The History, Logic, and Push for Standardized Testing

Kempf, Arlo

doi:10.1057/9781137486653_3

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…On the one hand, charter reformers had been humiliated. Their main spokesperson, Chris Cerf, declared: “The arc of the school-reform pendulum [has] retreated” (Cerf, 2020: para 23). The political moment called for strategizing so that it could “swing back, albeit with important refinements borne of the lessons learned” (Cerf, 2020: para 23).…”

Section: Case and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Their main spokesperson, Chris Cerf, declared: “The arc of the school-reform pendulum [has] retreated” (Cerf, 2020: para 23). The political moment called for strategizing so that it could “swing back, albeit with important refinements borne of the lessons learned” (Cerf, 2020: para 23). On the other, advocates who organized to defend public education also saw themselves as having cut their losses.…”

Section: Case and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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After zombies: Notes on labor union and municipal renewal

Cahen

2023

Environ Plan D

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If the new neoliberalism leans ever more into failure and ‘dead’ economic ideas, it also relies on the estrangement and exhaustion of its subjects, who have been depleted in the wreckage of protracted austerity; crisis as stasis. Yet, even as ‘zombie neoliberalism’ threatens to make zombies of us, teacher unionists across the U.S. organize for a more vibrant future. Turning to the case of Newark, NJ, this article shows how teachers have embraced a strategy not of bypassing or abolishing the institutions most hollowed out by neoliberal market rule but of taking these institutions over and imagining them anew. To illustrate, I show how teachers scale up campaigns from the teachers’ union to the classroom to the city, insisting each time that renewal and reckoning can transform these spaces into something more liberatory. Yet, teachers also encounter a depth of institutional inertia, detachment, and repression for which they are unprepared. The article argues that the zombie conjuncture requires an oppositional strategy of its own, one attuned to the numbing effects of crisis and the difficulties of working with the tools at hand, which have been thoroughly dulled.

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Section: Case and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Case and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

After zombies: Notes on labor union and municipal renewal

Cahen

2023

Environ Plan D

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“…Yet, over the last two decades, the goals of K–12 education have shifted steadily away from preparing active and engaged public citizens and toward more narrow goals of career preparation and individual economic gain (Giroux, 2017; Hursh, 2007, 2016; Westheimer, 2015). Pressures from policymakers, business groups, philanthropic foundations, and parents, and a broad cultural shift in educational priorities have resulted in U.S. public schools being seen primarily as conduits for individual success; increasingly, lessons aimed at exploring democratic responsibilities have been crowded out (Kempf, 2016; Rogers et al, 2020; Stitzlein, 2017). Much of current education reform limits the kinds of teaching and learning that can develop the attitudes, skills, knowledge, and habits necessary for a democratic society to flourish (Berliner, 2011; Kohn, 2004).…”

Section: Schooling In the Age Of Standards And Accountabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Teacher Education Save Democracy?

Westheimer

2022

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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Background/Context: Social scientists, policymakers, and commentators have long assumed that Western democracies enjoy relative stability because of deep commitments to a culture of democratic governance. But those commitments are quickly fading in almost every developed and developing democracy around the globe. In the same period in which support for democracy has declined, schools and teacher education programs have been pressured by “accountability” measures and economic austerity to focus on math and literacy achievement to the exclusion of nearly every other educational goal. These challenges to social cohesion and democratic governance highlight the need for young people to be exposed early on and throughout their educational pathways to the knowledge, skills, and dispositions consistent with democratic life. The narrowing of curricular goals, therefore, is a threat to the stability of democratic institutions. Purpose: This essay examines the potential of teacher education as a lever for change. How might teacher educators ensure that teachers are prepared to foster education that will sustain and strengthen democratic norms? If schools have an essential role to play in preparing students for informed engagement in civic and political life, how can we best prepare teachers to advance those goals? Research Design: This is an analytical essay drawing on recent empirical research on declining support for democratic values and on teachers’ civic engagement as well as conceptual work on democratic education goals. To illustrate the potential for teacher education to prepare teachers to engage students in political issues discussions, I draw on data from the first large-scale empirical study of what U.S. high school teachers currently do to prepare youth to understand economic inequality and its causes, effects, and possible remedies. The study included a teacher survey and follow-up interviews concerning teachers’ political ideology and civic and political engagement as well as classroom practice. The 2,750 teachers who participated in the survey are representative of U.S. public schools (and an additional segment of U.S. elite independent schools) in terms of student demographics and geographic location. We also conducted 150 follow-up interviews. Conclusions/Recommendations: I suggest that teacher education must move from reactive technocratic concerns for accountability and standardization to broader civic and civil commitments to the foundations of democratic community, pluralism, and relationship. Teacher education programs should consider ways to encourage new and experienced teachers to follow the news, engage in civil discourse with one another about topics of public concern, and participate in civic and political life. Moreover, teacher educators could work toward teaching the knowledge, skills, and dispositions associated with political and civic engagement.

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The History, Logic, and Push for Standardized Testing

Cited by 2 publications

References 2 publications

After zombies: Notes on labor union and municipal renewal

After zombies: Notes on labor union and municipal renewal

Can Teacher Education Save Democracy?

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