Education Reform

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Against School: How public education cripples our kids, and why
Gatto, John Taylor
Article
2003
An essay by a retired teacher on the infantilization of children by the public school system. This intellectual history of US public school curiculum reveals that it was conceived as a democratic mea...
Assaulting Public Education in Canada: Privatization Plague Spreads: Against The Current vol. 82
Plawiuk, Eugene
Article
1999
For the past six years right-wing provincial governments across Canada have embraced the neoliberal agenda of “educational reform.” Four provinces in particular, Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New ...
Badass Teachers Unite! Reflections on Education, History, and Youth Activism
Naison, Mark
Book
2014
Collection of essays on education and youth activism draws from Naison's research on Bronx History and his experiences defending teachers and students from school reform policies which undermine their...
Class Dismissed: Why We Cannot Teach or Learn Our Way Out of Inequality
Marsh, John
Book
2011
John Marsh debunks a myth cherished by journalists, politicians, and economists: that growing poverty and inequality in the United States can be solved through education. Marsh shows that education ha...
Class Warfare: The Assault on Canada's School
Barlow, Maude; Robertson, Heather-Jane
Book
1994
The authors show that the attack on schools has been mounted by representatives of big business who stand to make a fortune by privatizing education, aided by the religious right, who want to control ...
Corporations Meet Resistance Inside Boston's Schools
Spritzler, John
Article
1998
The corporate elite are a small minority and their values are the opposite of most peoples' values. Things that most people consider immoral, like deliberately increasing the number of students who fa...
A crisis manufactured by the Harris government
Diemer, Ulli
Article
2002
Moving at breakneck speed to ram through ill-conceived ideologically driven schemes with mindless arrogance.
Democracy and Education
Dewey, John
Book
1916
John Dewey's classic work on the nature of education, and the ideal ways in which children should be educated.
Dewey, John: Connexipedia Article
Article
American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. (1859-1952).
Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
Gatto, John Taylor
Book
1991
After over 100 years of mandatory schooling in the U.S., literacy rates have dropped, families are fragmented, learning "disabilities" are skyrocketing, and children and youth are increasingly disaffe...
Educating Kids for Jobs for the 21st Century
Ohanian, Susan
Article
We distribute jobs by social class. If we 'qualify' all students with a college degree, then 100% of students will be competing for the 22% of jobs requiring college degrees. The answer here is not to...
The Education Deform Fraud: Book Review
Pope, Debby
Article
2014
Book Review of "Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools" By Diane Ravitch.
Education for Change: Henry Giroux and Transformative Critical Pedagogy: Against The Current vol. 83
Hudson, Mark
Article
1999
These are difficult times for teachers in U.S. public schools. The increasing size of schools, chronic underfunding of schools serving working-class students (especially students of color), work overl...
High Stakes Testing: Why Are They Doing This To Our Kids?
Stratman, Dave
Article
2000
The tests are very destructive educationally. They test students on such a broad range of materials that teachers have to rush through the curriculum; they cannot allow real discussion or in-depth stu...
How Ultraleftism Divided UNAM Strike: Against The Current vol. 88
Hearse, Phil
Article
2000
MEXICO CITY -- Commandeered buses flying red and black flags and Che Guevara portraits sped through the city on October 2, ferrying students to a demonstration commemorating the 1968 student massacre ...
John Holt: Homeschooling Pioneer and Visionary Progressive
Nall, Jeffrey
Article
2014
The stereotype of homeschooling as the haven for conservative, religious ideologues overshadows the movement's radically progressive roots. One of the movement's foremost pioneers, John Holt, was an e...
Living and Learning: The Report of the Provincial Committee on Aims and Objectives of Education in the Schools of Ontario
Hall, E.M.; Dennis, L.A.
Article
1968
The "Hall-Dennis" Report, proposing new objectives and direction in education in Ontario.
MCAS: Why Is This Being Done to Our Kids?
Article
High stakes tests are meant to legitimize the growing inequality of society. They are designed to drive millions of students out of school so that, if they end up with a low-paying job or no job at al...
A Nation of Little Lebowski Urban Achievers
Erickson, Megan
Article
2012
The religion of self-improvement is a way of redirecting criticisms or outrage from socio-economic structures back to the individual, imprisoning any reformist or revolutionary impulse within our own ...
Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - September 10, 2016: Back to School
Diemer, Ulli (ed.)
Article
2016
Education - about the world, and about social change in particular - is a key element in the work that Connexions does. In this issue of Other Voices, we explore a few aspects of the ways in which edu...
Our Generation: Volume 9 Number 3
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1973
Paul Goodman: Writing on the Web
Website
Writings of the social critic Paul Goodman.
Race and Class: Brown v. Board of Education 50 Years Later: Against The Current vol. 111
Miah, Malik
Article
2004
I found the headline of the May 17 Business Week article on the 50th anniversary of the famous Brown v. Board of Education landmark Supreme Court ruling, that "separate but equal" schools were unconst...
The Realities of Chicago School Reform: Against The Current vol. 82
Organizer, Edith
Article
1999
In Chicago, the current round of school reform efforts began in the late 1980s. They were ostensibly sparked by the November 1987 public pronouncement of William Bennett, then-Secretary of Education ...
Rethinking Educational Failure and Reimagining an Educational Future
Garvey, John
Article
2011
If we start not from the goal of acculturating most children to the demands of an economy which promises only to make things worse, but from the goal of preparing all children to live in a world worth...
School Reform and the Attack on Public Education
Stratman, Dave
Article
1997
The education reform movement is part of a wider corporate and government plan to undermine democracy and strengthen corporate domination of our society.
School Vouchers Scam Goes Down: Against The Current vol. 90
Cooper, Loiuse
Article
2001
A key achievement in the November elections was the defeat of school voucher schemes in California and Michigan. California's Proposition 38 would have offered every child in California a $4,000 vouch...
Skills Mania: Snake Oil in Our Schools?
Davis, Bob
Book
2000
Davis argues that the purpose of education should not be primarily that of teaching skills useful in the job market.
The Survival of Education: Against The Current vol. 134
Olson, Peter
Article
2008
I remember reading Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities as a student activist, when becoming a teacher was an abstract and somewhat romanticized idea floating around my head. I was moved by the politi...
Teach for America: The Hidden Curriculum of Liberal Do-Gooders
Hartman, Andrew
Article
2012
Teach for America, suitably representative of the liberal education reform more generally, underwrites, intentionally or not, the conservative assumptions of the education reform movement: that teache...
Universal Cure
Monbiot, George
Article
2010
Here's a simple means of transforming the UK's universities, schools and society.
What is education for?
Malik, Kenan
Article
2010
There is a fundamental difference between being a student and being a consumer. Education is not a product but a relationship and a process, a relationship between student and lecturer, and process by...
A Witness to Destroying Schools: Book Review
Jordan, Joel
Article
2014
Book Review of "Schoolhouse Shams: Myths and Misinformation in School Reform" by Peter Downs.
You'll Never Be Good Enough: Schooling and Social Control
Stratman, Dave
Article
1998
The remarkable thing about the public schools isn't that some teachers become demoralized and "burned out," or that some students drop out or do poorly, but that so many teachers and students achieve ...

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From the Connexions Archives

New Democracy Internet site
Website
Supports a democratic revolution to overthrow corporate capitalism, but opposes socialism. Features short articles on labour issues, the deficit, education.
Social Science and The Ideology of the Status Quo
Thompson, R.; Brown, H.R.
Article
This essay is a critique of the institution of social sciences. The authors argue that status quo social sciences are reflective of monopoly capitalism and mass industrialized society.
Tragedy, Absurdity and Joy in the Classroom
Harding, James
Article
1968
James Harding's critique of institutionalized eduction and its effects on the quality of human knowledge.