Seattle, WA, for which a group comprised primarily of white parents from two neighborhoods alleged some 200 students were not admitted to schools of their choice, based on “integration tie-breakers,” which prevented many from attending facilities nearest to their homes.

In Justice Roberts plurality opinion, he argued, “The parties and their amici debate which side is more faithful to the heritage of Brown [v. Board of Education, 1954] , but the position of the plaintiffs in Brown was spelled out in their brief and could not have been clearer: ‘The Fourteenth Amendment prevents states from according differential treatment to American children on the basis of their color or race’. What do racial classifications at issue here do, if not accord differential treatment on the basis of race?” And, later, “The way to stop discrimination based on race is to stop discrimination on the basis of race.”

Aside from the fact that the plaintiff in the Louisville case ultimately won her appeal in the Jefferson County system, placing her white child into precisely the school she wanted based on her appeal to the district, demonstrating that the system worked, it is the goal of this series to investigate the extent to which Justice Roberts and the other concurring justices have taken steps to erode the civil rights of the racially marginalized in order to serve the interests of the dominant racial group. It took just a little over 50 years (of monumental effort) to get a case to the Supreme Court to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson. Now, has it taken just a little over 50 years to scale that decision back with the overturning of voluntary desegregation plans in Jefferson County and Seattle School District 1?

In 2003, with a different make-up, the Supreme Court foreshadowed this 2007 verdict by rendering a ‘split decision’ regarding the University of Michigan admission policies. In the Gratz v. Bollinger case, the Supreme Court decided 6-3 that the University of Michigan needed to modify their admission criteria, which assigned points based on race. However, in the Grutter v. Bollinger case, the Supreme Court decided 5-4 to uphold the University of Michigan Law School’s ruling that race could be one of several factors when selecting students because it furthers “a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body.”

In Jonathan Kozol’s 2005 sobering profile of American education, Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, a lamenting follow-up to his earlier work, Savage Inequalities, he already began to illustrate the retrograde process many public school systems have undergone related to racial balance. His critique of these pre-Brown-like-segregation systems was balanced, ironically, by rather effusive praise of the Jefferson County system, which attempted to keep this balance in check. Does the 2007 decision remove this one shining example?

Though the course toward educational apartheid may not be pre-destined, what is the likelihood that the “path of least resistance” will lead toward racial separation? How does the lingering legacy of residential segregation complicate this issue? What connections can we draw to and/or how might further racial segregation exacerbate issues of poverty or unemployment? Further, where do race and class collide? And, where is a more distinct analysis necessary? Finally, what can we surmise about the ongoing achievement gap if, in fact, apartheid schooling is afoot?

Undoubtedly, at worst, this decision could prove to be a harbinger for the death of a waning democracy. Without a compelling public education that helps all our children become critical consumers and citizens, what kind of society might we imagine for ourselves? At best, though, this decision could marshal the sensibilities of a critical cadre of educators, social workers, health care workers, activists, attorneys, business leaders, etc. to stand in resistance to the injustice that is becoming our nation’s public school system.

In an LA Times opinion piece a few days before this 2007 decision, Edward Lazarus argued, “Although they may have disagreed about Brown’s parameters, most Americans coalesced around the decision as a national symbol for our belated rejection of racism and bigotry. Using Brown as a sword to outlaw affirmative action of any kind would destroy that worthy consensus and transform it into just another mirror reflecting a legal and political culture still deeply fractured over race.” As Allan Johnson (2006), in Privilege, Power, and Difference, claims, there can be no healing until the wounding stops. Likewise, paraphrasing Malcolm X’s provocation about so-called progress, he reminded us that although the knife in the back of African-Americans may once have been nine inches deep, that it has only been removed a few inches does not indicate progress. Will this decision plunge the knife further?

Series editors Adam Renner (from Louisville, KY) and Doug Selwyn (formerly of Seattle, WA) invite essays that treat any of the above questions and/or other questions that seek clarity regarding race, education, schooling, and social justice. We seek essays that explore the history of segregation, desegregation, and affirmative action in the US and abroad. While we certainly invite empirical/quantitative research regarding these issues, we also welcome more qualitative studies, as well as philosophical/theoretical work, which provide deep explorations of these phenomena. We especially invite narratives from parents or students who have front line experience of segregation and/or educational apartheid. Additionally, and importantly, we seek essays of resistance, which document the struggle for racial justice in particular locales and/or suggestions for how we might wrestle toward more equitable schooling for all children.

Please visit Critical Education for information on submitting manuscripts.

Also feel free to contact the series editors, Adam Renner (arenner@bellarmine.edu) or Doug Selwyn (dselw001@plattsburgh.edu) with any questions.

Rouge Forum Update: Happy Holidays To Us, Every One! And Remember March 4th!

Dear Friends, Here’s to the 4468 of us on the Rouge Forum list who have, in one way or another, sought to fashion reason and connect that to power. Here’s to a decade that lays the foundation for a just and equitable society—fun too!

On the Education Front is a Class War Front This Week:

The Rouge Forum Newslatest edition is now available

National Call for March 4 Strike and Day of Action To Defend Public Education:

California has recently seen a massive movement erupt in defense of public education — but layoffs, fee hikes, cuts, and the re-segregation of public education are attacks taking place throughout the country. A nationwide resistance movement is needed.

We call on all students, workers, teachers, parents, and their organizations and communities across the country to massively mobilize for a Strike and Day of Action in Defense of Public Education on March 4, 2010. Education cuts are attacks against all of us, particularly in working-class communities and communities of color.

The politicians and administrators say there is no money for education and social services. They say that “there is no alternative” to the cuts. But if there’s money for wars, bank bailouts, and prisons, why is there no money for public education?

We can beat back the cuts if we unite students, workers, and teachers across all sectors of public education — Pre K-12, adult education, community colleges, and state-funded universities. We appeal to the leaders of the trade union movement to support and organize strikes and/or mass actions on March 4. The weight of workers and students united in strikes and mobilizations would shift the balance of forces entirely against the current agenda of cuts and make victory possible.

Building a powerful movement to defend public education will, in turn, advance the struggle in defense of all public-sector workers and services and will be an inspiration to all those fighting against the wars, for immigrants rights, in defense of jobs, for single-payer health care, and other progressive causes.

Why March 4? On October 24, 2009 more than 800 students, workers, and teachers converged at UC Berkeley at the Mobilizing Conference to Save Public Education. This massive meeting brought together representatives from over 100 different schools, unions, and organizations from all across California and from all sectors of public education. After hours of open collective discussion, the participants voted democratically, as their main decision, to call for a Strike and Day of Action on March 4, 2010. All schools, unions and organizations are free to choose their specific demands and tactics — such as strikes, rallies, walkouts, occupations, sit-ins, teach-ins, etc. — as well as the duration of such actions.

Let’s make March 4 an historic turning point in the struggle against the cuts, layoffs, fee hikes, and the re-segregation of public education.

– The California Coordinating Committee

(To endorse this call and to receive more information contact: march4strikeanddayofaction@gmail.com and check out www.defendcapubliceducation.wordpress.com )

Read the full Rouge Forum Update here.

Call for papers: Neoliberalism and public education

CALL FOR PAPERS

Educational Studies Special Issue:
Neoliberalism and Public Education

Guest Editors: Richard D. Lakes & Patricia A. Carter
Social Foundations of Education
Georgia State University, Atlanta
Email: rlakes@gsu.edu

Increasingly neoliberal economic policies are transforming the delivery of
public education. In the current era of marketplace reforms the idea of
the public has been supplanted by a private ideology of risk management;
whereby, under individualization, students as consumers are taught
responsible choice strategies designed for competitive advantage in the
so-called new economy.

Under Keynesian economics, which held sway in the U.S., Britain, Canada,
and Australia from the 1930s to the Thatcher-Reagan era of the 1980s, the
public sought to ameliorate inequities stemming from race, class and
gender bias, but under neoliberalism the state has shifted to promoting a
meritocratic myth of governing the self. As old collectivities and their
support structures such as working-class labor and unions have begun to
disappear under advanced capitalism so too have their counterparts within
the school system.

In this special issue we seek manuscripts that explore the devolution of
public education under neoliberalism. We are interested in scholarly
papers that trouble the notion of risk in an educational environment of
competitive capitalism, the nature of specialized curriculums that are
devoted to social advantage, the ways in which schools have outsourced
services and privatized operations; and the assaults on teachers’ rights
through de-unionizing practices, the dismantling of seniority, and the
erosion of benefits. We are interested in case studies of neoliberal
designed school-based reforms as well as accounts of teaching about
neoliberalism in the social foundations classroom.

To submit manuscripts please use our online submission and review system
at Manuscript Central: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/heds.

Be sure to include a note that your submission is for the Special Issue on
Neoliberalism and Public Education.

Deadline for manuscript submissions: June 1, 2010.

The big lie that “progressives” tell themselves about Obama

This issue is been bugging me since the US presidential campaign heated up, oh two years ago.

Why is it that so-called “left-liberals” (including venerable liberal publcations like The Nation) think that Obama and his policies are progressive?

Is it that the notion of progressivism has lost all meaning; has become detached from progressive liberalism of the early 20th century that focused on issues of social justice and social democracy? I think so.

The vague, meaningless slogans of Obama the campaign (“Change” and “Hope”) offered no indication of the actual substance of how societal (or governmental) conditions might be improved. The lack of substance in the campaign allowed, no, encouraged people to project their own meanings onto Obama’s slogans and campaign promises.

But what really amazes me is how so many left-liberals ignored or did not believe Obama meant what he said when it comes to war and Wall Street.

How do peace activists and the anti-war movement in general back Obama when he balances his promise to end the war in Iraq with a promise to intensify the war in Afghanistan? I just don’t get the logic and apparently there is none, these folks are just hoping for Obama to be something different from what he says he is.

But if you take a look at Obama’s team there is really no doubt about where he’s coming from or where he’s headed. His cabinet appointments are—as Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair at CounterPunch put it, “a slap in the face to Obama’s base”—ex-Harvard, pro-business, and pro-war.

Even Karl Rove praised Obama’s economic team in a Wall Street Journal column!

Here are some of the heavy hitters in the Pro-War line up: Rahm Emanuel (the only Illinois Congressman to vote Yes to the war in Iraq); Hillary (another yes vote for the Iraq war); Robert Gates (Bush’s Pentagon chief!)

The Pro-Business line up is populated by Wall Streeters and Clinton-era appointees who help create the current economic crisis: Lawrence Summers (head of the National Economic Council and Clinton’s Treasury Secretary); Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (Summers’ former deputy at the Clinton Treasury, who has also worked for Kissinger and Associates and as head of the NY Fed decided to bailout Bear Stearns and AIG and let Lehman Bros go bankrupt); Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has proven his loyalty to ranchers and the coal industry; Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack is a lobbyist for genetically engineered biocrops (“Monsanto pinup boy,” according to Cockburn, who “comes factory guaranteed as a will-do guy for the agro-chemical complex.”)

And perhaps most disappointingly for “progressive” (whatever that means) educators, Obama’s man at the Education Department is the former “CEO” of Chicago Public Schools (and one of Obama’s Hyde Park basketball buddies), Arne Duncan.

Duncan is an “education reformer”, which is today’s media nomenclature means he aims to reshape schools to better serve the interests of capital through privatization and militarization of public schools and the commodification of childhood. See for example Chicago’s Renaissance 2010 project.

I actually harbored some of that Obama hopefulness when Linda Darling-Hammond was advising O’s campaign on education issues and headed the his transition team on education. Darling-Hammond is a Stanford education professor, who is no political radical, but is certainly one of the most highly respected scholars in the world on issues of teacher education; school redesign; educational equity; instruction of diverse learners; and education policy.

Instead of a thoughtful, educational researcher in the ED—who understands much about what’s wrong with No Child Left Behind and has ideas about how to right federal education policy so that works in the interests of student learning—we have a tool of the Business Roundtable who offers no hope for change from Bush’s Education Secretaries Margaret Spellings and Rod Paige (who famously called the National Education Association a “terrorist organization” because it criticized NCLB.)

Over at the huffingtonpost.com, Jerry Bracey describes the “hatchet job” on Darling-Hammond that paved the way for Duncan to be appointed to the ED slot.

If you want to read about the trail of dead that Duncan leaves behind in the public schools of Chicago, check out Substance News, edited by long-time Chicago teacher and journalist George Schmidt. You can start your reading with this article:

“Duncan leaves to continue attacks on public education from Obama cabinet post as U.S. Secretary of Education”