Understanding Neoliberal Rule In K 12 Schools

The word fundamentalism usually conjures up images of religions and their most zealous followers. Much less often the word appears in connection with political economy. The phrase “free market” gives the connotation that capitalism is freedom. Neoliberalism is the rise of global free-market fundamentalism. It reaches into nearly every aspect of our daily lives as it seeks to dominate and eliminate the last vestiges of public domains through wanton privatization and deregulation. It degrades all that is public. The good news is that a global community of resistance continues to struggle against neoliberal oppression. Formal and informal education entities contribute to these struggles, offering visions and strategies for creating a better future. The purpose of this volume is twofold. Several contributors will highlight how the neoliberal agenda is impacting educational policy formation, teaching and learning, and relationships between K-12 schools and communities. Other contributors will highlight how the global community has gradually become conscious of the ideological doctrine and how it is responsible for human suffering and misery. The volume is needed because the growing body of educational research linked to exploring the impact of neoliberalism on schools and society fails to provide conceptual or historical understanding of this ideology. It is also an important scholarly intervention because it provides insights as to why educators, scholars, and other global citizens have challenged the intrusion of market forces over life inside K-12 schools. Teacher educators, schoolteachers, and anyone who yearns to understand what is behind the debilitating trend of commercial forces subverting humanizing educational projects would benefit from this volume. Activists, educators, youth, and scholars who seek strategies and visions for building democratic schools and a society would consider this volume essential reading.

The word fundamentalism usually conjures up images of religions and their most zealous followers. Much less often the word appears in connection with political economy. The phrase “free market” gives the connotation that capitalism is freedom. Neoliberalism is the rise of global free-market fundamentalism. It reaches into nearly every aspect of our daily lives as it seeks to dominate and eliminate the last vestiges of public domains through wanton privatization and deregulation. It degrades all that is public. The good news is that a global community of resistance continues to struggle against neoliberal oppression. Formal and informal education entities contribute to these struggles, offering visions and strategies for creating a better future. The purpose of this volume is twofold. Several contributors will highlight how the neoliberal agenda is impacting educational policy formation, teaching and learning, and relationships between institutions of higher education and communities. Other contributors will highlight how the global community has gradually become conscious of the ideological doctrine and how it is responsible for human suffering and misery. The volume is needed because the growing body of educational research linked to exploring the impact of neoliberalism on education and society fails to provide conceptual or historical understanding of this ideology. It is also an important scholarly intervention because it provides insights as to why educators, scholars, and other global citizens have challenged the intrusion of market forces over life inside universities and colleges. Teaching faculty, research faculty, and anyone who yearns to understand what is behind the debilitating trend of commercial forces subverting humanizing educational projects would benefit from this volume. Activists, educators, youth, and scholars who seek strategies and visions for building democratic higher education and a more democratic society would consider this volume essential reading.

`Education policy is now a global matter and all the more complex for that. Mark Olssen, John Codd and Ann-Marie O'Neill do us an invaluable service in producing a carefully theorised guide to current issues and key concerns - this is an important, erudite and very practical book' - Stephen J Ball, Education Policy Research Unit, University of London `Given the global reach of neoliberal policies, we need cogent books that enable us to better understand the major effects such tendencies have. Education Policy is such a book. It is insightful and well written--and should be read by all of us who care deeply about what is happening in education in international contexts' - Michael W Apple, Author of 'Educating the "Right" Way and John Bascom Professor of Education University of Wisconsin, Madison `I really am taken with the book, the range and depth of analysis are truly impressive. This book is a magnum opus and everyone in the area should read it'- Hugh Lauder, University of Bath `In their insightful and comprehensive book on education policy Mark Olssen, John Codd and Anne-Marie O'Neill wrestle with the big questions of citizenship and democracy in an age of globalization. They argue that ducation policy in the 21st century is the key to security, sustainability and survival. The book, anchored in the poststructuralist perspective of Michel Foucault, traverses the whole territory of education policy not only methods and approaches of policy analysis and the dominant political perspectives that influence policy-classical liberalism, social democracy and neo-liberalism--but also those policy areas that require the closest scrutiny: markets, trust, professionalism, choice, diversity, and finally, community, citizenship and democracy. This is the new policy bible for educationalists - it is at once systematic, provocative and instructive' - Michael A Peters, Research Professor, University of Glasgow 'It is rare indeed for books with such ambitious scope as this one to appear within educational scholarship... This is an important book for any graduate student who is undertaking work on any aspect of education policy' - Education Review This book provides an international perspective on education policy, and of the role and function of education in the global economy. The authors present a Foucauldian perspective on the politics of liberal education, within a theoretical framework necessary for the critical analysis of education policy. The authors set out the analyses necessary for understanding the restructuring in education and social policy that has occurred in many countries affected by the resurgence of neo-liberal political theory. They examine education policy in relation to globalization, citizenship and democracy. The authors argue that globalization is an extension of neoliberalism and is destructive of the nation state, community and democracy. They show the importance of education in building strong democratic nation states and global communities based on cultural identity and inter-cultural awareness. This book is essential reading for students of education policy studies and social policy analysis.

This edited volume contributes to a burgeoning field of critical scholarship on the news media and education. This scholarship is based on an understanding that the news media has increasingly applied a neoliberal template that mediates knowledge and action about education. This book calls into question what the public knows about education, how the public is informed, and whose interests are represented and ultimately served through the production and distribution of information by the news media about education. The chapters comprising this volume serve to enlighten and call to action parents, students, educators, academics and scholars, activists, and policymakers for social, political, and economic transformation. Moreover, as the neoliberal agenda in North America intensifies, the chapters in this book help to deepen our understanding of the logics and processes of the neoliberal privatization of education and the accompanying social discourses that facilitate the reduction of social relations to a transaction in the marketplace. The chapters examine the news media and the reproduction of neoliberal educational reforms (A Nation at Risk, Teach For America, charter schools, think tanks, and PISA) and resistance to neoliberal educational reforms (online activism and radical Black press) while also broadening our conceptual understanding of the marketization and mediatization of educational discourses. Overall, the book provides an in-depth understanding of the neoliberal privatization of education by extending critical examinations to this underrepresented field of cultural production: the news media coverage of education. The contribution of this edited volume, therefore, helps to build an understanding of the contemporary dynamics of capital accumulation to inform public resistance for social transformation.

This book provides a critical analysis of the neoliberal reform agenda of the economic governance of schools. Focusing on the role of the United States in this process, it explores the transformation of schools in this agenda from educational establishments to enterprises in a competitive education market. The study uses Bourdieu to apply a field-theoretical framework to a detailed empirical analysis of the current changes of school government. Chapters explore education bureaucracy, reform and the effect of outside organizations on pedagogy and testing. The book reveals how far the promises of corporate education reform are from reality and concludes with a plea for a realistic view of school’s capabilities. It goes beyond the state of the art with its focus on how the governance of education, school and instruction is changing with the replacement of educracy by an education-industrial complex. The book will be of great interest for academics, postgraduate students, administrators and politicians in the field of education policy, the governance of school systems and schools. The book also has an international appeal as it studies a global transformation of the field of education.

What is a charter school? Where do they come from? Who promotes them, and why? What are they supposed to do? Are they the silver bullet to the ills plaguing the American public education system? This book provides a comprehensive and accessible overview and analysis of charter schools and their many dimensions. It shows that charter schools as a whole lower the quality of education through the privatization and marketization of education. The final chapter provides readers with a way toward rethinking and remaking education in a way that is consistent with modern requirements. Society and its members need a fully funded high quality public education system open to all and controlled by a public authority.

No book has ever presented a selection of writings of anarchists from the Portuguese?speaking world to an English?speaking audience. In The Luso?Anarchist Reader, writings by feminist radicals such as Maria Lacerda de Moura and anarchist communists such as Neno Vasco are made available in English for the first time. Researchers and activists interested in achieving a more comprehensive understanding of people's movements could certainly stand to benefit from exposure to these texts. Groups such as the Anarchist Federation of Rio de Janeiro are organizing in both urban and rural Brazil, sometimes working as part of a larger umbrella organization known as Brazilian Anarchist Coordination or CAB coordinating the efforts of various anarchist associations. Anarchists participated in the massive 2013 protests in Brazil, protests that brought together millions of people to speak out against corruption and for a variety of social causes. Anarchists are active in anti?austerity protests in Portugal against the European troika. Given the visibility of anarchism in the Portuguese?speaking world, Brazil in particular, the need to understand the roots of this anarchist tradition is especially salient. Anarchism in the Portuguese?speaking world during the early twentieth century brought together immigrants, people of African and indigenous descent, and feminists to forge a solidarity?based alliance for change. The young anarchist activists questioning the status quo today stand on ground seeded by the hard work of their predecessors.

Education Policy, Neoliberalism, and Leadership Practice is a foundational book describing all aspects of neoliberalism and its broad scale impact in education. Drawing on research and canvassing policy developments across a range of contexts, this book critically analyzes neoliberal education policies, the practices and outcomes they spawn, and the purposes they serve. It interrogates how education leaders perceive and interpret neoliberal influences and the dilemmas and opportunities they create, while unpacking questions of why neoliberalism is the basis for educational policy, how neoliberalism impacts on education, and what this means for the future.