The Politics Of Education Policy In An Era Of Inequality

In a context of increased politicization led by state and federal policymakers, corporate reformers, and for-profit educational organizations, The Politics of Education Policy in an Era of Inequality explores a new vision for leading schools grounded in culturally relevant advocacy and social justice theories. This timely volume tackles the origins and implications of growing accountability for educational leaders and reconsiders the role that educational leaders should and can play in education policy and political processes. This book provides a critical perspective and analysis of today’s education policy landscape and leadership practice; explores the challenges and opportunities associated with teaching in and leading schools; and examines the structural, political, and cultural interactions among school principals, district leaders, and state and federal policy actors. An important resource for practicing and aspiring leaders, The Politics of Education Policy in an Era of Inequality shares a theoretical framework and strategies for building bridges between education researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.

Winner, 2016 Best Authored Book presented by the Society for Research on Adolescence Diverse case studies on how youth build political power during an era of racial and educational inequality in America This is what democracy looks like: Youth organizers in Colorado negotiate new school discipline policies to end the school to jail track. Latino and African American students march to district headquarters to protest high school closure. Young immigration rights activists persuade state legislators to pass a bill to make in-state tuition available to undocumented state residents. Students in an ESL class collect survey data revealing the prevalence of racism and xenophobia. These examples, based on ten years of research by youth development scholar Ben Kirshner, show young people building political power during an era of racial inequality, diminished educational opportunity, and an atrophied public square. The book’s case studies analyze what these experiences mean for young people and why they are good for democracy. What is youth activism and how does it contribute to youth development? How might collective movements of young people expand educational opportunity and participatory democracy? The interdependent relationship between youths’ political engagement, their personal development, and democratic renewal is the central focus of this book. Kirshner argues that youth and societal institutions are strengthened when young people, particularly those most disadvantaged by educational inequity, turn their critical gaze to education systems and participate in efforts to improve them.

This book is an edited collection introducing the Education Policy and Social Inequality series, and presents chapters from authors on the editorial board. It investigates relations between educational policy and social inequality, not simply in terms of policy solutions for inequalities but also how education policy frames, creates and at times exacerbates social inequalities. It adopts a critical stance, encompassing innovative and interdisciplinary theoretical and conceptual studies – drawing on e.g. sociology, cultural studies, social and cultural geography, and history – as well as original empirical work that examines a range of educational contexts, including early years education, vocational and further education, informal education, K-12 schooling and higher education. The book argues that critique and policy studies can have a transformative function, positing new dimensions for understanding the role of education policy in connection with recurrent social problems and seeking the amelioration of social inequality in ways that challenge the possibility of equity in the liberal democratic state, as well as in other forms of governance and government.

In an era defined by political polarization, both major U.S. parties have come to share a remarkably similar understanding of the education system as well as a set of punitive strategies for fixing it. Combining an intellectual history of social policy with a sweeping history of the educational system, Daniel S. Moak looks beyond the rise of neoliberalism to find the origin of today's education woes in Great Society reforms. In the wake of World War II, a coalition of thinkers gained dominance in U.S. policymaking. They identified educational opportunity as the ideal means of addressing racial and economic inequality by incorporating individuals into a free market economy. The passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1965 secured an expansive federal commitment to this goal. However, when social problems failed to improve, the underlying logic led policymakers to hold schools responsible. Moak documents how a vision of education as a panacea for society's flaws led us to turn away from redistributive economic policies and down the path to market-based reforms, No Child Left Behind, mass school closures, teacher layoffs, and other policies that plague the public education system to this day.

Educational Change and the Political Process brings together key ideas on both the system of educational policy and the policy process in the United States. It provides students with a broad, methodical understanding of educational policy. No other textbook offers as comprehensive a view of the US educational policy procedure and political systems. Section I discusses the actors and systems that create and implement policy on both the federal and the local level; Section II walks students through the policy process from idea to implementation to evaluation; and Section III delves into three major forces driving the creation of educational policies in the current era—accountability, equity, and market-driven reforms. Each chapter provides case studies, discussion questions, and classroom activities to scaffold learning, as well as a bibliography for further reading to deepen exploration of these topics. This new edition will explore recent Trump-era and post-Trump era US politics and policy changes as well as the politics of race.

This book offers in-depth analyses of how education interacts with social inequality in Southern contexts. Drawing on a range of disciplinary frameworks, it presents new analyses of existing knowledge and new empirical data which define the challenges and possibilities of successful educational reform. It is a tribute to the work of the late Christopher Colclough, who, as a leading figure in education and international development, played a key role in the global fight for education for all children. The book critically engages with international evidence of educational access, retention and outcomes, offering new understandings of how social inequalities currently facilitate, mediate or restrict educational opportunities. It exposes the continuing influence of wealth and regional inequalities and caste and gendered social structures. Researchers in Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Pakistan and Uganda highlight how the aspirations of families living in poverty remain unfilled by poor-quality education and low economic opportunities and how schools and teachers currently address issues of gender, disability and diversity. The book highlights a range of new priorities for research and identifies some necessary strategies for education reform, policy approaches and school practice, if educational equality for all children is to be achieved. The book will be of great interest to researchers, scholars, educational practitioners and policy-makers in the fields of economics, politics and sociology of education, international education, poverty research and international development. The Foreword, Chapters 1, 6, 7, and 12 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429293467 under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license (Foreword, Chapters 1, 6, and 12) and a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (Chapter 7).

Understanding Educational Leadership guides you through critical perspectives and approaches across the world, taking in the global north and south, and explores the ways in which educational leadership is currently understood, theorised, researched, modelled and practised. The book also covers contemporary issues including gender, sexual identity and race, as well as topics such as governance, performativity and corporatisation. It brings together evidence and ideas that illuminate the power structures and relations in educational leaders, leading and leadership and helps you to consider the impact on policy and practice, and to think about changes needed to mitigate the issues identified. The book showcases a wide range of theorists, including Bourdieu, Foucault and Fraser. Its impressive scope includes analyses of collectivist, neoliberal and historical influences on educational leadership. It explores forensically leadership styles, with an explicit focus on distributed, instructional, democratic, autocratic, laissez-faire and organisational forms. Carefully curated by the editors, the world-leading contributors draw on their wealth of knowledge about research and practice to provide you with an overview of educational leadership today, looking at global research, evidence, arguments and conceptualisations. Each chapter is written in an engaging and inspiring way, following a consistent approach to help you to develop your understanding in each of the areas covered. Full pedagogical features throughout include chapter summaries, key questions, case studies, questions for readers and further reading suggestions with questions on key texts. A companion website provides links to open-access outputs, research-project outcomes, and networking seminars, conferences with links to local, national and global events and connections.

Turning his distinctive analytical lens to the politics of American education, Joel Spring looks at contemporary educational policy issues from theoretical, practical, and historical perspectives. This comprehensive overview documents and explains who influences educational policy and how, bringing to life the realities of schooling in the 21st century and revealing the ongoing ideological struggles at play. Coverage includes the influence of global organizations on American school policies and the impact of emerging open source and other forms of electronic textbooks. Thought-provoking, lucid, original in its conceptual framework and rich with engaging examples from the real world, this text is timely and useful for understanding the big picture and the micro-level intricacies of the multiple forces at work in controlling U.S. public schools . It is the text of choice for any course that covers or addresses the politics of American education. Companion Website: The interactive Companion Website accompanying this text includes relevant data, public domain documents, YouTube links, and links to websites representing political organizations and interest groups involved in education.