Transformative Researchers and Educators for Democracy

Transformative Researchers and Educators for Democracy

Dartmouth Dialogues

Edited by
Joo M. Paraskeva and Thad LaVallee
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Joo M. Paraskeva

vii

Personal Note
Thad LaVallee

xxxi

Acknowledgements

xxxvii

1.

Whats a Fact? And Who Can We / Should We Trust?

Deborah Meier

2.

Democratic Education Against Corporate School Reform:

The New Market Bureaucracy in U.S. Public Schooling
Kenneth J. Saltman

3.

Guiding Emergence: Understanding Cultural Change in an Urban

Catholic School
Brad Kershner

4.

The Entrepreneurial University: Where It All Went Wrong

Clyde Barrow

5.

Higher-Order Critical Thinking in Teacher Preparation:

Putting 21st Century Skills Into Action
Mary M. Taft

57

6.

Transformative Leadership: Positivity and Power in a Cohort

Model Doctoral Program
Jeffry W. Beard & Kathy DesRoaches

75

7.

How Can the Processes of Organizational Change Promote

a Culture That Focuses on Improved Student Learning?
Dawn E. Bryden

83

8.

Unaccomplished Utopia: Neoliberal Asphyxiating on Higher

Education in Europe
Joo M. Paraskeva

97

9.

Globalization: The Loadstone Rock to Education

Elizabeth Janson

23
47

129

TABLE OF CONTENTS

10. Common Core and PARCC: The Story Behind Americas Standardized
Assessment Movement
Halley Zanconato
11. Interdisciplinary and Integrative Education in 21st Century America
Katie A. Warren
12. Case Study in Transforming Lives, Changing Communities:
From Philadelphia Mural Arts Programs Community-Based
Art Education and Social Function to Community Action
Kuo-Pin Lin

145
159

179

13. School as a Tool: Can Sustainable Healthy Schools and

Environmental Literacy Be Achieved Through the
Pedagogy of Context in Public K-12 Education?
Manuel Cordero Alvarado, Elizabeth Bux, Mario Carreno,
Joseph da Silva, Adrienne Gagnon, & Michael Obel-Omia

197

Author Biographies

229

vi

JOO M. PARASKEVA

INTRODUCTION
Lets Begin from the Beginning

Like any other book, this one has a history. This edited volume is the result of a
conference organized by the doctoral students of the Educational Leadership and
Policy Studies program at UMass Dartmouth. It is also the result of the hard work
done by students, faculty, and the community of a small program in a small public
university in Massachusetts struggling, like so many others, with a million dollar
deficit rationale that took advantage of a very small space to promote a critical
transformative leadership, community-academic terrain that prepares leaders not
managers to better address the local sagas faced by the localized rest (Bauman,
1998) in cities, such as New Bedford, Fall River, Taunton, Brockton, that are fuelled
by neoliberal policies. Despite all the odds, this program, the students, faculty and
the community, are a crystal example about the hope and possibility (Giroux, 2000)
to develop critical spaces and work despite and within the mantra of the crisis that
smashes public institutions. De Certeau (1995) was not wrong, when he claimed
that the system is not perfect, that the system has cracks, and that one promotes
change by working in the cracks of the system. So far, we have been able to prove
that. We cannot afford to give up on the potential power of public higher education.
Throughout history, so many people, communities, and organizations put their own
lives in the line for the common good for us just to give up. Public education is an
inalienable peoples right, not a privilege.
Needless to say that to understand the cracks (DeCerteau, 1995) (i.e. the space)
is not enough to advance an alternative avenue sensible to the community needs.
None of the gains would be possible if we (students, faculty, community, and local
legislators) did not work collectively, in many spaces, and if the students would not
have been exposed to the work of (and in many cases interactions with) intellectuals,
such as Noam Chomsky, Slavoj iek, David Harvey, Antony Giddens, Zygmunt
Bauman, Nancy Fraser, Judith Butler, Cornell West, Paulo Freire, Stanley Aronowitz,
Ulrich Beck, Henry Giroux, Antonia Darder, Michael Apple, Peter Mclaren, Angela
Valenzuela, Angela Davies, Donaldo Macedo, John Dewey, Amartya Sen, Edward
Said, Chantal Mouffe, Ernesto Laclau, Peter Sloterdjik, Martin Bernal, Jack Goody,
Andre Frank, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Giovanni Arrighi, Giorgio Agamben,
Michel Foucault, Gilles DeLeuze, Pierre Bourdieu, Antonio Gramsci, Lois Wacquant,
Erik Wright, Walter Mignolo, Eduardo Galeano, Paget Henry, Amilcar Cabral, Gayatri

vii

J. M. Paraskeva

Spivak, Frantz Fanon, Martha Nussbaum, Steve Biko, Thomas Sankhara, Kwame
Nkrumah, Samir Kassir, Tarik Ali, Bell Hooks, and many others. Such critical
transformative intellectual mtier allowed the students to understand how another
knowledge and another world is really possible (Sousa Santos, 2005; 2007) and that
this implies concomitantly to challenge the Western hegemonic epistemological
platform that produces all other epistemological perspectives as nonexistent (Sousa
Santos, 2014). To be a critical transformative educational leader, to rely on Sousa
Santos (1999) argument, is to be fully cognizant of the very challenges of building a
just critical platform in a world in which one has so much to criticize.
What the readers have in their hands reflects the huge amount of work done by a
collective that, despite all the odds so common in too many places always show
the political clarity to understand the importance of public education and of a public
university, which is the only one in the South Coast of Massachusetts. Programs like
this overtly manifest that the crisis so much fabricated not only is quite insufficient
to block an alternative approach in our public institutions, not only power blocs are
not absolute and unconditional but they are also dynamic and dispositional but also
the solution to address such fabricated crisis does not rest in the dangerous veins of
venture capitalism and the fallacy of philanthropism so well examined in the most
recent works of Giroux (2011) Ball (2012) and Saltman (2010).
Despite the fiscal crisis and the constant pressure to address it by shrinking the role
of a public institution, collectively we understood that the best way to challenge the
crisis is actually to not compromise the vision and mission of public institutions just
with the dictatorship of the numbers, especially when such institutions are situated
within social complex realities, such as the ones we have in New Bedford and Fall
River, communities that rightly look at UMass Dartmouth as their university, an
university with an answer. In communities as such, numbers have real faces of pain
and oppression and are smashed by a different dictatorship: poverty, inequality, teen
pregnancy, crime, drugs, a lost generation. Our program is perfectly tuned with the
community needs; it is a community program occupied by the community. As our
proposal clearly states, the proposed doctoral program in Educational Leadership
and Policy Studies
has been designed to prepare future practitioners and scholars who will work
as professors, researchers, administrators, or executives in leadership roles
in a variety of institutional settings. These may include schools, universities,
federal and state departments of education, national and state professional
organizations, and non-governmental agencies. Graduates of this program will
be committed to transforming students and institutions alike in pursuit of a
more ethical, just and fair society and to improving educational achievement in
environments that are dynamic, interactive, culturally diverse, and democratic.
In so doing, they will become stewards of the discipline, develop a deep respect
for the public trust and support an attitude of caring for all people, especially
for students at every level and from various walks of life. Consistent with our
viii

Introduction

mission as a regional research university, the doctoral program aims to prepare

individuals capable of leading systemic transformations that promote learning
and improve educational attainment in schools. To accomplish the above the
proposed program is driven by a set of beliefs, namely that human growth
and development are transformative lifelong pursuits; that schools are political
and cultural artifacts of local and global contexts; that diversity strengthens
organizations; that while transformative leadership implies individual and
team work that stimulates differences, it is also driven by moral and ethical
imperatives; and that one can only have an impact globally if one is capable of
making a difference locally.
This history needs to be told, especially in a moment where public institutions, such
as schools, are under a massive attack, not only to promote draconian cuts to reduce
the debt but also to collectively engage in a journey to address the new market needs.
More to the point public schools have been called to lead the new financialization
of neoliberal capital[ism] (Aronowitz, 2013; Bellamy Foster, 2008). The faces and
impact of such policies, as Ball (2012), Robertson & Keeling (2009), and others
documented, is quite dispositional, yet lethal. In some places, this malaise assumed
a kind of tea party flavor fictitious rationality crises (see Barrow, 2010, p. 320),
an ideological hysteria in such a way that the so-called overbearing cuts stroke any
hypothesis to really engage in building capacity to address the new market flavors.
One cannot understand the current revolution in public schools and the
consequent destruction of its public mission without a clear perception of the
current neoliberal global crises and concomitant policies to address such crises;
a global minotaur (Varoufakis, 2011) that have driven public schools to a quasimoribund state (Paraskeva, 2009) despite the fact that the empirical evidence
shows no connection between education and the last great recession (Giroux, 2011).
The neoliberal answers to the current fabricated global crisis what I have been
calling neoradical centrist challenges (Paraskeva, 2007, 2011) put even Lenins
post 1927 exploits to shame (Varoufakis, 2011, p. 2).
NEOLIBERAL GLOBALISMS

Neoliberalism is the official landscape of the new Education PLC (see Ball, 2007), or
to be more precise, a debtscape daily paced by the complex empirical and conceptual
accounts of the participation of business models in public sector in education around
the world (see Appandurai, 2001; Ball, 2007; Ball, 2012). Public institutions, such
as schools and hospitals, not only have been connected to this crisis, but also blamed
by what Bellamy Foster (2013) insightfully calls an epochal crisis. That is a sheer
enormity of the historical challenge confronting humanity in our time that the worst
economic crisis since the Great Depression, sometimes called the Second Great
Depression is overshadowed by the larger threat of planetary catastrophe, raising
the question of the long-term survival of innumerable speciesincluding our own
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J. M. Paraskeva

(Bellamy Foster, 2013, p. 1). He (2013) argues that, currently, capitalist societies
face a paradox of developing an understanding of the interconnections between
the deepening impasse of the capitalist economy and the rapidly accelerating
ecological threatitself a by-product of capitalist development (p. 1). Since such
a statement is undisputable, a question needs to be asked, how come a crisis of such
planetary havoc wasnt noticed ahead of time? And, how come in a moment that
society, in some cases, dares to challenge the natural course of nature, why was
such crisis not anticipated? Queen Elizabeth II, in a tour to the pristine London
School of Economics in 2008, perplexedly flagged the issue: If these things were
so large, how come everyone missed them? (see Helleiner, 2011, p. 68). Maybe
they didnt. Eric Helleiners (2011) approach took a different take though. Helleiner
(2011) argues that such questions crystalized a widespread view that the economics
profession largely failed to predict the massive event and had much to learn from
its failure (pp. 6869). Scholars in the field of International Political Economy,
Helleiner (2011; see also Cohen, 2009) argued, had a dismal record in anticipating
the crisis [and showed a blunt] myopia comparable to the failure of international
relations scholars to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union two decades earlier
(p. 68).
As I highlighted before, I want to channel the argument in a different direction.
While there are elements of good sense in Helleiners (2011) and many others wellframed critique, one should not forget that well within the mildest of the economic
climax a significant number of public intellectuals both within and beyond the
U.S. were raising their voices against the dangers of a society totally manipulated
by the politics of an almighty deregulated market (Nader, 2000; Berliner & Biddle,
1995; Stiglitz, 2000; Stiglitz, Sen & Fitoussi 2010).
The neoliberal hegemonic power bloc knew exactly what they were doing and
despite multiple crises, continue doing it. Naomi Kleins work helps a great deal
here. In her The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Klein (2007)
unmasks the (current) social havoc as the major enzyme of the neoliberal framework.
The idea of shock is at the base of the current turmoil, as Klein (2007) unmasks
accurately. Drawing her interpretation on the complex issues surrounding the war
in Iraq, Klein (2007) problematizes why the idea of shock was so appealing for
those who wanted to remake Iraq to maintain Western global hegemonic dominance.
By returning to the source of the metaphor of shock therapy or therapies, Klein
(2007) unveils how such a mechanism is used in psychiatric contexts and in torture.
By digging in some specific declassified CIA interrogation manuals that were first
published in 1963 and then in 1980s, she (2007) examines how it was crucial for the
CIA to put prisoners in a state of (permanent) shock. Klein (2007) argues that when
one is in a state of shock, s/he is not able to protect his/her own interests; that is, the
individual becomes like a child. In fact, Klein (2007) explains how such manuals are
really obsessed with the idea of regression. Klein (2007) argues that such strategy
was imported and applied on a mass scale. The exploitation of shock and crisis
has been consciously used by radical free marketeers. This very idea, Klein (2007)
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Introduction

argues, is quite clear in Milton Friedman, who claimed that only crisis will produce
real change. His vision of a radically privatized world could not be in place without a
crisis. The War on Terror, coined by George W. Bush, launched a new economy with
endless parameters. Bushs war on terror was the most sophisticated and profitable
business model ever, that is, a new endless market financed with unlimited funds.
Unlike traditional wars, this war was a permanent new part of the economy that will
slowly form a privatized security state (Klein, 2007).
After the crisis hits, the kind of change will depend on the ideas that are lying
around. This is what the University of Chicago Economics Department was
producing all over these years. When the next crisis hit, ideas that had been lying
around were ready for that crisis. The issue here is not to engage in conspiracy
theory. This is not it at all. However, some crises have been deliberate shocks and
were then exploited. Chile was a case in point. The cue in Chile was an attack that
pushed the nation into a state of shock. It is the first class case of economic shock
therapy. Iraq was another example of economic shock therapy. The most important
thing is not about planning the original shock but rather being in an acute state of
intellectual disaster preparedness so that when the crisis hits, youre the ones ready
with the ideas that are lying around. Katrina is a crystal example of such doctrine.
After the havoc, the Heritage Foundation Act immediately presented the 32 free
market solutions, namely, roll back labor standards and introduce school vouchers
instead of public school funding. Kleins (2007) argument is a clear example of how
neoliberalism was never a peaceful process, as some claimed.
Such new economy, fuelled by the security paranoia, will force a myriad of
ideological state apparatuses, such as the schools, to a submissive relationship with
the military matrix framing the relative autonomy of each apparatus. The latest
U.S. Education Reform and National Security (2012), chaired by Joel Klein and
Condoleeza Rice, is a clear example of such submissive interplay. By claiming in its
findings that public school systems (not excluding higher education) are detached
and divorced from the transformative and innovative desires of the markets as well
as ill prepared to collaborate, compete, act locally or globally (p. 4). Such a report
laudably argues that the so-called failure of public schools constitutes a severe threat
to national security. This threat due to the fact that public educational system is
not helping the economic growth, but also is preparing and training individuals
capable of working in social positions determined by a state in permanent war, such
as intelligence agencies and armed services. Public education is not just condemned
to be privatized; it is now explicitly at the mercy of the military and para-military
interests.
As Klein (2011) argues, contemporary social sagas show vividly how neoliberals,
being in a state of permanent preparedness, immediately unleash a set of mechanisms
to commonsensically promote disorientation within the civil society framed by
complex collective shocks or global aporias (Varoufakis, 2011) such as wars
and the imminence of wars, terrorists attacks and the imminence of such, and even
natural disasters, to immediately control and prescribe a shock therapy in a society
xi

J. M. Paraskeva

psychologically devastated and totally unprepared, at least immediately, to (counter)

act appropriately. Modernity, Nelson Maldonado-Torres (2008) argues, is based on
a paradigm of war.
Such shock therapy fits rather well within the new state metamorphoses, a
managerial state (Clarke & Newman, 1997) that hegemonically saturates the very
(ir)rational managerial structure that runs public institutions. Kleins shock doctrine
is not something ethereal and transcendental. It circulates in the open veins of
drained public institutions such as schools.
Clyde Barrow (2010) unmasks the current crisis based on what he coined
fictitious rationality (p. 320). Heavily influenced by Offe and Habermas, Barrow
(2010) argues that public institutions such as schools are graphic examples of a clear
inability of a balance between formal and substantive rationality (p. 320). That is,
the inability to both rational(ity) forms creates an abyssal line between means and
ends. Such abyssal line is precisely propelled by the very natura of the capitalist
system, a system that can only exist within its own contradictory excesses. The
clash or abyssal vacuum between means and ends paves the way for a convenient
way of decision making based on what Barrow (2010) calls fictitious rationality a
derivative of formal rationality focused focuses exclusively on administrative means
such as rules, procedures, and efciency calculations (p. 320).
Public institutions, such as schools, have been framed within a formal and
substantive rationality totally divorced from social or organizational ends. Such
divorce, or as I would call abyssal line, is not innocent; it is endemic of a capitalist
system in which public institutions as state ideological apparatuses are profoundly
implicated both on the reasons and solutions for the crisis (Barrow, 2010). In a way,
the sustainability of the capitalist system relies precisely in its capacity to produce
and legitimize commonsensically such an abyssal line that paves the way for a
non-rationality or, as Barrow (2010) claims, a fictitious one. Fictitious rationality
is an ideological illusion of individuals who observe the academic labor process,
but are not directly part of that process (Barrow, 2010, p. 321). And, naturally, an
ideological illusion mood can only drive to an ideological illusion decision making
that shows that the only way (not even the best way) to address the crisis is to
monitor, regulate and reduce the costs of intellectual production [that] requires an
even larger, and more coercive administrative apparatuses (Barrow, 2010, p. 321).
Odd as it might be, the main goal is the intensification of the crisis.
To use the framework of the leading German contemporary philosopher, Peter
Sloterdjik (1988), we are actually before the cynicism of ideology. And, since this
is an undisputable claim, neoliberals knew (and know) exactly what they are doing
but still keep doing it. As Sloterdjik (1988) would put it, we are actually before
a clearly fabricated crisis, a rationale of shock (that it is not a shocking rationale
since it has been domesticated and naturalized) that paves the way not just to say
the unsayable (and concomitantly unsaying the sayable) but, in so doing, to unfold
what might be called the cultural politics of disaster. In public schools, this is clearly
the case. Public institutions, such as schools, are a crystal clear example of such
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Introduction

rationality crisis, unleashed by current neoliberal innovations, as well as a tool to

foster social crisis in the best Friedman way possible as the only way to produce
real change, regardless how inhumane are the local consequences of such policies
(Bauman, 1998). Such manufactured crisis (see Berliner & Biddle, 1995) faced by
public institutions is a catalytic to help converge the non-monolithic hegemonic
bloc in a common educational agenda of change or better say innovation. As
Doug Henwood and Liza Featherstone (2013) claim, although the hegemonic bloc
is divided on some issues how quickly to attack Iran, how much to cut Social
Security and Medicare, whether homosexuals should be tolerated or treated as the
spawn of Satan they are united on one thing: the need to reform the public school
system. However, Reform means more tests, more market mechanisms, and fewer
teachers unions (Henwood & Featherstone, 2013).
No one has more effectively unmasked the ideological backbone of neoliberal
globalization than David Harvey (2005):
[Neoliberal globalization] is particularly assiduous in seeking privatization of
assets. The absence of clear property rights ... is seen as one of the greatest
of all institutional barriers to economic development and the improvement
of human welfare. Enclosure and the assignment of private property rights is
considered the best to protect against the so-called tragedy of the commons
Sectors formerly run or regulated by the state must be turned over to the private
sphere and be deregulated. Competition between individuals, between firms,
between territorial entities is held to be a primary virtue ... Privatization and
deregulation, combined with competition, it is claimed, eliminate bureaucratic
red tape, increase efficiency and productivity, improve quality, and reduce
costs both directly to the consumer through cheaper commodities and services
and indirectly through reduction of the tax burden. (p. 65)
Harveys accurate description allows one to question the success of neoliberalism.
In the words of Samir Amin (2008), the real question is not whether the neoliberal
project is or is not absurd. It is absurd and not viable. But it exists (p. 32). The real
question is why it has asserted itself with such a force. The success of a group of
retrograde conceptions was possible only because the systems that managed the
worlds societies in the preceding historical states exhausted their own potential
(p. 32). In fact, the decline of the welfare state, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and
the rise of a ferocious national populism coupled with religious fundamentalist
impulses (Paraskeva & Torres Santom, 2012) have created the conditions for
a total submission of society to the unilateral demands of capitalism [that] has
become, through the force of its own logic of accumulation, a crony capitalism
(Amin, 2008, pp. 32). In liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and
skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property
rights, free markets, and free trade, market fundamentalists creed forced the state
to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such practices
(Harvey, 2005, p. 2).
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J. M. Paraskeva

As I claim elsewhere (Paraskeva, 2007, 2012), the dichotomy of the weak state
versus the strong state, which has been exposed by too many critical approaches as
one of the leitmotivs of the neoliberal hegemonic bloc, misrepresents as Giroux
(2011) would put it the central tenet of neoliberalism. In fact, it is the state that
is paving the way for the market (Paraskeva, 2007, 2012) in such a way that the
neoliberal state makes no mistakes in overtly walking out on all its responsibilities,
suspending its powers what Agamben (2005) calls a state of exception if and
when it is necessary to allow the totalitarian desires of the market to flourish. Thus,
if markets do not exist (in areas such as land, water, education, health care, social
security, and environmental pollution), then they must be created, by state action if
necessary (Harvey, 2005, p. 2). Public education is one of the social apparatuses that
have been suffering the rapacious consequences of such capitalisme de connivence,
as Samir Amin (2008, p. 50) would put it. Public education was and is still a real
obstacle to fanatical marketers.
In an exegesis that challenges the metaphysics of normality and controlling
principles for observation (Vleben, 1898, p. 72) paced by the tautological nexus
of facts and theory, Giroux (2011) quite sentient of the fascist relation between
language and the subject (Barthes, 1969, p. x), unreservedly confronts the rather
common commonsensical politics of misobservation and misrepresentation
regarding the devastating effects of neoliberal policies in society in general and
public education in particular.
Both the manufactured crises in public education as well the belligerent strategies
to address such crisis need to be seen within the Western capitalist epistemology of
blindness. Giroux (2011) claims the need to go beyond the absurdities and viability
of the voracious neoradical centrist project, not only to challenge the assault on
public education, teachers and students, but also to announce that the manufactured
crisis of education is part of a broader crisis of democracy itself (p. 32). Barrow
(2010) insightfully challenges us to frame liberal democracy in two structural
chronic issues: on one hand a chronic-structural decit [that is an intentional]
structural gap develop[ed] between the expenditures necessary to maintain both
capital accumulation and popular legitimacy (p. 319).
In this context, the neoliberal hegemonic bloc needs to be seen as a global
minotaur (see Varoufakis, 2011) whose tentacles not only slaughter any attempt
that challenges the despotic wishes of the market, such as real democracy and the
common good, but simultaneously paves the way for a veritable reformist orgy that
puts into practice a set of educational reforms such as charter/voucher projects,
disestablishing programs, departments, schools, and centers in public universities,
the philanthropic fever now flooding public education as well as the small school
agenda that is conquering cities like New Bedford in Massachusetts (see Rosa &
Paraskeva, 2012), which is a venomous attack on equality, freedom, and social
justice. By spitting in the face of democracy, social justice, equality and solidarity,
neoliberals show the utmost contempt for the most elementary notions of human
dignity, thereby tattering the common good. Despite the fact that deficits [were] not
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Introduction

the result of failed schools (Giroux, 2011, p. 33), democracy and public education
are not only real hurdles to the neoliberal project, they are even placed in the dock,
denied access to a lawyer, and sentenced without parole for the unprecedented
current financial crisis.
This global manufactured crisis with a local face (or local faces) represents
the emptiness of participatory democracy as an endless social treasure, while
simultaneously creating natural conditions for a deranged attack on public
teachers, public education, and everything that is public by definition. Such attacks
open the door for a set of social and educational reforms coined by the market, as if
these marketeers, who are now philanthropically rising to the top via education, had
nothing to do with the financial disarray the global community is currently facing.
The systematic reduction of state support to public educational institutions and
consequent appeal to puzzling policies based on self-sustainability, self-sufficiency,
autonomy, emulates the language of the bankers who were responsible for the
economic crisis of 2008 and the suffering and destruction that followed (Giroux,
2011, p. 24).
Such casino-type reforms (Giroux, 2011; Saltman, 2012a; 2012b) needed to
be seen as producers of subtractive pedagogical forms (Valenzuela, 1999) and
educational reforms that charter disaster and humiliation. These reforms showed
an ethically sterile discourse [that has] ... now taken on a more militant tone by
flooding the media and other commercial spheres with a politics of humiliation
(Giroux, 2011, p. 24). Faculty (overwhelmingly non-tenured) are taken to the pillory,
tried ruthlessly and relentlessly in the public arena, and in the media charged with
their so-called irresponsibility, incompetence, and lack of accountability. They are
expected to adhere to a new religion that marketeers want people to accept as an
inviolable and unquestioned act of faith that produces a messianic language that
fosters competition, individualism, and greed. Giroux (2010) explains:
What has become increasingly clear is that [teachers] are the new scapegoats
for the market-driven juggernaut that is sucking the blood out of democracy
in the United States Public schools and teachers are now the object of a
sustained and aggressive attack against all things public in which they are put
in the same disparaged league as advocates of health care reform. (p. 24)
The success of neoliberal education policies forces the reconfiguration of the very
meaning of democracy and the public good, which concomitantly implies the
annihilation of public education. Public education is not suddenly a new potentially
profitable field feverishly beloved by what Giroux (2011) refers to as billionaire
reformers (p. 4) and other lackeys of the market. It is not just an opportunity to
recapitalize capital and dispose of capital flows that have been clogged by the stress
of financializing capital (see Bellamy Foster, 2010; Paraskeva, 2011b). While this is
utterly crucial, as Giroux (2011) and Quantz (2011) demonstrate, the attack on public
education also aims to disestablish any form of intellectual freedom, any vestige of
critical inquiry, any possibility of an education that engages in reading the word and
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J. M. Paraskeva

the world relationally (see Freire & Macedo, 1987) and beyond the hegemony of the
English language (Macedo, 2000). We need a pedagogical framework that challenges
economic, cultural, religious and political illiteracy and see beyond knowledge that
has been produced beyond a particular Western epistemological terrain (Paraskeva,
2011). In fact, as Quantz (2011) argues, the greatest irony in schooling today is that
the most dangerous revolutionary act that any teacher and student can engage in is
education itself (p. 145).
This violent attack on public education and public institutions, that should be
responsible to prepare well-informed and critical citizens has been taking place
over the last four decades, has fostered a school system that produces uncritical
citizens and an apathetic citizenry that has contributed greatly to the current global
aporia described by Varoufakis (2011). In fact, one of the most lethal dimensions
of this aporia is that schooling is profoundly engaged in promoting and endorsing
a particular coloniality of thought and being (Maldonado-Torres, 2003, 2008;
Grosfoguel, 1999, 2004).
NON-NAVE NAVET: THIN INTELLECTUALISM AND
THE CULT OF POLITICAL ILLITERACY

One of the reasons that neoliberalism has been so powerful and triumphant over the
last five decades is its ability to win the battle over commonsense. It is precisely at the
commonsense level that economic, cultural, and ideological battles have been fought
and have shown the capacity of neoliberalism to keep reinventing itself (Apple,
2000; Giroux, 2004, 2011). As Giroux (2011) argues, The cultural apparatuses have
been largely hijacked by the forces of neoliberalism (p. 3). One major battle that
neoliberals have been winning, although not without severe resistance, is the attack
on intellectualism. This construction of the desensitized intellectual as nonexistent
and the cult of particular forms of literacy produce realities beyond a specific western
white-male supremacist platform (cf. Sousa Santos, 2009; Paraskeva, 2011). If any
one social field has been deeply engaged in such quarrels, it is education. Unlike early
in the last century, when public institutions supported and promoted intellectualism,
and intellectuals engaged in ongoing public conversations about political and
cultural issues that were of great social importance [were] able to comment critically
and broadly on a number of issues [and] exemplified a mode of writing and political
literacy that refused the instinctive knee- jerk reflex of privileging plain-speak over
complexity (Giroux, 2011, p.104), our current era devalues intellectualism:
Twitter-like clarity has replaced accessibility and has grown more pernicious
as it aligns itself with an array of new corporate and military institutions, a
dumbed-down cultural apparatus, school systems that miseducate, and a
growing network of films, talk radio, and television shows in which language
and thought are emptied of content. In an age when the acceleration of time
is perfectly suited to the eradication of thoughtfulness as the last barrier to
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Introduction

immersion in thrill- seeking entertainment, pop clarity and its notion of

frictionless, spontaneous truth now governs the conditions for all modes of
intelligibility. (Giroux, 2011, p. 104)
Anti-intellectualism needs to be understood as non-nave navet, a notion in
which the media plays a key role. Todays anti-intellectualism as a new form of
intellectualism has been championed by fast thinkers such as Bill Kristol, Glenn
Beck, Bill OReilly, Dinesh DSouza, Chester Finn, Charles Murray, and others.
These thinkers are the people who now write and speak for a broader audience and
spew an unprecedented public phobia while attacking the semi-welfare state and
any viable notion of social protection. In doing so, they actively work to pathologize
all things public such as schools, health care, public transportation, and other
important social services (Giroux, 2011, p. 109). While on the one hand they rail
against big government playing an important role in providing social protections
and improving citizens lives, on the other they have no trouble supporting an
expansion of government power in regulating morality, investing in a permanent war
economy, supporting the coercive powers of the state, expanding the surveillance
state, and advocating government power to free corporations of any form of
regulation (Giroux, 2011, p. 109).
This anti-intellectualism goes hand in hand with the current hegemonic view
that forces public schools to comply with the corporate model of education. A
good example of this, as Giroux explains, is seen in the decision by the former
commissioner David Steiner to name the utterly unqualified Cathleen P. Black, the
former chairwoman of Hearst Magazines, as the chancellor of New York Citys public
schools (Giroux, 2011, p. 89). Under the business model, education is all about
preparing people for jobs and setting up policies that remove critical thinking as a
serious condition for independent action and engaged citizenship. It represents the
triumph of stripped-down visions of management over leadership (Giroux, 2011,
p. 95). In fact, heralds of the neoliberal ideology, such as Bill Gates, Jack Welsh,
David Steiner and others, do not accept that teachers might actually be educated as
critical intellectuals thoroughly versed in theory and subject matter and not simply
methods and might engage in the dangerous practice of teaching students how to
think, hold power and authority accountable, take risks, and willingly embrace their
role as producers of knowledge and not merely transmitters of information (Giroux,
2011, p. 95).
Challenging this anti-intellectualism, Giroux (2011) encourages public teachers
and critical educators and pedagogues to assume the role of critical public
intellectuals, [repudiating] the popular assumption that clarity is the ultimate litmus
test to gauge whether a writer has successfully engaged a general educated audience
[and taking] matters of accessibility seriously in order to combine theoretical rigor
with their efforts to communicate forcefully and intelligibly to a larger public about
the most pressing matters of the day ( p. 100). The quasi-religious cult of clarity
becomes an ideological smokescreen that conceals how the notions of common
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J. M. Paraskeva

sense and simplicity are mere excuses for rejecting complex ideas and the careful
use of language as a marker of the educated mind (Giroux, 2011, p. 100; see also
Quantz, 2011).
Anti-intellectualism partners with the poisonous culture of a new form of literacy
that reinforces a eugenic view of reading the word and the world (see Freire &
Macedo, 1987). Giroux (2011) argues that we are actually experiencing new
forms of political illiteracy (p. 32) in which both the media and schooling have
criminal records. As Giroux (2011) claims, the dominant media apparatuses run
by ideological extremists and religious fundamentalists (p. 9) have the temerity
to claim that they offer a balanced commentary on the state of education when in
fact it is an unabashed advertisement for various versions of corporate educational
reform (p. 19). The mainstream media have the audacity to portray the reality
of public institutions, and public education in particular, in a way that creates the
conditions within the common sense to say the un-sayable (Paraskeva, 2007),
as evidenced in the endless numbers of newspaper editorials, television series,
media advertisements, Youtube clips, and every other imaginable element of the
new and old media (Giroux, 2011, p. 19) that massacre societys common sense on
a daily basis with images and words that put public teachers, unions, and minorities
in the dock of the current financial mess. Underneath such attacks lies an agenda
to promote an anti-public ideology with its denigration of public education and
other institutions of the welfare state (Giroux, 2011, p. 19), an attack on any form
of critical pedagogy and critical transformative thinking or non-white minorities
through the harsh anti-immigrant laws passed in states like Arizona and Florida
(Giroux, 2011, pp. 14) that set the tone for impressive forms of cultural illiteracy.
One would argue that such policies of misrepresentation and misobservation are
not ingenuous, and that what we have in fact is the promotion and sedimentation
of new forms of political literacy that desensitize citizens who are produced and
reproduced by the dominant media and public schools. It is precisely this neoliteracy that promotes sociopolitical lethargy, an ideological coded framework or
aporia (Varoufakis, 2011) that underpins a colonial determinant that is determined
by colonial beings (see Maldonado-Torres, 2003, 2008; Grosfoguel, 1999, 2004).
What is shocking is how neoliberals lie the lie to tell the truth, as Slavoj iek
(2001) would put it. The same media, the same media players, the very same powers
that now furiously blame public education, tenured public teachers, and teachers
unions for the current deficit and financial mess in progress all were unable to
congratulate and praise public education, tenured public teachers, and teachers
unions when the United States showed a comfy surplus of $69 billion. In fact,
the new anti-intellectualism fosters the conditions for a particular discourse of
education reform that generates, as discourses do, subject positions, social relations
and opportunities within policy (Ball, 2007, p. 2). As Ball (2007) argues, new
kinds of actors, social interactions and institutions are produced [and] specifically
the meaning, force and effect of these discourses are framed by an over-bearing
economic and political context of international competitiveness (p. 2).
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Introduction

CARNIVAL: TO BEGIN FROM THE BEGINNING

Given the current state of public education in the U.S. and in many other nations
around the world (see Paraskeva, 2012) in which, as a component of the ideological
and economic state apparatuses, the university, especially public universities, is
implicated in the states on-going fiscal crisis, and is both a cause of the crisis and
a solution to the crisis (Barrow, 2010), it will not be too much to ask for a kind
of carnival that, once and for all, will unmask the state of intellectual anemia that
permeates public schools blocking radical transformation. Such carnival would not
aim to romanticize the past. Actually, too many analyses of schools fall on such
romanticism as if public institutions of the past were not one of the locomotives of
social segregation, inequality and injustice. In Bakhtinian terms, carnival is more
than a pale denotative means of parody. The carnival is the way to break down
barriers and segregated social ties, to destroy wicked relations of power, to break with
social inequalities, to embarrass the dominant groups, to blow up the hierarchies, to
renew interpersonality yarns (see Bakhtin, 1984). Carnival, in Bakhtian terms, is
always a breath of fresh air in the dense morass that rots the status quo. Looking for
the amorphous form in which public schools are today, it is undeniable that carnival
delivers a hope for change, challenging the power relations that are established
(see Bakhtin, 1984). Carnival is the best challenge to the managerial delirium that
dominates public schools where everything is reduced to an administrative equation;
that is, administrators convert everything into an administrative problem to be
addressed by administrators since solution is supposedly purely administrative. But,
why a carnival?
Such carnival will force all of us to assume consciously that to address such
fabricated crisis implies that one begins from the beginning (see iek, 2009). That
is, the Leninean conclusive question raised by Ginsberg (2011) i.e. what needs to
be done deserves another answer, a Leninean answer, so well explained by iek
(2009). We really need to start all over again. iek takes a path tracing the way. He
deserves to be highlighted.
According to iek (2009), when the Bolsheviks, after winning the Civil War
against all odds, had to retreat into the New Economic Policy of allowing a much
wider scope to the market economy and private property, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
uses the analogy of a climber who must backtrack from his first attempt to reach a
new mountain peak to describe what retreat means in a revolutionary process, and
how it can be done without opportunistically betraying the cause (iek, 2009,
p. 43). According to Lenin, the climber,
is forced to turn back, descend, seek another path, longer, perhaps, but one that
will enable him to reach the summit. The descent from the height that no one
before him has reached proves, perhaps, to be more dangerous and difficult for
our imaginary traveler than the ascentit is easier to slip; it is not so easy to
choose a foothold; there is not that exhilaration that one feels in going upwards,
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J. M. Paraskeva

straight to the goal, etc. One has to tie a rope round oneself, spend hours with
an alpenstock to cut footholds or a projection to which the rope could be tied
firmly; one has to move at a snails pace, and move downwards, descend, away
from the goal; and one does not know where this extremely dangerous and
painful descent will end, or whether there is a fairly safe detour by which one
can ascend more boldly, more quickly and more directly to the summit. (apud
iek, 2009, p. 43)
According to Lenins to begin from the beginning, iek, (2009) adds that one has
the clear sense that Lenin is not talking about merely slowing down and fortifying
what has already been achieved, but about descending back to the starting point: one
should begin from the beginning, not from the place that one succeeded in reaching
in the previous effort (p. 44). Moreover, according to iek, (2009) this is Lenin
at his Beckettian best, foreshadowing the line from Worstward Ho: Try again. Fail
again. Fail better (p. 44).
Who will deny the resemblance between Lenins Beckettianism and the state
of public institutions, such as schools, caused by a crony capitalism that failed
miserably in its political project and persists in using public higher educational
institutions in the financialization of capital (see Bellamy Foster, 2008). Such
begin from the beginning mentality calls for a counter-hegemonic globalization
of the university as a public good (Sousa Santos, 2008). Such counter-hegemonic
globalization of the university will challenge the reactive defensive approach that
permeates universities today, particularly in their responses, to the financial crisis.
Begin from the beginning implies to face the new with the new, to fight for a
definition of crisis, to fight for a definition of University, to reconquer legitimacy
(Sousa Santos, 2008). The new beginning will challenge neoliberal globalization,
devastating an attack on the idea of national project, conceived as a major obstacle
to the expansion of global capitalism.
WORKING WITHIN THE CRACKS OF THE SYSTEM FINAL NOTES

We witness a unique moment in the history of capitalism in the U.S. The dominant
federal policies and practices of overspending and little concern with the deficit to
a point of shutting down the government clash dramatically with the narrative and
maladroit practices of addressing the deficit issues that are happening in specific
public higher educational institutions. The U.S. is a nation in two speeds. One in
which the foci of its narrative is to transform the deficit, which is an enzyme that
would lead the nation out of the current fabricated crises, and another one that
franticly transforms numbers in an act of faith with a firm cult that public education
needs to eliminate the deficit, even if that means more pain to oppressed communities.
Under the guise of public, these privatized reforms of the public institutions are a
kind of self-emulation that is destroying the real mission of public institutions. The
strategy is actually not new within the capitalist framework. Antonio Salazar, the
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sanguinary Portuguese dictator that committed genocide for almost 50 years, used
the same strategy. While Minister of Finance, he addressed the nations economic
collapse claiming: I will save the nation. Not the people. The financialization of
capital was always at stake (Bellamy Foster, 2012; Giroux, 2013).
As I have mentioned before, despite such ferocious attacks on public education
and public higher educational institutions, we fortunately have some good examples
of individuals and institutions trying to challenge such arithmetic functionalism
(Wacquant, 2009). A little biographical information is crucial here. When I joined
UMass Dartmouth in 2009, I was given the responsibility of building both the new
Department of Educational Leadership and the new Doctoral Program in Educational
Leadership and Policy Studies. My experience in working in several universities
in different nations and my close interactions with scholars, such as Richard
Quantz, Donaldo Macedo, and Jurjo Torres Santom, helped me greatly in moving
forward with the plan. As the architect of the program, founder of the department,
chair and program director, the program started in the summer of 2011 with the
following courses: ELP 554 Transformative Educational Leadership, and ELP 552
Organizational Behavior and Change in Educational Settings. Ricardo Rosa and
Mark Paige joined the Department in the Fall 2010. Together we wrote the draft of
the mission and guiding principles that was debated and approved unanimously by
the Department, and we created countless courses. In addition, we conceptualized
and organized colloquia bringing world renowned intellectuals to the program,
such as Gary Anderson, Antonia Darder, Kenneth Zeichner, David Hursh, Kenneth
Saltman, Gustavo Fishman, Deborah Meier, Noam Chomsky, John Willinsky, David
Berliner, Donaldo Macedo, Stanley Aronowitz, Lois Weiner, Angela Valenzuela,
Richard Quantz, Henry Giroux, Lilia Bartolome, Pauline Lipman, Wayne Au,
Bernadette Baker, Jurjo Torres Santom and Ana Sanches Bello from Spain, Alvaro
Moreira Hypolito and Ines Barbosa de Oliveira from Brazil, Vanessa Oliveira de
Andreotti from Finland, and Victor Borges from Cape Verde. In addition, we have
been working closely with local communities and schools. Ricardo Rosa has been
organizing and coordinating with some students and community leaders several
community forums in New Bedford, Fall River, and Brockton, addressing critical
issues in public education, such as eco-justice, high-stakes testing, dropouts/forced
outs, school-to-prison pipeline, etc. The work of our program is vital to critical
transformative leadership that cannot be isolated to research and books but a critical
transformative leadership that takes research and engages with the community
in working to critically transform our community toward social justice. The
Department believes in scholarly research that is always intimately connected to and
reflective of the needs of the surrounding communities. This means not only hosting
community dialogues, but developing relationships with the community and youth,
which is a key component of our Departments mission. In addition, I was involved
with an elementary school in New Bedford, coaching basketball for the kids and
work in curriculum integration matters. Currently, I have been working on several
community projects, within the local Lusophone community, namely establishing a
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J. M. Paraskeva

Portuguese official school, organizing and fighting for Lusophone representation at

key positions on the state, engaging with community leaders and local LusophoneAmerican legislators to defend the Lusophone languages and cultures. Given the
rich Lusophone history in the South Coast, this is a necessary struggle to ensure
this cultural knowledge and legacy survives. Furthermore, the Department and
program gained a great deal of strength with the support of community leaders and
activists, such as Jose Soler, the Director for the Center of Labor Studies. He has
been a tremendous comrade and supporter of our program and our activities. In this
complex political project, we cannot forget the support of our local legislators as
well. The support of senators Marc Pacheco and Michael Rodrigues as well as State
Representatives Tony Cabral and David Vieira has been crucial to our program. The
recent election of senator Vinny de Macedo speaks volumes about the power of our
community, that for the first time elected 3 senators.
Currently, the program has a total of 48 students within four cohorts of students,
(cohort 1, Counterhegemonics; cohort 2, Synoptics; cohort 3, Critical Transformative
Leaders: and cohort 4, Public Intellectuals). We are recruiting the fifth cohort, and we
have plans on adding an Higher Education component, in Critical University Studies.
In 2015, we will have the first group of students (cohort 1, Counterhegemonics)
with a doctoral degree in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies through
UMass Dartmouth. Kenneth Saltman joined us from De Paul University. We see
this as a consequence of the overt commitment that we have towards a critical and
transformative educational leadership and policy.
Our mission and guiding principles are critical and transformative and DEL
unanimously adopted both the Mission and the Guiding Principles on March 2012:
Consistent with the University of Massachusetts Dartmouths mission as a
public regional research university, the Department of Education Leadership
(hereafter DEL) was founded in the Fall of 2011. DELs major political scope
is to assume a leading role both nationally and internationally in preparing
a new generation of education leaders and policy analysts, highly prepared
in educational leadership and policy studies who could exercise critical
transformative leadership committed to social and cognitive justice. We believe
that education should be a place that cultivates humanity; a place that fosters
the ability to imagine the experiences of another; a locus that emphasizes
the ability to think critically, the ability to transcend local loyalties and to
approach world problems; a place that fosters creativity and the formation of a
holistic citizen. We believe that education and educational institutions should
be driven by leaders and not by managers. Given the current global crises with
a profound devastating impact in our region, we maintain that the flourishing
of a democratic society relies on a democratic educational system capable
of a critical balance between the need to sustain a strong economy and the
vpreparation of a more holistic citizen.

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We claim educational leadership and policy studies as contested political

terrains profoundly coded with ethical, moral and spiritual dimensions. DEL
offers a critical transformative doctoral program in Education Leadership and
Policy Studies designed to produce future practitioners and scholars who will
work as professors, researchers, administrators, or executives in leadership
roles in a variety of institutional settings. Graduates of this program will
be committed to transforming students, institutions and their contexts in
pursuit of a more ethical, just and fair society and to improving educational
achievement in environments, that are dynamic, interactive, culturally diverse,
and democratic. The doctoral program aims to prepare individuals capable
of understanding global contemporary dynamics as well as leading systemic
transformations that promote learning and improve educational attainment in
schools. Our program prepares future education leaders quite sentient of the
need for advocacy leadership. We claim that there is no authentic education
with a lack of basic social needs for the massive majority of society.
In so doing and aligned with the more recent and insightful research in the field
our program calls for a collaborative and critical transformative leadership,
one that encourages an open transformative leadership practice quite capable
of creating the caring and authentic culture as well as empowering teachers,
students, parents and the community in critical transformative leadership.
To accomplish the above the proposed program is driven by a set of beliefs,
namely that human growth and development are transformative lifelong
pursuits; that schools are political and cultural artifacts of local and global
contexts; that diversity strengthens organizations; that while transformative
leadership implies individual and team work that stimulates differences, it
is also driven by moral and ethical imperatives; and that one can only have
an impact globally if one is capable of making a difference locally. DEL is
oriented by a set of principles regarding critical transformative Educational
Leadership and Policy Studies. Such principles are the vivid result of an ample
and heated participatory debate among faculty, administrators, superintendents,
principals, teachers, parents, social activists and community in general. Both
the department and the doctoral program were built with them and not for them
to which we express here our sincere gratitude.
Principle 1
Education is a political act.
Accordingly, the education policies produced at all levels of government
(local, state, federal, and international) reflect the political struggles and
power dynamics inherent in our society. DEL explores these varying dynamics
and influences and develops future school leaders and scholars in the field of
public education who are actively aware and engaged with these complex and
layered interactions.

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J. M. Paraskeva

Principle 2
Education leadership and policy understands and claims education as a public
good.
Of vital importance to our society and the collective good is the nature and
quality of theeducation we provide our children. Moreover, a recognition
that education envisions leadership and policies that ensure that every child
receives an equal educational opportunity to maximize their potential. In this
way, education as a public good is promoted.
Principle 3
Educational leadership and policy places the educational system within the
dynamics of ideological production.
As such, it recognizes that there policies and curriculum decisions and choices
that reflect certainideological leanings that, when reproduced, can perpetuate
inequalities in the education system. These ideological leanings are not always
obvious. These ideologies reflect existing power imbalances. Therefore,
recognition of these ideological underpinnings and the reasons for their
perpetuation are crucial understandings in developing educational leadership
and policy.
Principle 4
Educational leadership and policy acknowledge power and privilege and
argues for a new conception of power.
Certain interests and ideologies can carry a disproportionate amount of power
in education systems and society in general. An understanding of the abovementioned principles necessitates a shift in power to rectify imbalances that
manifest in the education system and greater society. Accordingly, educational
leadership and policy must reflect this need and attempt to re-calibrate the
power balances.
Principle 5
Educational leadership and policy recognizes education and schools as critical
transformative agencies.
Despite the power imbalances inherent in educational systems, it is understood
that these agencies may be changed from within and by those who have
heretofore been disadvantaged by the existing mechanisms and struggles.
Moreover, in recognizing this, it is understood that schools and education are
part of a set of agencies and constructs that, together, require reformation to
mitigate against existing power imbalances.
Principle 6
Educational leadership and policy is an intellectual and moral craft that
articulates individual and collective purposes.
We understand educational leadership and policy as moral undertaking grounded
on criticalintellectual trajectories that seek a critique and transformation
of dominant structures. We emphasize the need to articulate individual and
collective aims to attain purposes related with equity and excellence.
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Principle 7
Educational leadership and policy is a commitment to democratize democracy.
We perceived educational leadership and policy as committed to a praxis of
democracy as anunfinished process, a reality that is not solely to be theorized
in relation to ordinary politicalstructures, but that must be extended to civil
society and culture.
Principle 8
Educational leadership and policy understands that the struggle for social
justice is a struggle for cognitive justice.
De-centering dominant paradigms requires the perpetual inclusion of
epistemological diversity. This would signify the inclusion indigenous
knowledge(s), counter-histories, and methodologies. Educational leadership
and policy seeks an understanding of leadership that is not bounded to
individualism but rather through an analytical lens that centralizes power
politics, interactions, and the context through which these dynamics operate.
Principle 9
Educational leadership and policy understands that global challenges needed
to be won locally
Educational leadership and policy understands the importance of transformation
of the local context while not abstracting the intricate relationships between
the local and global.
Principle 10
Educational leadership and policy fosters indigenous knowledges, counterhistories, and methodologies.
Educational leadership and policy fosters not only a critique of existing
institutions and social, political, and economic arrangements; it also opens up
an analytical lens towards alternative possibilities.
Principle 11
Educational leadership and policy is community engag.
Educational leadership and policy is committed to the engagement of leadership
and policy studies within and beyond the boundaries or organizational settings.
It fosters transformative partnerships with community and society by and large.
Principle 12
Educational leadership and policy understands schools as spaces that cultivate
humanity.
Therefore, to this end, it promotes efforts to develop critical thinking, an
understanding that schools are part of a complex web of institutions in a global
society, and appreciation of different perspectives beyond ones own.
In accordance with our mission and guiding principles, the department includes the
voices, not just of faculty, but also students. The students established the Graduate
Students Association of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (ELP-GSA) at
UMass Dartmouth, and a student representative participates in the departmental
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J. M. Paraskeva

meetings. Right in the first semester of the program, together with the students
and faculty, we started working on what would be the first critical transformative
leaders annual meeting here at UMass Dartmouth. Together with the students and
faculty, we were able to organize a successful conference with Deborah Meier and
Kenneth Saltman as keynote speakers on November 16 and 17, 2012. The pieces that
structured this volume reflect updated versions of papers presented at the conference.
Both the papers and the chapters went through a peer review process. As I am writing
this preface, the students have already organized the second conference Voices and
Silences of Social and Cognitive Justice. that was held on November 15 and 16,
2013, as well as the third conference How Public is Public Education that was
held in November 14 and 15, 2014. While in the former we had the Secretary of
Education of Massachusetts, Matthew Malone and Donaldo Macedo, University of
Massachusetts Boston as keynote speakers, in the latter we had Pauline Lipman,
Wayne Au, and Barbra Madeloni as keynote speakers. Although a collective project,
each year a specific cohort is responsible for organizing the conference.
As any political project, the second one showed already a different positive tone. The
students decided to create Transformative Researchers and Educators for Democracy
(TRED); TREDs mission explicitly claims its engagement with the community
and schools to work for social justice and democracy through transformative
actionand dialogue. TRED seeks 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,
which place the discussion of educational leadership and policy within the dynamics
of ideological production, that reflect existing power imbalances that perpetuate
inequalities within society.With the formation of TRED, the critical transformative
leaders annual meeting became the annual TRED conference.
Needless to say, that none of this was done alone. A lot of individuals internally
and externally contribute for the success of program. Without a doubt, we coin
the success of the program also to many individuals such as Jean MacCormack,
Tony Garro, Donaldo Macedo, Richard Quantz, Gustavo Fischman, Mike Peters
and Mike Dantley. A word of profound gratitude to my colleagues and friends Joo
Rosa, and Clyde Barrow for their support and solidarity. Joo was instrumental in
the success of the program since its embryonic phase. Our countless conversations
and discussions over the way on how we should frame the program politically was
crucial. Joo and Clyde left to Bridgewater State University and the University of
Texas Pan American respectively. Their support and comradeship will always be
remembered.
I am not romanticizing any space and time here. As a colleague of mine at the
Universidade Agostinho, Luanda, keeps remind me one should romance with the
argument not with reality, this is not a perfect space. We are all fully aware of
the cracks in existence in our program. For example, we are fighting to have more
minority students in our program, we are fighting to have more fellowships that
can help minorities to join the program, we want the program to be more and more
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Introduction

critical transformative, fully engaged in social and cognitive justice (Sousa Santos,
2014). As Samora Machel would put it, being critical is being in a state of perpetual
alert. This is the most important battle in space that it was very hard to edify, yet
not impossible, and we are quite proud to be in a public institution. As educators
working within a critical post-al path, examples such as the one I raised, reinforces in
all of us a real utopia (see, Galeano, 2013; Paraskeva, 2009) of the power not just of
public education as a pale narrative, but of public institutions as real critical engines
of social critical transformation. In this regard, we have learned how transformative
leaders need to know how to work within the cracks of the system.
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xxix

THAD LAVALLEE

PERSONAL NOTE

The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth started down a new and exciting road
in June of 2011. On a hot summer night, Dr. Joao Paraskeva, the director of the
newly formed Educational Leadership and Policy doctoral studies, sat down with
nine students for what would be the first class of the programs first cohort. It was
clear within the first few minutes of that initial meeting that the cohort was in for
an intensively critical four years that would not only transform each cohort member
individually, but also transform the group as a whole in such a way so as to produce
agents and activists for transformation within the education system(s).
While mystifying at first, the cohort soon came to not only understand, but engage
in and fight for the twelve principles on which the program is pillared:
Education is a political act
Education Leadership and Policy understands and claims education as a public
good
Educational Leadership and Policy places the educational system within the
dynamics of ideological production
Educational Leadership and Policy acknowledge power and privilege and argues
for a new conception of power
Educational Leadership and Policy recognizes education and schools as critical
transformative agencies
Educational Leadership and Policy is an intellectual and moral craft that articulates
individual and collective purposes
Educational Leadership and Policy is a commitment to democratize democracy
Educational Leadership and Policy understands that the struggle for social justice
is a struggle for cognitive justice
Educational Leadership and Policy understands that global challenges needed to
be won locally
Educational Leadership and Policy fosters indigenous knowledge, counterhistories, and methodologies
Educational Leadership and Policy is community engagement
Educational Leadership and Policy understands schools as spaces that cultivate
humanity
It was with these principles in mind that, in the summer of 2012, the first
conceptualizations of expanding the cohorts classroom discussions into a larger
forum for a greater number of voices bore forth the notion of hosting a student-led
educational conference.
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T. LAVALLEE

Once the idea of a conference was tabled, Dr. Paraskeva played a crucial role
in establishing the framework for the event, but he made it clear at the onset that
this conference would be produced and run by the cohort, not the faculty. In setting
a precedent for the initial conference that would aim to become an annual event
hosted by subsequent cohorts of the Educational Leadership and Policy program,
the pressure was immense to ensure every logistical, ideological, and theoretical
detail was correct insofar as was democratically decided. Many nights the cohort
burned the midnight oil mulling over seemingly trivialities, from the wording on the
Call for Papers to which foods would be served by the caterers, as well as debating
major issues such as what physical space should host the conference to who should
be invited to be the keynote speaker(s). As with most democratic practices, it was
a messy endeavor, but all voices were heard and opinions respected as the cohort
began firming up on one detail after another.
The Call for Papers was sent out to most New England Universities that
had graduate education programs. Being a new conference, at first the papers
trickled in. However, as the deadline for the proposals drew nearer, the cohort was
flooded with many excellent papers covering a wide range of topics and political
perspectives. The task then, for the cohort, was not only to accept the best papers
for the conference, but to also choose papers that would create a panopticon of
viewpoints over a wide breadth of issues that touched upon the conferences theme
and strands.
While half of the cohort worked on the tough paper selection process, the other
half were busy engaged in creating discussion panels and roundtables. These
sessions were made up of superintendents, administrators, teachers, politicians,
policy makers, and academics. And one panel, most importantly, was comprised
of a group whose voice is often not admitted into spaces where critical dialogues
concerning matters of education are held public school students.
Finally, on November 16th and 17th of 2012, the Educational Leadership and
Policy doctorate program at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth hosted its
inaugural conference, Critical Transformative Leadership and Policy. Adhering to
the mission, values, and focus that are at the core of the Ph. D programs work, there
were four strands on which the conference focused:
1. Education as a democratic ideal
2. Cultural politics and curriculum
3. Teachers as transformational leaders
4. Leadership, management, and policy
Academics, educational professionals, and students, among others, from across
the Northeast US attended the conference and presented papers, sat on panels, or
participated in roundtable discussions. This book is a compilation of the paper
presentations from the conference, including a discussion from keynote speaker
Deborah Meier and a chapter from Kenneth Saltman who delivered the opening
address on day two of the conference.
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PERSONAL NOTE

The chapters that follow reflect the diversity of voices, views, and theories exhibited
at the conference from those who are striving to transform education today. While
these writings may be subject to dissenting opinions, increased complexification,
or alternative conclusions, the selection of works in this volume represent the ideal
of democratic participation that conferences like this strive to achieve, where the
presentations are not an end-point unto themselves, but rather serve as the genesis
for greater debates and discussions that can act as transformative agents.
Why transformative? It was the aim of this first conference to encourage critical
educators to move beyond the chic of the current reform movement(s) or the
simple notion of change. In an era where our capitalist system has been radically
transformed over the past forty-five years, education must be held as the apparatus
that can slow or halt and current proletarianization (Harvey, 2003) of society.
Where the main focus of schooling was once placed on giving students the tools
to be productive employees who could enjoy the comforts of both capitalism and
democracy, which, prior to 1968 were seen as a necessary tandem to preserve the
American way (Reich, 2007), capitalism in the modern era is no longer undergrid
by US workers in factories or US employees engaged in other modes of production,
but rather it is fueled by the financialization of (fictitious) capital and the exploitation
of surplus labor in countries of the Economic South. As a result, the US (and global)
economic situation for a majority of citizens (lately identified as the 99%) likewise
has been radically transformed or, rather, has radically regressed to the dire straits
of decades preceding World War II. Of course, society also has been negatively
transformed. Though there have been great strides in moving towards social equality
(though still far short of that ideal), massive economic inequity is now the plague
that chokes many families. Mass unemployment and underemployment are now
normative. Retail or service sector jobs that are part-time and without benefits
are now more the rule than the exception. The need for money to pay for lifes
essentials has forced many citizens to participate in what is often the only area where
employment is readily available the underground economy. This has resulted in a
dramatic increase in prison rates.
All of this greatly affects children, from the kindergartener who must live with
the reality that her father is in jail to the senior who is faced with the question of
whether a college education will be a financially wise investment. It is with this in
mind that those in public education must not talk of reform, especially as that term
has been hijacked by those who wish to reform education in such a manner as to
secure the current financial and social status quo by manufacturing commonsense
through a rigid set of high-stakes standardized tests, Common Core curriculum,
and de-professionalized (teacher-free) pedagogies. Rather, educators must seek to
critically transform the relationships that occur in the classroom and throughout the
system as a whole.
At a recent open house for parents of kindergarten students in the town of Sharon,
Massachusetts (ranked by Money Magazine and CNN in 2013 as being the best
small town in the US in which to live, and consistently rated as being one of the top
xxxiii

T. LAVALLEE

100 schools districts in the country), the schools principal spoke at length about the
districts curriculum, designed, in part, to make these little five and six year olds
globally competitive. Never mind the fact that the focus of the discussion was on
children who still need help brushing their teeth and getting dressed in the morning,
but the question needs to be asked, what is meant by competition? What are these
children competing for? Against who? For jobs? What jobs? And, moreover, why is
there this need for competition?
This is the modern sensibility of schooling. Though the commonsense of schools
as a means primarily to train students for the workforce has been ingrained since the
beginning of formalized education, and to some degree that bared some relevance,
apart from becoming human capital or the creators of intellectual property that will
end up being owned by a corporation, for what purpose does education still hold
future employment as its primary objective when jobs to say nothing of good,
meaningful jobs are few and far between1? And, as far as college preparedness
being an objective of schools, again, to what end when an undergraduate degree will
only slightly increase a persons chance of obtaining meaningful employment and/
or slightly increase his or her pay rate, but at the cost of putting oneself in massive
debt that will likely negate any financial benefit a university diploma can offer. Such
is the dilemma in a time of mass joblessness and academic inflation where jobs that
once required a high school degree are now only accepting applicants who have a
masters degree or higher.
Employment opportunities also are subject to the economic laws of supply and
demand, where increased unemployment among those with graduate degrees and
Ph.Ds who are flooding job openings with their resumes make the prospects of
attaining a career seem virtually impossible for those with only a high school or
undergraduate degree. These individuals are then forced to seek advanced higher
education, which in turn causes the two-fold effect of putting citizens deeper into
personal debt and further exasperating the problems of academic inflation, which
then threatens to create a deeper proletarianization of all citizens, despite their
academic degrees.
And, so it is now the onus of all those involved in education to move beyond
reform and work to transform. To some, this means developing critical curricula
and pedagogies that create civically-minded citizens. To others, it means bringing
revolutionary ideologies into the classroom that push against capitalisms
modernity. Still to others it means tinkering with education in order to create social
transformation.
In spite of all the different ideologies, theories, and views that are presented in
this book, educators must find strength in their differences to unite, not divide, in
the common goal of transforming education to be a means of transforming society in
such a way as to resist and reverse the contemporary capital trends that are infecting
and often to deadly degrees the common good. Schools must not continue to
reproduce the conditions for the production of an inequitable society. The current
xxxiv

PERSONAL NOTE

trajectory of capitalism and its effects upon families and communities cannot be
sustained, and thus education must develop new sensibilities to prepare students for
the radically new world that awaits, be it for better or worse.
Thad LaVallee
Dartmouth, MA
10 October 2013
NOTE
1

Stanley Aronowitz (2013) makes the distinction between work and jobs where there exist lots
of work, jobs are much more scarce, where jobs are defined as employment opportunities that offer a
living wage, benefits, vacation time, pension plans, upward corporate mobility, and, in general, what
can be defined as a lifelong career.

REFERENCES
Aronowitz, S. (2008). Against Schooling: For an education that matters. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.
Harvey, D. (2003). The New Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Reich, R. (2007). Supercapitalism: The transformation of business, democracy, and everyday life. Toronto:
Alfred A. Knopf.

xxxv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The creation of the Critical Transformative Leadership and Policy conference and
this book could not have been possible without the efforts of a great number of people.
First and foremost, a profound debt of gratitude is owed to all those who lent their
voices to these crucial dialogues as attendees and participants of the conference. We
also must given humble thanks to Deborah Meier and Kenneth Saltman for helping
make this inaugural event a success.
The conference and this book would have been impossible without the leadership,
wisdom, patience, guidance, and transformative capabilities of Joo M. Paraskeva,
Mark Paige, and Ricardo Rosa. And it goes without saying that the support of the
University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth and its faculty and staff was key to being
able to host this event.
Finally, deep and lasting thanks must be given to those who tirelessly sacrificed to
create and put on this conference. The Counterhegemonics: Amy Darling, Dominique
Branco, Joe da Silva, Gary Marden, Teresa Mascarenhas, Jen Pacheco, Ben Parsons,
and Kate Warren. And the Synoptics: Chad Argotsinger, David Chandler, Soraya
de Barros, Eva dos Santos, Melissa Hammond, Oksana Jackim, Elizabeth Janson,
Isaya Odiembo, Greg Sethares, Carmelia Silva, Joel Singer, Lisa Whelan, Warley
Williams, and Halley Zanconato.

xxxvii

DEBORAH MEIER

1.WHAT IS A FACT? AND WHO CAN WE /

SHOULD WE TRUST?1

The number one habit of mind that we based our work at Mission Hill, Central
Park East schools on: how do we know what we know and how credible is it? With
all the education talk about evidence-based and data driven reform youd think
wed stop for a moment and ask ourselves how much school evidence/data we can
truly count on? Or even scarier how do we know anything beyond our first-hand
knowledge?
I just finished reading a blog by Diane Ravitch about Geoffrey Canadas work
in Harlem which, in turn, is based on a blog by Gary Rubenstein. Rubenstein gives
facts and figures to (1) prove Canadas proclaimed graduation rates arent honest,
(2) show that Canadas success depends heavily on the incredible fiscal resources he
has access to, (3) remind us that Canada built his rep without acknowledging that he
kicked out two entire classes because they didnt get good test scores, and (4) that
he denies all the above.
But in a field in which I know a lot I no longer believe anyones data; thus exposing
Canada hardly matters! Not even my own facts! Sometimes I dont convince
even me! I know too much about my own temptation to pick and choose evidence
that confirms my beliefs to assume that my allies and enemies arent similarly
influenced. At any one moment the temptation to lie, fudge or obscure negative data
can be either trivial or critical. The higher the stakes that rely on the data the greater
the temptation like e.g. bonuses, reputation, livelihood, jail to look for the best
and hide the worst. The GAO claims that 33 states cheat, but I believe it relies on an
old-fashioned rule no explicit prepping for a specific test.
So I wonder, is my nostalgia for a time when I believed most facts just that
false memory? Or even worse, stupidness on my part? I suspect some of it was
stupid and some naivet. After all, I long ago noticed that the NY Times never got a
story quite right if it was one I happened to know a lot about where I was there,
for example. But I still kept/keep, sort of, believing all the information they offer on
what I dont know much about.
I remember an anarchist friend of mine disputing my claim that people were living
longer today than they had a hundred years earlier. When asked why I believed it,
I mentioned as one example, census data. He lashed into me about my naivet in
believing government-sponsored data. I felt sorry for him because how can one cope

J. M. Paraskeva & T. LaVallee (Eds.), Transformative Researchers and Educators for Democracy, 15.
2015 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

D.Meier

with a world where you cannot know who and what is a fact. It surely makes even
flawed democracy a utopian dream.
Im in his boat now, and it feels awful.
Close to home, for example, I know how easy it is to fudge graduation data, dropout data, class-size data, attendance data, GPA averages, test scores, and on and on.
Ive even dabbled in a few of these myself. Its hard to get caught unless someone
is really after you or youve let too many people in on the secret.
Therefore should we stop collecting the stuff? Maybe. At least I feel comfortable
saying we (1) shouldnt be collecting new stuff with high stakes attached, and (2)
should remain very skeptical especially if, on the basis of ones personal knowledge,
the data seems miraculous or peculiar.
I used to carefully scan the ranked test score reports in the NY Times. (It began
in the 1960s). Schools were ranked in order of scores, and the story indicated both
this years scores and last years. What I soon noticed were occasional great leaps or
declines which seemed unlikely if we were actually comparing oranges to oranges.
Either something happened such as the school having suddenly become the site
of the Districts gifted program, or a new principal was no longer inflating scores
as his/her predecessor did. (She/he may not have even known they were inflated.)
I checked some and it confirmed my suspicions. Others I had no way to confirm or
deny. Similarly, years ago I witnessed an enormous rise in attendance in our high
schools following a new chancellors demand that we focus on attendance (they
cant learn if theyre not there.) Until I realized we had simultaneously, and not
secretly, changed the class period when attendance was officially taken from first
to third, I believe.
Drop-out figures? They are hard to count and arent simply the difference between
the number of 8th graders vs. 10th, or 9th vs. 12th (although big discrepancies in
either requires some explaining). After all, kids leave one school for another some
of which can be verified, some not. After all, families move to other cities, states, and
countries. Also some can be accounted for by hold-overs unless one looks into the 5
and 6 year graduating rate. Wed need a team of detectives per school to follow-up
and even then its problematic how much they could discover. Except for rare dropin visits to count a random sample of classes, we are pretending schools are telling
the truth. Maybe there are more honest principals out there than one might think. But
even the few who are more careless, lets say, are rarely accused. Both the cost
and the morale impact of being continually inspected for the truth would be beyond
immense. (Store-keepers, bankers, you name it, have reached the same conclusion
and have invented annoying ways to keep us honest, but not themselves).
I could go on and on. Every time we institute a new policy to catch wrong-doers,
most of us act just like our students, we put our minds to new ways to get around the
new rules. The last fiscal crisis being a good example. Its easier than improving the
school (economy) in ways that will show up on high stakes rank-order lists.
A wonderful friend of mine (and of many other school people) ran a high school
that took all the kids others wanted to get rid of. He never said no if there was
2

What Is A Fact? And Who Can We / Should We Trust?

a space. And the kids he took were grateful because he really cared about them.
But after many years, some reporter decided to expose him by noting the schools
relatively low attendance rate and relatively high drop-out data. He was, the story
suggested, a phony who had been getting away with this for years. My friend soon
retired and afterwards died under sad circumstances. Of course, were it not for him
other feeder schools would have had worse data. And, I wonder, would he have
served his students better had he been willing to fudge the data?
The world is a worse place when we feel that maybe we should lie in order to
do good.
So where do I go with this? Ive reached a few possibly useful conclusions to start
with. To lessen the reasons to lie, the stakes must not be too high; and to increase the
reasons to tell the truth, the consequences must be helpful (Campbells Law). Then
we need to make it easier for the truth to be naturally exposed where lying would
require too much collaboration from too many people to last long. (Thats what I
usually count on truth will win out over time when I hear outrageous conspiracy
theories.) Thats one reason I like small schools. Assuming that people generally
trust data that supports what they otherwise know first-hand, school size helps check
lying too much. If I say 100% graduated, hopefully some kids, teachers, and parents
simply know better because they know better; they remember. And on and on. There
was a story in the media some years ago about a speech in which the valedictorian
started off by asking the graduates to look round and think about their freshman
classmates those who were no longer with them, who hadnt made it.
But, we have to rely on some facts just to get out of bed each morning. But
how much further from our own self-knowledge can we rely on the evidence?
In short, not far. Restoring confidence in the facts while retaining sufficient
skepticism is a tough balancing act. Its what, ideally, schools, the media, the courts
(and friends) are there for. Ive come to believe that the first order of the day for any
reformer is: figure this puzzle out. The answers must, I fear, finally rest in human
judgment; but judgment can be trained, improved upon and what better place for
doing this than schools.
Yes, smallness is one partial answer. Openness is another. Not getting so tangled
up in our fear of intruders that we lock everything up would help (and then we get
hacked, etc.). Lots of opportunities for families and schools to share information
more and more family conferences to clarify the self-serving lies that even the best
kids occasionally tell. Especially if the kids are at such meetings too so they can
check on misleading claims adults sometimes indulge in. It also means tackling the
isms above all racism. Its this and all the small disrespectful acts that go with
it, that cannot help but undermine trust.
We discovered (from others, including good private schools) the value of visiting
teams of respected colleagues and experts who come and spend time on a regular
basis as we did at CPESS and on some level also at Mission Hill. Let them look
over our records, our curriculum, our assessment tools and interview a sample of
parents, teachers, and students. Sit in classes. Then at the end, after reading their
3

D.Meier

reports, we enjoy an open free-for-all, followed often by a written faculty response.

These were NOT for high-stakes purposes, but ways of checking for useful and
helpful feedback. It helps also if the school culture rests on frequent teacher-toteacher visits, drop-ins, etc.
How to shift the balance? How much of it must be mandated from above? How
far above? Who should have access to what? What protections are needed from
harmful or premature disclosures or should there be none? What we say here,
stays here may at times be critical for healthy discussion if so, how do we provide
for that too? We need to leave room for discussing those white lies that even the
strictest truth-teller might or might not occasionally indulge in. And we need to
help young people sort these out too, without undue fear. The value of making such
habits of mind explicit and user-friendly takes time and effort.
How might we try some of these ideas out on an experimental level? It is probably
the narrative that goes with them that will or will not help persuade others to follow
not the statistical part. The primary tool of a democracy is persuasion. The facts
are part of trying to persuade. Generally, we stick with what we have been believing
until someone we trust a lot on a personal basis presents an eye-witness report that
forces us to consider the possibility that Im wrong. We have to respect how hard
it to persuade people theyre wrong. For as Thomas Kuhn said in discussing the
search for scientific proof sticking with ones current viewpoint is not a bad idea.
If we have no commitment to our ideas we will never know whether they are right
or wrong. We need accommodate new truths to old ones for as long as we can. But
also it shouldnt be too uncomfortable to switch sides eventually one should be
able to drop practices or beliefs that even you have begun to be skeptical about and
try out a few that you used to shun. Its easier if you are also able to revert! Watching
good teachers caused me to reconsider some of my pedagogical certainties: like
the value of choral reading (and not just of music). Even about lining-up routines;
although Ive also questioned why we need to line-up so often!
It was even exciting when I came back from visiting a city (Minneapolis) that
never lined kids up, to ask colleagues why we needed them.
Im also, as I finish this, thinking about how the other four habits of mind serve
as a partial check on the first. Number 2 usually is something like this: how else
might it appear, look to others? The third asks about perceived patterns, the fourth
asks what if and the last asks, who cares and does it matter? There are probably
dozens of other habits of mind that we use as we delve deeper and deeper into the
usually unending search for knowledge. But then the dilemma is: habits depend on
frequent use in many different settings.
The crisis, so-called, in American education is a symptom of a crisis of trust
which in turn poses a crisis for democracy writ large as an idea itself. If we are
not to give up, we need schools, families and communities that start to carefully
rebuild trust within their own four walls, and base it on losing the fear that we might,
on occasion, be wrong. No institution I know, alas, presently values being wrong less
4

What Is A Fact? And Who Can We / Should We Trust?

than our K-12 schools. We might as well start there. Maybe if we do we can reverse
the trends of the past few decades or distrust at all levels of society.
NOTE
1

The conferences keynote address, delivered Dr. Meier, was largely an unscripted dialogue consisting
of her reminiscences, experiences, theories, and how all those combine to shape her educational
activism today. At her request and with her written permission, this is a republication of an article
appearing on her website that captures the general tone, feel, and substance of the keynote address she
presented.

KENNETH J. SALTMAN

2.DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION AGAINST CORPORATE

SCHOOL REFORM
The New Market Bureaucracy in U.S. Public Schooling1

INTRODUCTION

Corporate school reform or neoliberal educational restructuring aggressively

expands privatization, standardized testing, and the standardization of knowledge,
curriculum, and pedagogy. As it does so, it casts educational problems not through the
democratic language of civic engagement, public interest, and shared and contested
human values and interests, but rather through business terminology, metaphors,
and ideology.2 Thus, corporate school reform positions its reforms in what are in fact
ideological terms that its proponents present as apolitical, neutral, and of universal
value. Students and parents become consumers of private educational services
rather than public citizens. Public school administrators are imagined as private
sector managers, CEOs, and entrepreneurs rather than public servants dedicated to
the public interest. Teachers become delivery agents of discreet bits of knowledge
treated as commodities rather than as public intellectuals responsible for fostering
in students the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to link knowledge to
broader public issues and social struggles. Tragically and dangerously, corporate
school reform eviscerates the development of democratic forms of public schooling
that can teach, encourage, and animate, public thought, critical citizenship, critical
consciousness, and engaged public participation. These public aspects of public
schooling are of dire importance as public culture in the United States becomes
increasingly marked by irrationalism in numerous domains. As corporate models of
reform intensify at the expense of a vibrant political culture irrationalism takes over.
The broader culture of irrationalism represents a changing relationship between
the public and knowledge. The democratic ideal of a citizen armed with knowledge
to act in the public arena is increasingly imperiled as the quality of information
throughout the public sphere and the capacity of citizens to evaluate information
are both in crisis. Corporate media consolidation has resulted in the near death
of investigative journalism while the majority of news content is now public
relations and nearly all (95%) online news is taken from what remains of traditional
newspapers.3 Citizens are inundated with a vast barrage of information and
edutainment while most have little sense of how to access or evaluate the quality
of information as television punditry, unvetted websites and blogs, advertising and
J. M. Paraskeva & T. LaVallee (Eds.), Transformative Researchers and Educators for Democracy, 722.
2015 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

K. J.Saltman

public relations comprise the vast majority of news content, and the vast majority
of news punditry is from the political right.4 At a time in which the credible and the
outlandish appear indistinguishable to many, and editorial processes are rendered
archaic, citizens do not have the tools with which to interpret and make sense of the
world they experience. Irrationalism has come to fill the vacuum of political and
public discourse in the form of conspiracy theory, hearsay and anecdote, propaganda,
political elections purchased for billions of dollars and waged with thirty second
advertisements, marketing fantasies, infotainment, 9/11 conspiracy plots, birther
secrets, medical conspiracy against vaccinations, secret chemicals in our drinking
water causing the obesity epidemic, Gods plot against homosexuals, etc. have taken
on greater prominence as social and historical explanations, research and science are
treated as equivalent to rumor, speculation, and opinion unsupported by evidence
and argumentation.
In this context, the continued upward redistribution of wealth and inequality in
income and the decline of upward mobility and life chances, the violence of poverty,
corporate capture of the public sphere, and political exclusion become explained
through emotionally potent simplifications which have been readily provided by
a corporate media culture organized around the principle of selling audiences to
advertisers.
This crisis of legitimation for quality information is matched by a crisis of
critical interpretive tools. The rise of irrationalism represents a public and a popular
educational crisis. As public education has an important role to play in providing
citizens with the intellectual tools of rational discourse, deliberation, and engagement,
public education is being radically remade by corporate school reform in ways that
hinder critical thought, the evaluation of knowledge, and the relationship between
claims to truth and the social forces informing their production. Interested knowledge
in the form of public relations is presented as disinterested news in mass media while
in concert in public education ever more public relations and advertising invades the
classroom in the form of school commercialism, sponsored educational materials,
and lessons in consumption.5 As political and material interests seep into every
last corner of public culture outside the classroom, inside the classroom the culture
(or cult) of standardized testing and standardized curriculum insists that there are
no politics to the curriculum or to pedagogy. Corporate school reform expands
irrationalism under the guise of a hyper-rationalism in which that which is deemed
worthy of knowing is only that which can be numerically quantified. The crucial
point is that at a time when it is imperative for citizens to understand the cultural
politics and political economic forces animating representations and undergirding
claims to truth, classroom pedagogy and curriculum are being overtaken by corporate
school reform that posits false claims to neutrality and that denies the politics of
knowledge, teaching and learning. It is not just standardized testing implicated in
the dangerous denial of politics but the broader phenomenon of what I call the
new market positivism at work in reducing all questions of knowledge, teaching
and learning to that which is numerically quantifiable and measurable. Recourse
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Democratic Education Against Corporate School Reform

to numbers in the new educational context takes on the guise of science while in
fact it furthers irrationalism as knowledge is decontextualized and understanding is
misrepresented as a collection of a world of facts, as if these facts do not require
interpretive frameworks and underlying theoretical assumptions.6
In the context of a rising irrationalism, mysticism, and public culture dominated by
image and fleeting opinion, numbers promise the allure of certainty, the suggestion
of scientific solidity. The institutionalization of high stakes standardized tests offers
the promise and the sheen of solidity and certainty in a world rendered abstract
through the principle of capitalist exchange applied everywhere.7 Under the sway
of neoliberal ideology, the suggestion that there is no alternative to the market has
produced what Mark Fisher calls market Stalinism, in which the appearance of
market efficiency trumps real efficiency.8 Such market Stalinism represents a world
in which all that is solid melts into public relations a world in which, as David
Simons television series The Wire accurately captured, the game of juking the
stats (creating foremost an appearance of ever improving numerical measures of
efficiency) comes to supersede reason or rationale grounded in public interest for
the policies and practices of teachers and administrators, police officers, politicians,
business people, and public workers. As the numbers game seeks to produce ever
better numbers, the pursuit of numbers above all else results in multiple perversions
of institutional values and purpose foreclosing the potential for democratic social
relations. This is happening in public education under the guise of promoting market
based efficiencies by cutting through public sector bureaucratic red tape.
THE NEOLIBERAL PROMISE OF DEBUREAUCRATIZING PUBLIC EDUCATION

One of the most important foundational metaphors for public school privatization
and neoliberal educational restructuring (or corporate school reform) that has
been promoted since the early 90s involves claims of the natural efficiencies
of markets and cutting through bureaucratic red tape. This argument against the
alleged bureaucratic inefficiency of the public sector and for the alleged managerial
efficiency of the private sector was launched by Chubb and Moes Politics, Markets,
and Americas Schools in 1990.9 Corporate school reformers have justified numerous
forms of privatization, including chartering, contracting, and vouchers, on the basis
of cutting through the bureaucratic inefficiencies of the public sector. The promise of
debureaucratization has been part of a string of market metaphors.
Since the publication of Chubb and Moes neoliberal educational bible, the debureaucratizing force of privatization has been promoted relentlessly in educational
policy, despite a lack of evidence for it. Yet, corporate school reforms, rather than
decreasing bureaucracy and increasing efficiencies in public schooling, have in fact
vastly expanded bureaucracy and created economic and operational inefficiencies.10
That is, corporate school reform has produced a privatized bureaucratic infrastructure
that has yet to be identified as such. Moreover, the question of expanding or shrinking
bureaucracy to a great extent conceals the ways that corporate school reforms achieve
9

K. J.Saltman

the redistribution of control and governance over policy and practice, curriculum
and administration as well as the redistribution of control over educational resources
by creating a new two-tiered system that is privatized at the bottom and undermining
the public and critical possibilities of public schools.
On the basis of efficient delivery of educational services, deregulation of public
controls has been enacted. Yet, these so-called deregulatory reforms have introduced
a vast new regulatory architecture. For example, charter schooling was supposed to
free schools and administrators from the bureaucratic constraints of districts to allow
for greater accountability (typically this means increased standardized test scores)
and decreased costs. Not only have studies of charters found lower standardized test
based performance than comparative traditional district schools, but the EMOs that
manage charters have higher costs allocated to administration.11 Also, the charter
movement (and choice more generally) bankrolled disproportionately by the
Gates foundation has introduced entirely new layers of bureaucracy into the school
system, such as public relations schemes to market schools to parents, entire new
organizations at the local, state, and national level to grease the entry of charters
into districts and research centers churning out dubious advocacy, reports, and
studies to push the various aspects of the privatization agenda.12 Take for example
Chicago which has at the local level the Renaissance Schools Fund with its $100
million budget to lobby and promote charters, at the state level the Illinois Charter
School Association, at the national level the National Charter School Association,
the Alliance for School Choice, the Charter School Growth Fund and New School
Venture Fund, the venture philanthropies such as Gates, Broad, and Walton to name
a few. This is to say nothing of the vast new in-school bureaucratic impositions
on teachers and administrators who have been transformed into paper pushing
edupreneurs encouraged to be constantly hustling for private money to maintain
basic operations. The crucial insight to be gleaned from this is that in the name of
efficiency, bureaucracy has not been eliminated or necessarily even reduced, but
rather it has resulted in a shift in governance and control of school operations and
policy formation subjecting teachers and administrators to an entirely new array of
market oriented bureaucracy. The new market bureaucracy, though largely not for
profit, plays a central support role for rapidly expanding private sector markets in
the form of for profit educational management companies, contracting, consulting,
publishing and technology companies that are raking in billions of dollars through
chartering, vouchers, turnarounds, database tracking. In terms of teaching, one utterly
obvious cost of this shift is that teachers spend their time doing an overwhelming
amount of paperwork, dealing with so-called accountability measures rather than
preparing for lessons or developing as intellectuals. Less obvious are the ways that
teaching becomes deskilled and degraded as curriculum is not to be developed but
rather delivered. Teaching becomes robotic, less about intellectual development and
more about adhering to prescribed methodological approaches. More significantly
such prescriptive methodologies fostered by the new market bureaucracy also
disallow a focus on the specific educational context and student experience,
10

Democratic Education Against Corporate School Reform

rendering critical pedagogical approaches impossible.13 Critical pedagogies ideally

begin with student experience and educative contexts to foster interpretation of how
broader social forces produce these contexts and experiences and they do this as the
basis for social intervention. While critical pedagogies aim to expand understanding
of the production of both knowledge and subjective experience, prescriptive
methodologies aim to decontextualize knowledge and reduce comprehension of
experience to the individual. Even less obvious are the ways that such deskilling
becomes the means for installing conservative ideologies at odds with public and
critical forms of schooling.
THE NEW MARKET BUREAUCRACY IN PUBLIC SCHOOLING

The new market bureaucracy in public schooling can be divided into at least three
categories for conceptual clarity. First, the new market bureaucracy involves
the shift to what Im calling the new market positivism that is, numerically
quantifiable performance outcomes and the bureaucratic apparatuses put in place
to control teachers, administrators, and students and to transform curriculum and
pedagogy. Second, the new market bureaucracy involves linking the new market
positivism to the institutionalization and the funding of entirely new strata of
bureaucratic organizations dedicated to furthering the corporate agendas of
privatization, deregulation, and standardization, charter support organizations,
venture philanthropies14, district support organizations and lobbying infrastructure.
Third, the new market bureaucracy imports into public schooling business expenses
and rationales that have financial and social costs such as public relations and
advertising required of both public and privatized schools and real estate deals
with chartering organizations, funding for market style competitions for private
funds or public funds to implement corporate reforms such as Race to the Top, the
Broad Prize, the Milken Prize, etc. This third form of the new market bureaucracy
involves the use of billions of dollars in private foundation money, especially from
the large venture philanthropists Gates, Broad, and Walton to influence and steer
public policy. This foundation wealth, which is only possible through tax incentives,
effectively redistributes control over public policy to private super rich individuals.
Thus, the public pays to give away control over public institutions.15
THE NEW MARKET POSITIVISM IN THE DOMINANT EDUCATIONAL REFORMS

Positivism is at the center of dominant educational reforms that are modeled on

corporate culture and a private-sector vision of management, growth, and quality.
Standardized testing is at the center of all the following: No Child Left Behind
and its blueprint for reauthorization, Race to the Top; the push for value-added
assessment; the creation of database tracking projects to longitudinally measure
teacher performance on students standardized tests; the linkage of teacher evaluation
and pay to such standardized test-based measures; the imposition of urban portfolio
11

K. J.Saltman

districts legislative moves to stifle the power of teachers unions; the unbridled
entry of corporate managers into school reform by-passing professional educators
and educational scholarship; and the use of corporate media to frame educational
problems and solutions. Standardized testing has also been at the center of the push
for charter school expansion and the expansion of for-profit management companies
running schools.
These dominant reforms share a common logic with regard to standardized
testing. Test scores that are low in relation to the norm are used to justify policies
such as regressive funding formulas (NCLB), imperatives for corporate reforms like
turnarounds (NCLB and Race to the Top), school closures (NCLB and Race to the
Top), and school privatizations. Corporate reformers use the alleged objectivity of
the standardized tests to champion corporate reforms that lack scholarly or empirical
justification. This alleged objectivity dooms the public schools under scrutiny, but
the reforms put forward by the corporate reformers are not held to the same standards.
For example, charter schools, No Child Left Behind, and for-profit management of
schools can be fairly described as failed corporate educational reforms that do not
increase standardized test scores, and no evidence for the success of turnarounds and
portfolio districts exists. Indeed, the proponents of portfolio districts which model
districts on a stock portfolio and the superintendent as a stock investor contend
that it is impossible to measure the success of such models in terms of the same
standardized testing that they use to justify implementation.
As the corporate reforms have failed to succeed on the proponents grounds
(higher test scores), proponents have responded with two strategies. The first is
willful ignorance. Policy elites such as the Secretary of Education, the venture
philanthropists, charter school associations, and right-wing think tanks have
continued, for example, to wrongly assert the success of charters and for-profit
management companies and to insist on the need to continue NCLB (albeit slightly
tweaked). The other strategy has been to change the rules of the game. This has
been most evident with the failure of the charter movement to prove itself in terms
of the test score improvements that justified its corporate backers. With a lack of
test-based evidence, a number of policy makers have come out suggesting other
measures to determine charters a success. Eugenicist, Harvard professor, and coauthor of the Bell Curve, Charles Murray, wrote explicitly about the need to change
the measure in a New York Times op-ed.16 Charters, it seems, were justified for
implementation based on the low test scores of public schools, but the same criteria
should not be used to justify their continuation. Likewise, Paul Hill, who leads
the pro-privatization Center for Reinventing Public Education at the University of
Washington, explained in his reports on creating portfolio districts that the measure
of the success of charters and other privatizations should be the implementation
of these reforms rather than the rise in test scores.17 The Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation has been the single largest funder of charter school expansion for
schools, districts, and numerous charter support organizations at the local, state,
and national levels. Since succeeding in getting the dubious charter movement made,
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Democratic Education Against Corporate School Reform

a central element of the federal education agenda in Race to the Top and NCLB,
the Gates Foundations reauthorization efforts have never admitted that evidence
does not back its billions in spending. Instead, it continues to pour money into
charters and other reforms more closely tied to standardized testing. For example,
the foundation is pushing to expand value-added assessment and to link it to teacher
pay, and to link value-added assessment to video surveillance. These reforms aim to
deduce a methodology for teaching practice that will raise test scores and that can
be forced on numerous teachers.
The New Market Positivism can also be found in the market based rearticulation
of the language of schooling for social justice. While Secretary of Education
Arne Duncan regularly describes education as the most important social justice
and civil rights issue today, he then asserts that the imperatives for test based
measures of educational quality and privatizations are the solution to the historical
injustices he registers. Duncan is not alone. The Gates and Broad Foundations
explain their push for test-based reforms, especially database tracking of student
tests scores, as intended to close the achievement gap. Duncan, Gates, Broad
and other proponents of the new market positivism share a number of related
assumptions about knowledge, the self, and the society. Knowledge in this view is
to be efficiently delivered and does not need to be comprehended in relation to its
conditions of production or interpretation. In other words, the subjective positions of
the claimant of truths do not need to be investigated, nor do the objective conditions
which give rise to particular interpretations need to be comprehended. The self in
this static view of knowledge ought to accumulate ever more knowledge towards
the end of measurable achievement and instrumental action linked to economic
utility. Within this view, social justice is not to be achieved by collective action
and aspirations for reconceptualizing and impacting the social world. Instead,
social justice for the new market positivists becomes an individualized pursuit in
which disciplined consumption of pre-ordained knowledge creates the possibilities
for inclusion into a social order presumed to be fundamentally just. This of course
has little to do with social justice in the sense of transforming the economy either
by ameliorating the devastating effects and dire inequalities of wealth and income
of capitalism through social democratic welfare state controls. Nor does it have to
do with more fundamentally transforming the political governance of capitalism
through democratizing relations of production and consumption. As well, this
conception of social justice has no sense of transforming the culture to value dissent,
disagreement, difference, and dialogue which are the lifeblood of democratic social
relations. Instead, this version of social justice imposes a singular value of individual
economic inclusion in a corporate economy that by its nature is exclusionary.
The ubiquitous concepts of student achievement, the achievement gap and
the call across the political spectrum to close the achievement gap all presume that
achievement is measured by standardized testing. Student achievement naturalizes,
neutralizes, and universalizes class and culturally specific knowledge establishing
norms, comparing, and ranking in relation to the norm, all the while disavowing
13

K. J.Saltman

the politics of knowledge informing the selection and framing of knowledge on

the tests. The denial of the politics of knowledge is then further deepened by the
concept of the achievement gap which suggests that the test outcomes indicate
how racial and ethnic groups fare in relation to the norm. In the spirit and legacy
of cultural imperialism and colonialism, racial and ethnic cultural differences are
ignored and denied in the making of the standardized tests but then differences are
invoked to demand that the ordained knowledge be consumed and displayed on the
tests.18 In this view cultural differences and struggles over their meaning are not at
the center of teaching and learning an object of analysis that could form the basis for
emancipatory pedadgogies that comprehend claims to truth in relation to the social
positioning of individuals and groups. Instead, cultural differences in the new market
positivism are only to be registered as something to be overcome as all students are
required to take in the dogma.
THE NEW MARKET POSITIVISM

Though the criticism of positivism in Fordist public schooling came and largely
went at the end of the Fordist era and the transition to post-Fordism, the culture of
positivism (what I am calling here the new market positivism) has been at the
center of the new forms of market based educational restructuring in the last twenty
years.19 The new market positivism is typified by the reinvigorated expansion of
longstanding positivist approaches to schooling: standardized testing, standardization
of curriculum, the demand for policy grounded exclusively in allegedly scientific
empirically-based pedagogical reforms that (unlike science) lack elaborated framing
assumptions or adequate theorization, the drumbeat against educational theory and
in favor of a practicalism that insists that facts speak for themselves and that
untheorized experience is the arbiter of truth. The new market positivism signals the
use of these longstanding approaches towards the expansion of multiple forms of
educational privatization.
In part, what is new and different now is the use of positivism in coordination
with corporate/corporeal control: 1) the use of positivism to justify various forms of
public school privatization a shift in the ownership and control of public schools,
but also a shift in the culture of schools, their curricula and pedagogies; 2) repression
in schools such as militarized and prisonized schooling, efficiency models for poor
students and schools that aim at total control of the body and that justify expulsion
through the failure of the student to be totally controlled this is the flip side of
the singular promise of economic freedom and choice and self realization through
consumption and work. These forms of control are typified by the use of drugs in
schools for educational competition.
For richer students, the corporeal/corporate controls take the form largely of
pharma-control medicating students into attention (add/adhd upper drugs such
as Ritalin and Adderall) which is coordinated with educational competition and
economic competition. Pharma control also is used to medicate students out of
14

Democratic Education Against Corporate School Reform

depression/panic/anxiety (various anti-depression anti-anxiety downer drugs such

as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Xanax, etc.). The logic of charter schools is shared by these
control approaches: loosen up controls (de-democratize, privatize, de-unionize), but
then demand test-based accountability defined through testing (positivism). The
New Market Positivism evinces a new relationship between freedom and unfreedom.
The student is promised the chance to be disciplined into being an entrepreneurial
subject, to compete educationally in order to compete economically. Pharma-control
drugs when not given medically are being used illicitly by students for the very same
ends: in order to compete educationally to compete economically.
What is crucially different between the old positivism and the New Market
Positivism is the ways that the old positivism neutralized, naturalized, and
universalized social and cultural reproduction under the guise of the public good,
the public interest, but also individual values of humanist education. During the
Fordist hidden curriculum era, the economic role of schooling as a sorting and
sifting mechanism for the capitalist economy was largely denied. As Bourdieu and
Passeron pointed out, mechanisms such as testing simultaneously stratify based on
class while concealing how merit and talent stand in for the unequal distribution
of life chances.20 The new market positivism still neutralizes, naturalizes, and
universalizes the reproduction of the class order through schooling. But the new
market positivism also openly naturalizes and universalizes a particular economic
basis for all educational relationships (schooling for work, schooling for economic
competition) while justifying a shift in governance and control over educational
institutions to private parties. Testing, database projects designed to boil down
the allegedly most efficient knowledge delivery systems and reward and punish
teachers and students these are not only at the center of pedagogical, curricular,
and administrative reform, but unlike during the era of the hidden curriculum, they
are openly justified through the allegedly universal benefits of capitalism. The new
market positivism subjects all to standardization and normalization of knowledge,
denying the class and cultural interests, the political struggle behind the organization
and framing of claims to truth. The trend rejects critical and democratic pedagogies
that make power, politics, history, and ethics central to teaching and learning and
that accord with the values of democratic community. The new market positivism
links its denial and concealment of the politics of knowledge to its open and
aggressive application of capitalist ideology to every aspect of public schooling.
The positivism of the hidden curriculum era concealed the politics of knowledge
to conceal the capitalist ideology structuring public education. Put bluntly, the
reproduction of the stratified workforce, the unequal distribution of life chances and
so on were made to appear natural, neutral, and unquestionable in the era of the
hidden curriculum, undermining the capacity of public schools to function as critical
public spheres. The new market positivism still conceals the politics of knowledge,
but it does so while redefining individual and collective opportunity strictly through
open reference to a supreme value on capitalism. The intensified testing, control of
time, and standardization regimens of the new market positivism further threaten
15

K. J.Saltman

the possibilities for teachers to teach against the grain (as Roger Simon describes it)
and to engage in critical pedagogical practices. The New Market Positivism effects
a kind of deep privatization in the sense that it renders public schools places that are
less open to struggle for public values, identifications, and interpretations, thereby
reducing the social space of non-commercial values, ideas, and ideologies.
INSTITUTIONALIZING THE NEW MARKET POSITIVISM IN
THE NEW PRIVATIZED BUREAUCRACY

Jeff Edmondson, president of the Strive Together National Cradle to Career Network
that partners with public schools to do turnarounds is, according to writer David
Bornstein, leading a national effort for establishing data war rooms in schools
for data driven instruction, data driven administration, etc. As Edmundson
explains in the New York Times, The key to making a partnership work is setting a
common vision and finding a common language. You cant let people get focused on
ideological or political issues. You need a common language to bring people together
and that language is the data.21 Edmundson concisely and powerfully describes the
denial of politics behind the new market positivism. On the one hand there is a
universal assumption that the aim of such reform is to increase student test scores
towards global economic competition, that is, capitalist inclusion. On the other
hand, there is a denial that such an agenda for education is of course profoundly
political. Take a particularly glaring class example. Those who own industry and
seek to maximize profit by minimizing labor costs do not share a common set of
interests, for example, with those workers who will be forced to sell their time and
labor power to the owners in a position to exploit it. The politics of labor is perhaps
more concretely understood by the fact that Strive Together is affiliated with the
organization Stand for Kids that advocates limiting public teachers collective
bargaining rights in Cincinatti Public Schools and is linked to Michelle Rhees New
Teacher Project (and National Council on Teacher Quality NCTQ) that aims for
privatization, union busting, pay for test scores, the end of teacher job security, less
educated and less experienced teachers, etc. Data can be creatively manipulated or
utterly ignored when in the service of this ideological agenda pushed by Rhee and
The New Teacher Project, NCTQ, Hanushek, Finn, Peterson and the usual cast of
corporate school reformers affiliated with Hoover, Fordham, AEI, Heritage, and the
other rightist think tanks.22 Data as the common language provides a way actively
to deny the sometimes incommensurably different values, histories, and interests of
different groups.
As Mark Fisher details in his book Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?,
the new market bureaucracy that has overtaken public schooling installs an audit
culture in which it is not performance of teachers and students that is compared
but rather comparison between the audited representation of that performance and
output. (2008, pp. 4243).

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Democratic Education Against Corporate School Reform

As numerical test output targets become the end of schooling in the new market
bureaucracy, as Fisher puts it, if students are less skilled and knowledgeable than
their predecessors, this is due not to a decline in the quality of examinations per se,
but to the fact that all of the teaching is geared towards passing the exams. Narrowly
focused exam drill replaces a wider engagement with subjects (2008, pp. 4344).
As Fisher observes, more effort ends up expended on generating and representing
the outputs, which in education take the form of manipulated test data, than on
improving the quality and depth of instruction that is, the process of teaching itself.
CONCLUSION

Theodor Adornos concept of what drives the allure of positivism is the promise
of the concrete in the world of abstraction/alienation produced by a social world
characterized by market exchange in which everything is turned into equivalences.23
What we have now is a new, ever-more control and output oriented educational
system in which numbers allegedly dictate. Yet we have policy implementation that
is utterly at odds with both empirical evidence for reforms (charters and EMOs)
within the positivist assumptions, and we have the public purposes of schooling
being elided by these control and output oriented bureaucratic reforms along with an
explicit justification of all policy on the basis of individual participation in capitalism
a system represented as the only game in town, not just economically, but politically
and culturally as well. The triumph then, as Fisher points out, is an ascendancy
of schooling as public relations in which everyone knows the lie but plays along
anyway. As charters and EMOs show worse to par test scores with traditional public
schools in comparisons, those at the center of the audit culture (such as the venture
philanthropists like the Gates and Broad Foundations) change the audit criteria
from standardized test scores to graduation and college enrollment rates.24 What is
crucial to the public assenting to such policies is the ongoingly produced pedagogies
that educate subjects ideologically and that also fosters a culture of cynicism about
intervening to challenge audit culture and the new market positivism.
We need to rethink the accusations of bureaucratic red tape that has been a
core part of the corporate reform agenda. What most teachers and administrators
experience in schools is a new market bureaucracy that has been installed and
expanded under the guise of market efficiencies. Fisher offers a succinct and
powerful antidote to the new market bureaucracy. He calls for demanding fulfillment
of the promises for de-bureaucratization instilled through neoliberalism. In other
words, for Fisher we should take the neoliberal imperative for cutting bureaucratic
red tape seriously but direct this imperative towards market driven audit culture. In
education this means aiming to dismantle the market bureaucracy and its frenzied
pursuit of ever more numerical representations of educational progress.
While the logic of empiricism has overtaken educational debates, demanding
that everything be justified with an evidentiary basis, in reality the reforms are
being implemented principally through the justification of market ideologies and
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K. J.Saltman

metaphors that most often run contrary to the evidence of proponents. Whether it
is charter schools, for-profit management companies, vouchers, so-called portfolio
districts, NCLB, or competitions like Race to the Top, implementation is based not
on evidence but on market advocacy. The new market positivism is characterized by
a triumph of irrationalism under the guise of rationality; a new bureaucracy under
the guise of efficiency; audit culture and unaccountability at the top masquerading as
accountability; extension of repressive bodily and hierarchical institutional controls
defended through reference to freedom and opportunity; anti-intellectualism and
destruction of the conditions for creativity pushed on the basis of the need to produce
creatively minded workers and entrepreneurs; and a denial of intellectual process,
curiosity, debate, and dialogue justified on the basis of intellectual excellence. There
is a kind of emptiness at the core of the new market positivism in that it is less about
making decisions based on the imperative for empirical evidence and conceptual
justification and more about using evidence when convenient for the ends of
amassing elite control. In education, corporate bureaucracy is being installed and
expanded, yet as Wall Street is discovering, corporate bureaucracy may have seen its
best days. The editor of the Wall Street Journal, Alan Murray, in August 2010 argued
that corporate bureaucracy is becoming obsolete.25 Wall Street subjects teachers
and students, administrators and citizens to the sloughed-off detritus of corporate
culture. Meanwhile, business prescriptions for education are exactly what business
is discarding for business.
What the teachers unions, education scholars, teachers, and everyone concerned
about strengthening public education has to grasp is that as long as the framing of
educational quality remains trapped within the current frame of allegedly neutral
and allegedly objective quantifiable student achievement, public education
stands to be dismantled. The kind of schooling pushed by the privatization advocates
and centrally aided by the new market positivism aims to transform the historical
dual system of public schooling into another dual system of public schooling. In the
historical dual system, elite public schools in rich, predominantly white communities
prepare managers, leaders, and professionals for the top of the economy and the state
while the underfunded public schools in poor, working class, and predominantly
non-white communities prepares the docile, disciplined workforce for the bad jobs at
the bottom of the economy and for exclusion from the economy altogether. Despite
the ceaseless neoliberal and liberal rhetoric of crisis and failure, the public schools,
as Freire, Bourdieu, Ollman and others recognize, do exactly what they are supposed
to do: they produce the stratified workforce while sanctifying inequality as a matter
of individual merit or talent.26 The neoliberal privatization reforms maintain the
dual system, leaving in place the elite public schools but targeting poor schools and
predominantly students of color to turn them into short term profit opportunities
in numerous ways: contracting, testing, and tutoring schemes,27 but also for profit
management, charters, as well as all the ancillary profits that can be generated
through privatization, like the public funds that will pour into marketing charter
schools to prospective customers through advertising and PR, the lucrative real
18

Democratic Education Against Corporate School Reform

estate deals through charters, etc.28 At present, the lower end of the dual system
provides a deferred investment in low pay, low skill disciplined workers and fodder
for the for profit prison industry and the military. Privatization targets the low end
of the dual system and pillages the public sector for short term profits benefitting
mostly the ruling class and professional class (poverty pimping) while doing nothing
to transform the dual system of public education into a single system as good as
its best parts throughout. For investors in privatization, the benefits are double:
money can be made in the short run by draining public tax revenue while the future
exploitable workforce can still be produced for the long-run. And, as the investors
are benefitting twice, they can feel good that they are giving poor students every
opportunity to benefit themselves. The goal should not be to see how we can all
help to subsidize the rich getting richer by replicating a more lucrative system of
dual education the rich part still public and the poor part privatized. The goal must
be ending the dual education system and recommitting to a truly public education
which requires equalizing funding, racially and ethnically desegregating schools,
and fostering critical intellectual curriculum and pedagogy. But the new market
positivism is at the core of creating the new privatized dual education system by
making standardized testing, database tracking, and standardization of curriculum
and pedagogy the measure of good teaching and learning. Instead, the alternative
to these positivist approaches to teaching and learning are democratic approaches
to education such as critical pedagogy. Educational progress must be measured
not by tests but by social progress: the eradication of poverty and corporate rule,
the revaluation of intellect and public values, the reduction of inequality and the
egalitarian redistribution of economic, political, and cultural power.
NOTES
This chapter has been adapted and revised from Kenneth J. Saltman The Failure of Corporate School
Reform Chapter Three: White Collar, Red Tape: The New Market Bureaucracy in Corporate School
Reform Boulder: Paradigm Publishers 2011, pp. 5479. The larger original article includes sections
that discuss the new market positivism in relation to a rising culture of irrationalism and an expanded
discussion of the historical educational theorizing of educational positivism under the fordist economy.
2
Kenneth J. Saltman, Collateral Damage: Corporatizing Public Schools a Threat to Democracy
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield 2000.
3
See John Nichols and Robert McChesney, The Life and Death of American Journalism New York:
Nation Books 2011.
4
On the radical expansion of news content being comprised of public relations, see Nichols and
McChesney. This book challenges the suggestion that the decline of journalism has to do with the loss
of classified revenues due to the internet. Instead it makes the compelling case that good journalism
has been decimated by corporate media consolidation. The authors contend that the vast majority of
online news content is repeated from traditional newspaper reporting. This fact is confirmed by The
Pew Research Centers Project for Excellence in Journalism study How News Happens January
11, 2010 available at: http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/how_news_happens. Together these
facts suggest that the profit motive applied to news is having an utterly devastating effect on the ability
of citizens to get information necessary for self-governance. The implications are enormous for public
education at a time in which corporate school reform injects the profit motive into public education.
1

19

K. J.Saltman
See the work of Alex Molnar, Deron Boyles, and Trevor Norris for excellent studies of contemporary
school commercialism.
6
See Henry A. Giroux, Schooling and the Culture of Positivism: Notes on the Death of History and
Culture and Rationality in Frankfurt School Thought: Ideological Foundations for a Theory of Social
Education reprinted in Pedagogy and the Politics of Hope: Theory, Culture, and Schooling New
York: Westview 1994.
7
Theodore Adorno, Introduction to Sociology Stanford: Polity 2000.
8
Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? U. K. Zero Books 2008.
9
John Chubb and Terry Moe, Politics, Markets, and Americas Schools Washington, D. C.: Brookings
Institution 1990.
10
For empirical study of how this has played out with the largest corporate component of corporate
school reform of chartering see Miron, G. & Urschel, J. L. (2010). Equal or fair? A study of revenues
and expenditure in American charter schools. Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest
Center & Education PolicyResearch Unit. Retrieved [5/9/11]. from http://epicpolicy.org/publication/
charter-school-finance http://epicpolicy.org/publication/charter-school-finance
Empirical study has yet to be done that accounts for and aggregates all of the new market bureaucracy
spending on advertising, public relations, venture philanthropy expenditures, Astroturf lobbying to
expand privatization, and contracting.
11
The majority of studies of charter school effects on academic achievement show on par to negative
effects in comparison with traditional public schools. Two of the most extensive and significant studies
were the 2004 NAEP results as analyzed by Martin Carnoy and colleagues [Carnoy, M., Jacobsen,
R., Mishel, L., & Rothstein, R. (2005). The Charter School Dust Up: Examining the Evidence on
Enrollment and Acheivement. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.] and the Stanford CREDO
study of 2009 [available at http://credo.standford.edu/reports/multiple_choice_credo.pdf], Disparities
in charter school resources the influence of state policy and community.
Other studies include: Bodine, E., Fuller, B., Gonzalez, M., Heurta, L., Naughton, S., Park, S., & The,
L. W. (2008, January). Journal of Education Policy, 23 (1), 1-22.
Finnigan, K., Adelman, N., Anderson, L., Donnelly, M. B., & Price, T. (2004). Evaluation of Public
Charter Schools Program: Final Evaluation Report. Washington, DC: US Department of Education.
Ladd, H. F., & Bifulco, R. P. (2004). The Impacts of Charter Schools on Student Achievement:
Evidence from North Carolina. Working Paper SAN04-01. Durham, NC: Terry Sanford Institute of
Public Policy, Duke University.
Nelson, F. H., Rosenberg, B., & Van Meter, N. (2004). Charter School Achievement on the 2003
National Assessment of Education Progress. Washington, DC: American Federation of Teachers.
What Works Clearinghouse (2010) WWC Quick Review of the Report Multiple Choice: Charter
School Performance in 16 States. Washington, DC.
Center for Research on Education Outcomes. (June 2009). Multiple Choice: Charter School
Performance in 16 States. Stanford, CA.
On the higher administrative costs of charters see, Miron, G., & Urschel, J. L. (2010). Equal or Fair?
A study of revenues and expenditure in American charter schools. Boulder and Tempe: Education
and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unity. Retrieved [5/9/11] from http://
epicpolicy.org/publications/charter-school-finance
12
I take this up in detail in Kenneth Saltman, The Gift of Education: Public Education and Venture
Philanthropy New York: Palgrave 2010.
13
The centrality of context and student experience to critical pedagogy can be found elaborated in for
example Paulo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed, a number of books by Henry Giroux including
Theory and Resistance in Education, Border Crossings, and Teachers as Intellectuals.
14
See Kenneth Saltman, The Gift of Education: Public Education and Venture Philanthropy. New York:
Palgrave 2010.
15
I detail this as the circuit of privatization in The Gift of Education.
16
Charles Murray, Why Charter Schools Fail the Test, The New York Times, May 5, 2010, p. A31.
17
P. Hill, C. Campbell, and D. Menefee-Libey, Portfolio School Districts for Big Cities: An Interim
Report, Seattle: Center on Reinventing Public Education, University of Washington, 2009.
5

20

Democratic Education Against Corporate School Reform

Hill, P., Campbell, C., and Menefee-Libey, D. (2009). Portfolio School Districts for Big Cities: An
Interim Report. Seattle: Center on Reinventing Public Education, University of Washington.
18
This way of thinking about difference as needing to be registered in order to overcome such difference
can be found exemplified in the speaking and writing of Vickie Philips head of the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation and books such as Abigail Thernstrom and Stephen Thernstrom, No Excuses:
Closing the Racial Gap in Learning New York: Simon & Shuster 2003. Racial, ethnic, linguistic,
and cultural difference is positioned in this discourse of the achievement gap as an obstacle and
sometimes as a pathology that needs to be overcome. The way to overcome difference is to enforce
the learning of prescribed knowledge which is alleged to be of universal value. This is diametrically
opposed to critical pedagogy in which difference needs to be engaged for how individuals and groups
are positioned materially and symbolically in subordinate or superordinate ways and how such social
positioning informs the claims to truth made by different parties. Such critical interrogations of
difference form the basis for reconstructing individual and group experience and ideally form the
basis for collective action towards equality.
19
For the most important criticisms of positivism in the fordist era of the hidden curriculum, see Henry
A. Girouxs early work, particularly his article Schooling and the Culture of Positivism: Notes on
the Death of History republished in On Critical Pedagogy New York: Continuum 2011, pp. 1947
originally published Henry A. Giroux (1979) Schooling and the Culture of Positivism: Notes on the
Death of History Educational Theory 29 (4): 26384.
20
Pierre Bourdieu and Jean Claude Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society, and Culture Second
Edition Thousand Oaks: Sage 1990.
21
David Bornstein, Coming Together to Give Schools a Boost, The New York Times March 7, 2011.
Available at http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/coming-together-to-give-schools-aboost/.
22
For a plethora of research reviews that reveal the extent to which ideologically driven data
manipulation is employed by corporate school reform ideologues see the National Education Policy
Center Think Tank Review Project available at: http://nepc.colorado.edu/think-tank-review-project.
See for example, Pecheone, R. L. & Wei, R. C. (2009). Review of The Widget Effect: Our National
Failure to Acknowledge and Act on Teacher Differences. Boulder and Tempe: Education and the
Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. Retrieved from http://epicpolicy.org/
thinktank/review-Widget-Effect. For deception by Hanushek see also Kilpatrick, J. (2011). Review
of U.S. Math Performance in Global Perspective: How Well Does Each State Do at Producing HighAchieving Students? Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Retrieved from http://nepc.
colorado.edu/thinktank/review-us-math. For deception by Finn see Barnett, W. S. (2009). Special
Review of Reroute the Preschool Juggernaut. Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public
Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. Retrieved from http://epicpolicy.org/thinktank/
Special-Review-Reroute-Preschool-Juggernaut. And for a nice example of deception by Peterson see:
Lubienski, C and S. (2006). Review of On the Public-Private School Achievement Debate. Boulder
and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. Retrieved
from http://epicpolicy.org/thinktank/review-on-public-private-school-achievement-debate
23
See Theodor Adorno, Introduction to Sociology Stanford: Polity 2000.
26
Both Gates and Broad foundations have massively funded various forms of privatization, especially
chartering, but also database tracking projects to measure student test scores, and teacher performance
relative to scores. When the charters were not showing promise on raising test scores Gates shifted
the criteria to focus on graduation rates and college enrollment rates. Similarly for the Center for
Reinventing Public Educations Paul Hill the standardized test scores should be used to justify closing
traditional public schools but not for evaluating the contractors who take their place.
25
Alan Murray, The End of Management, The Wall Street Journal, August 21, 2010, available at
www.wsj.com
26
See Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed New York: Continuum 1970; Pierre Bourdieu and
Jean Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society, and Culture Thousand Oaks: Sage 1990; Bertell
Ollman, Why So Many Exams?: A Marxist Response October 2002 Z Magazine available at
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/why_exams.php.

21

K. J.Saltman
27

See Patricia Burch, Hidden Markets: The New Educational Privatization New York: Routledge 2010.
For profit real estate investment cashing in on the charter boom include numerous banks and
corporations (Intel, movie companies) and even celebrity athletes like Andre Agassi. See for
example, Tierney Plumb (The Motley Fool), Movie House Investor Dives into Charter School
Space Daily Finance 8/16/11 available at http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/08/16/movie-houseinvestor-dives-into-the-charter-school/ Roger Vincent, Agassi to Invest in Charter Schools The
Los Angeles Times June 2, 2011 available at http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/02/business/la-fiagassi-fund-20110602

28

22

BRAD KERSHNER

3.GUIDING EMERGENCE
Understanding Cultural Change in an Urban Catholic School

Forming talented professionals to lead Americas urban schools toward academic

excellence is a critical component in the current world of educational reform (Davies,
2009; Fullan, 2007; Wagner & Kegan, 2006). In a context of constant change and
increasing demands for accountability, the work of urban principals is further
complicated by the fact that they serve disproportionate numbers of low-income,
geographically mobile, special education, immigrant, and non-native Englishspeaking students (Hemmings, 2012; Noguera, 2010). Urban schools have higher
rates of teacher turnover, higher drop out rates among students, and less financial
resources per pupil than suburban schools, to name just a few problems facing
children in our cities.
To address these challenges, the Lynch School of Education at Boston College
launched the Lynch Leadership Academy (LLA), a 15-month principal development
program aimed at working with early-career leaders from urban Catholic, charter,
and district schools in the Boston area to enhance their leadership abilities as a
means to enrich the overall performance of students in their schools. This initiative
was conceived as a unique opportunity to bring together principals from these three
sectors in order to strengthen the practices and networks of leaders in urban schools.
By forging connections and collective learning across sectors, LLA aims to improve
education for students in all of Bostons urban schoolsCatholic, charter, and
public.
To gain a sense for the impact LLA has on its fellows, throughout the first two
years of the program a research team conducted case studies at three participating
schoolsone from each sector (with others to follow in later years). This paper
presents results from one of those case studies: St. Catherines School (SCS),1 a
pre-K to 8th grade school, focusing on the work of its principal, Helen Matthews.
This study examines how three aspects of reform initiated at SCS by Helen as a
result of her involvement with the leadership academycreating a common school
culture among the entire school community (Bryk & Schneider, 2002); distributing
leadership responsibilities among these persons (Harris, 2008; Heck & Hallinger,
2010); and blending the previous two reform strategies to engender instructional
change among SCS faculty worked in concert to impact the SCS community. In
particular, I focus on balance in leadership: how Helen managed to both challenge

J. M. Paraskeva & T. LaVallee (Eds.), Transformative Researchers and Educators for Democracy, 2345.
2015 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

B.Kershner

and support her faculty in the process of change and how the presence of relational
trust proved crucial to her leadership. With this view in mind, the research addresses
the following questions:
What were the primary characteristics of Helen Matthews leadership, and how
did her leadership influence developments at her school?
What changes have teachers, parents, and students experienced in the past year
in the practices and culture of the school? How have they responded to these
changes?
What was the role of the Lynch Leadership Academy in instigating these changes?
METHODS

This study utilizes both quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data
include demographic information about SCS, school climate surveys completed
by teachers, parents, and students, and a self-evaluation by Helen. Qualitatively,
this study draws on interviews with Helen as well as SCS teachers, students, and
parents. The interview data that I present includes three interviews with Helen and
interviews with eight teachers, five students, and three parents. Teacher interviews
offered access to teachers with a range of teaching experience, with two teachers
in their second year and six teachers having seven or more years of experience at
the school. I collected samples of student writing and generated field notes from
classroom observations, whole school assemblies, and faculty meetings. I also spent
several days observing classrooms, including one morning shadowing Helen as she
conducted observations of classroom instruction.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: A SYSTEMS ANALYSIS OF SCHOOL CULTURE

To understand educational change at SCS, I created a multi-participant case

study (Stake, 2006) informed by critical sociocultural theory, systems thinking,
and complexity theory (Davis & Sumara, 2006; Desprs, 2008). In so doing, I
conceptualized culture as a framework of values, beliefs, and symbols through which
individuals interpret and act on the world (Geertz, 1973). From this perspective, all
social practices, including school leadership, are informed by some set of cultural
ideals, beliefs, principles, and values that serve as cultural attractors in the school
system (Reigeluth, 2008). In my research, I therefore sought to determine what
people at SCS believed about aspects of school change they experienced and, in
turn, how these beliefs set the conditions for emergent relationships and actions.
These systemic and sociocultural lenses enabled me to focus on the role of culture
and related aspects of change at SCS and then to link that to the work of LLA, in
particular, its impact on Helens leadership.
Further, understanding the cultural context of St. Catherines School was
especially pertinent in this case study, because transforming school culture represents
24

Guiding Emergence

a critical leverage point for institutional change promoted by LLA and embraced by
Helen Matthews. In bringing this cultural lens to bear on the efforts of the SCS
community, I sought to understand educational change as a systemic process. In any
human system, changing the dominant ideas, assumptions, beliefs and values the
shared culture can be a powerful leverage point for change. In systems thinking,
changing cultural values and beliefs can serve as a tool to transform the system,
because values and beliefs are the sources of systems (Meadows, 2008, p. 163).
Therefore, in this study, I attend to both the systemic operations of the school as well
as the mindsets out of which that system arises I pay attention to what is important,
not just what is quantifiable.
In addition, with human systems, the experience of disequilibrium can promote
growth. That is, to grow, people must experience significant change, and such
change most often generates a sense of disequilibrium, understood as a state of
internal conflict that provokes motivation for an individual to make personal
changes (Nadler, 1993, p. 59). In the context of schools, and the program of reform
envisioned by LLA, the status quo of education needs to be disrupted, and this
change in the context of education is bound to cause disequilibrium for teachers. It is
the principals task to both instigate change and ensure that teachers are supported.
For while disequilibrium is necessary for change and growth in any system, too
much change, and the disequilibrium it provokes, can lead to rejection, resistance,
or what Nadler termed retreat. Thus, change is a matter of balance; the intensity
of change matters, and effective growth and change require each school to find the
most effective enactment of reform for the context in question (Opfer & Pedder,
2011, p. 389). This theme of balance will prove crucial to my analysis, as the changes
implemented at SCS revealed multiple tensions among aspects of the school system,
all of which needed to be held in a balance unique to the SCS school context in order
for change to take hold.
THE URBAN CATHOLIC SCHOOL CONTEXT: SHIFTING DEMOGRAPHICS
AND EXTERNAL PRESSURES

As Davis and Sumara (2006) note, the project of formal education cannot be
understood without considering, all-at-once, the many layers of dynamic, nested
activity that are constantly at play (p. 28). At SCS, there are several interdependent
layers of context that form and inform the complex whole of the school. Below, I
mention a few of the most relevant aspects of this context: demographics, economics,
principal succession and faculty tenure.
St. Catherines School is an urban pre-K through 8th grade school in Boston,
MA. Ninety percent of students live in the neighborhood. In the Fall of 2011, SCS
enrolled 358 students, including 48% Black, 35% Hispanic, and 10% White. Fortytwo percent of students receive free or reduced price lunch. There are 31 faculty
members; 28 are White and 29 are female. Fifteen have been at the school for more
than 10 years, and six more than 20 years.
25

B.Kershner

Over the past several years, the student population has changed significantly
from a predominantly White population to largely African-American and Hispanic.
As one veteran teacher remarked,
The face of the school has changed quite a bit. But its a reflection of the
community as well thats whats really cool about it. [But] one of the
concerns about that is that the parents are not as fluent [in English]. Many of
them are, but a lot of them have a difficult time communicating in English. So
I see that as a concern that we have to address.
With a faculty composed almost exclusively of white women, many of whom have
sent children to the school and taught at SCS for many years, the demographic
changes are both dramatic and personal. The experience of and response to these
changes relates to the issue of cultural competence, which is something that Helen
has addressed with her staff in professional development sessions. And the demands
of effectively teaching English language learners is combined with other social and
economic pressures being felt by Catholic schools nationwide.
A second contextual factor that impacted change at SCS centers on the
pressure generated by interrelated financial, staffing, and enrollment difficulties
facing many Boston area Catholic Schoolschallenges further complicated by
demographic shifts toward public and charter schools, leading to parochial school
closures and mergers throughout the country. Many SCS teachers alluded to the
precarious position Catholic schools face in a competitive market and credited
recent changes that Helen initiated as allowing the school to remain open. An
upper-elementary teacher, for instance, alluded to the impact of Helens efforts
and links to LLA:
I like [the changes that are happening] a lot because the school could not
exist the way it had been going. It just couldnt. I love the changes that
are happening because its forcing everybody to step up their game. So many
teachers become complacent and just do what theyve done year after year
after year. [But] the ideas that shes bringing back [from LLA] help us think
about how we can do things a little different to reach more kids. So I think,
for the survival of the school, its very important. We have to offer new
things. Were teaching people to be lifelong learners. We have to be that way
ourselves. So thats good and shes forcing us to do that.
In much the same vein, a lower-elementary teacher described recent changes
promoted by Helen as key to sustaining the school:
Im not sure under the previous leadership if wed still be open, if things had
always been done the way they had always been done. Our demographics
have changed over the last 20 years, and the socioeconomics and a lot of other
things have changed. And unless we have a competitive edge, then Im not sure
that were going to be open.
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Guiding Emergence

In my research at SCS, the threat of decreasing enrollments and concern with limited
funding loomed persistently on the horizon. Yet, perhaps more overtly, I found
members of the school community were optimistic about the schools direction and
future. The parent of a middle schooler who has been at the school for eight years
was quite optimistic, in great part because Helen was the schools leader:
The kids are excited to be there. The kids are happy to be there. Teachers are
happy to be there. I am just excited to see what she is going to do in the
future because I know she is a part of the Leadership Academy. I know she
is really going to make it one of the best schools around.
Why so much excitement? In my efforts to answer this question, I found this
optimistic sentiment, while not shared by all, was prevalent and seemed to reflect
a consensus that the school was improving. The excitement was not just about the
school, it was about change, and the way the culture of the school was perceived by
many as changing for the better.
Along with demographic shifts and the pressure and uncertainty that color
the experience of adults at SCS, perhaps the biggest change that has occurred
from the perspective of teachers and parents is the leadership style Helen has
brought to the school. The first year of this study was Helens fourth as principal.
Prior to becoming a principal, she was a middle school science teacher for five
years and assistant principal for 14 years. However, this continuity of leadership
from within the school did not translate into a continuity of leadership style. In
fact, Helens familiarity with SCS prior to assuming the role of principal enabled
herto make significant and meaningful changes right away she had a sense
of what she wanted to accomplish before she had the power to do so. Indeed,
shortly after being named principal, Helen moved quickly to change the faculty
composition, removing seven long-term SCS teachers while hiring several new,
young teachers.
This change in faculty had a big impact on the school, and teacher interviews
revealed that, in general, teachers interpretations of and responses to change at
SCS, and the challenges that entailed, corresponded to teacher experience more
experienced teachers were seen as having greater difficulty with change. For
example, one experienced teacher noted the prevalent attitude of her peers that the
combination of multiple changes and limited time and staff constituted a significant
challenge:
When [Helen] took over, the vice principal position was lostand there were a
lot of changes very quickly. So it was difficult for a lot of people, because they
were used to doing things a certain way for a long time and then not having that
vice principal there to go to [made it harder]. They feel that theyve been
doing something for 30 years a certain way, and now theyre getting ready to
wind down. And [they are thinking], I dont know if I really have it within
myself to do this.
27

B.Kershner

Another veteran teacher also described challenges that she faced, including the
stress generated by changing her teaching (primarily the move toward differentiated
instruction, discussed below):
Its hard to change. When youve been teaching for a long time and if you
were taught to teach in a certain way, its basically taking everything that you
did and kind of throwing it out and asking you to start over. So its been a lot
of changes thrown at us at one time. I love teaching, but it is more stressful
than it used to be.
A middle school teacher identified the same theme, relating experience to difficulty
with change, though noting that Helen and other faculty have supported each other
in managing the stress generated by the related disequilibrium:
I think change can be scary at times, but it needs to be done. I cant even
imagine [what it is like for] some of the teachers who have been here 25-30
years. It might be a little scary. But I think they feel comfortable, because
they see so many other people are willing to help them out. And theyre open
about it. Theyll say: Were nervous about the change. And I think Helen
wants that. [She will say] Lets try to work together, and This is where were
going. Shes patient with that.
In light of these reflections from teachers, the following points should be kept mind:
many changes have happened simultaneously; some SCS faculty have had difficulty
acclimating to these overlapping changes; and the qualities of Helens leadership
(e.g., her patience and support for teachers) have been appreciated by faculty as
they navigated the challenges of school change, i.e. Helen has maintained a balance
between challenging and supporting her faculty. It is in this sense that I conceptualize
the process of change at SCS as being on the edge of chaos: the faculty and staff are
engaged in a turbulent and ever-changing upheaval of their school demographically,
financially, pedagogically, and structurally (in terms of the structures of relationships
and networks that are being established) and yet they also maintain a palpable
continuity and stability in terms of the longevity of adults in the building (Lewin,
1999; Waldrop, 1992). They are neither locked in repetitive iterations of the status
quo, nor subject to wild fluctuations (Davis & Sumara, 2001). They are enacting
change in an open system, which entails an ongoing process of order-disorderinteraction-organization, and the vigilant attempt to maintain not static equilibrium,
not regression or disorder, but dynamic balance (Montuori, 2008, p. xxxiv). The
balance between challenge and support is crucial, because it enables this tension to be
constructive and growth-oriented as opposed to overly stressful and chaotic.
THREE STRATEGIES FOR SCHOOL CHANGE

During the 2011-2012 school year, Helen enacted three overarching change
strategies: creating a common school culture, promoting distributed leadership, and
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Guiding Emergence

using both strategies as a means to enhance her instructional leadership. Figure 1

offers a way to visualize the relationship between these aspects of school culture
and educational change at SCS. In brief, all three aspects of change are included
within the overall school culture. The explicit focus on creating a common culture
(symbolized by DREAM BIG, explained below) is seen as a broad and overarching
aspect of school change that includes other reforms. Distributed and instructional
leadership represent overlapping elements within the broader environment of school
culture. All of these aspects of change represent behavioral manifestations of school
culture: actions and strategies community members might draw upon which align
with the institutions prevailing values and beliefs.
Acknowledging that there is not a simple cause-and-effect relationship between
any of these initiatives or their combination and educational outcomes at SCS,
we can view these reforms as triggers for transformation: inputs into the school
system that foster emergent and novel developments, aimed at improved teaching
and learning (Davis, Sumara, and DAmour, 2012, p. 396). With this overarching
understanding in mind, I will now look at how these strategies, or triggers, have been
enacted at SCS.

DREAM BIG: CREATING A COMMON SCHOOL CULTURE

Creating a common school culture was both a central theme of the Lynch Leadership
Academy and a focus of change at SCS. Throughout its work, LLA has emphasized
the value of having fellows create an institutional culture in which prevailing beliefs
and values align with operating norms to promote beneficial outcomes for all
students. Seymour Sarasons (1971) notion of principal as culture builder captures
what the Academy has sought to instill in Helen and her cohort:
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B.Kershner

Life for everyone in a school is determined by ideas and values, and if these
are not under constant discussion and surveillance, the comforts of ritual
replace the conflict and excitement involved in growing and changing. If the
principal is not constantly confronting ones self and otherswith the world of
competing ideas and values shaping life in a school, he or she is an educational
administrator and not an educational leader. (p. 177)
In pursuit of this ideal for educational leaders, every Academy fellow was charged
with developing a Leadership Growth Project (LGP), a unique and contextspecific action plan that likely would entail aspects of cultural change created in
consultation with their coach, fellow cohort members, and LLA faculty based on the
needs of their school.
At St. Catherines, Helens LGP became the biggest and certainly most visible
change she implemented, as it focused on establishing a new conception of school
values and beliefs, a new slogan for the school, and the consistent and intentional
use of new terminology e.g., all students are now referred to as scholars,
all scholars are expected to do their work conscientiously, and all scholars are
expected to attend college. Collectively, these deliberate and overlapping changes
are known as DREAM BIG, which stands for Determination, Respect, Excellence,
Accountability, Mastery, and Belief in God. Every time I visited SCS, I was
greeted with a public invitation posted on the schools billboard, Become a BIG
DREAMER. I found this message reinforced in the hallways and classrooms,
acting as a constant reminder to the school community of its underlying cultural
vision: DREAM BIG.
For Helen, DREAM BIG offered a means to clarify and communicate the
schools values, providing a laser focus on core values and the routinization of
culture norms which was important [because]we are all now speaking the same
language. From a systemic perspective, DREAM BIG served as a paradigmatic
leverage point for change in the SCS cultural system, transforming both the overt
use of language and the underlying practices and beliefs it communicates (Meadows,
2008). As Hargreaves and Shirley (2012) point out, such change is about constantly
pulling people toward a certain mode of thought and action, as the key way to create
momentum, direction, development, and coherence (p. 84). And, as Hemmings
(2012) explained in her extensive exploration of urban schools, True change rests
on shared moral purpose, [and] schools can be remoralized through the construction
and institutionalization of an ethically justifiable moral order to which all school
actors owe allegiance (p. 140). At SCS, DREAM BIG is an attempt to instigate
such a remoralization.
DREAM BIG is communicated and reinforced in many ways. According to
Helen, it impacts all communications visually, orally, the website. Its everywhere.
DREAM BIG is everything we do. This description from a lower-elementary
teacher provides a sense for how DREAM BIG has been communicated to students
by teachers:
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Guiding Emergence

I introduced each word [from DREAM BIG] and did a mini-lesson on it. I
also pick a [student] every week out of my kids, someone who embodies the
different words. Once again, I try to emphasize the words in DREAM BIG. I
made a little chart [of the words]. They always want to DREAM BIG. Thats
what theyre working towards. I folded it into what I was already doing. They
get it, they know it, and hopefully they try to live it.
Teachers also reinforce the DREAM BIG message by having students write on
reflection sheets when their behavior does not align with school values. Helen
introduced these reflection sheets in concert with DREAM BIG to promote
consistency and accountability in school culture, so that now, when a student
misbehaves, he or she is asked to reflect and write about the DREAM BIG values.
Teachers I spoke with found that the DREAM BIG initiative has been helpful
they found that the newfound consistency promoted positive interactions. One
lower-elementary teacher explained why this strategy for dealing with inappropriate
behavior was significant for her:
One thing that I definitely see a big change in is the way that consequences and
issues are dealt with: its more consistent. I think because of DREAM BIG and
because of the way that some teachers model that and the way Helen discussed
that we should handle that. I see that consistency start to build from teacherto-teacher, which is great. I also notice more positive interactions between
teachers and kids, and between kids, too. Ive really noticed dramatic
improvement there.
The use of reflection sheets and the connection of DREAM BIG with consistency
and behavioral norms reveal how the values embedded in this overarching ideal have
been combined with more behavioral, discipline-oriented changes at SCS the big
ideas and concrete protocols are intended to be broadly applicable, a touchstone for
many aspects of school life. Other changes that have taken place as a result of or in
connection with DREAM BIG include: enforcing single file lines and no talking
in all hallways, changing the dress code, and the institution of a parent contract to
ensure accountability around student tardiness and uniforms. According to a middle
school teacher, this new contract has led to a huge difference in the amount of kids
who are tardy, and noticeable shifts in behavioral norms have taken place. So, while
DREAM BIG values do not necessarily entail such changes, Helen and the faculty
saw these as appropriate manifestations of DREAM BIG ideals and implemented
these changes to support cultural change. Students are not just walking quietly in the
hallway; their hallway behavior is an example of dreaming big at least that is how
the matter has been framed at SCS.
Another aspect of the DREAM BIG initiative has been the focused and consistent
communication that all scholars are intended to go to college. This message has made
its way to parents effectively, and the parents I talked with valued and appreciated
this commitment. One middle school parent felt that all [teachers at SCS] believe in
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B.Kershner

the same thing. Theyre referring to students as scholars, and they really are trying
to instill the belief that all students will go to college and [that] they are scholars.
Thats a wonderful message.
Middle school teachers whom I spoke to generally agreed that the college-bound
message has been significant for their students. Elementary teachers also felt that the
message was important, though perhaps in a more general sense. One elementary
teacher explained how DREAM BIG was accessible to her second grade students:
My kids get it. They know what all of those words mean. They know how to
exemplify them. I like it because, as educators, it puts us all on the same page,
which is really great because it builds consistency for the kids and for us, too.
Echoing this notion that students get it, those scholars I talked with could explain
the DREAM BIG acronym and outline its relevance for them. A 7th grade girl said:
My personality and my self-esteem and my academics have gotten better [this
year]. I think thats good, because all students need to have a type of education
where they can feel good about themselves, and they can come to school and
say, I am ready to learn. [E]ven if a kid gives up [the teachers] say, You
cant do that. You have to keep going. [Y]ou have determination to go
and reach your goal. We have the [DREAM BIG] motto and theres not a day
that we forget it. We are reminded that we have to have the determination and
respect and excellence and accountability.
Of course not every student has embraced this language or these ideas. Written
responses from 20 7th graders who were asked to reflect upon the influence of
DREAM BIG in their lives revealed some skepticism toward this ideal. More
typically, however, the DREAM BIG mantra appeared to resonate with students,
and most spoke positively of the changes that have been taking place at SCS since
the implementation of DREAM BIG.
Overall, Helens Leadership Growth Project with the Lynch Leadership Academy,
DREAM BIG, represents a significant change for the SCS school community. It is
both a symbolic statement of goals and ideals (e.g., all scholars are college-bound)
and a cultural support for concrete and behavior-oriented protocols and rules faculty
use to attain greater consistency in student behavior. It appears in every room and
in the hallways. It is spoken, yelled, and reinforced every Monday morning by the
entire school at school assemblies, and it abides in bold letters outside the building,
reminding parents why they drop their children off at school every morning. It has
become a cultural attractor that serves to impel actors at the school to align with
particular ideas and values (Reigeluth, 2008); it is a new paradigm to orient the
system (Meadows, 2008). And, perhaps most importantly, it is only beginning. From
the outset, Leadership Growth Projects were conceived as initiations of ongoing
growth, generating insights that transcend a single enactment. And, Helen has taken
this conception to heart:
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Now I see this Dream Big, Culture Matters as not just a one-time project.
This is an evolutionary project. And I see this expanding over the next two and
three years as I fine tune it and add more. I just think its forever going to be
evolving. AndI think thats wonderful. So its not just a one-stop shop.
This is becoming who we are.
DISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP: CREATING STRUCTURES
OF ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING

The benefits of distributed leadership are well documented. As a system, schools

are most responsive when control is appropriately distributed throughout system
elements including faculty, parents, and students. As the Wallace Foundation (2011)
recently observed, [L]eaders in all walks of life and all kinds of organizations
need to depend on others to accomplish the groups purpose and need to encourage
the development of leadership across the organization (p. 6). In reference to schools,
the report continued: [E]ffective leadership from all sources principals, influential
teachers, staff teams and others is associated with better student performance[and
in studies they reviewed] higher-achieving schools provided all stakeholders with
greater influence on decisions (p. 7). Typically, increased collaboration enhances
the process of change and helps ensure robust outcomes. One way of thinking about
such distribution is in terms of the decentralization of systems, and, as Davis and
Sumara (2006) put it, the evidence in favor of decentralization is overwhelming
(p. 84).
At SCS, teachers have increasingly assumed leadership roles throughout the past
year, a development directly related to how Helen has supported and encouraged
them:
I think [I encourage leadership] by acknowledging my teachers as teachers and
professionals. I constantly thank them for their professionalism. I give them
big projects, and they run with it, and they love it. For example, one of my
teachers took over standardized testing. She arranges all of the professional
development. She loves it. And thats something that before would never have
been allowed. We have another teacher who runs all the enrichment now.
And, I think thattreating them as professionals, and giving them the tools
and resources they need to do their job as professionals, goes a whole long way
in making my job a whole lot easier. Thats what Ive learned. So I think its
made me realize what my leadership style is, and how to hone it now. Now Im
honing it. Now Im perfecting it. Its definitely not top-down. But thats all
I was mentored [to do] during my whole formation here. But then I started
Lynch Leadership and it was like, Wow, I dont have to do that! There are
other options here! So for me personally, [LLA] made me realize what kind
of a leader I want to be. [As a result] most of [our teachers] have stepped up
to the plate and are sharing things that took large portions of work off my plate.
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B.Kershner

Its a lot of work. There are a lot of pieces that you have to put together. But
they have stepped up and taken off [with it].
In her remarks, Helen underscored three assumptions that inform her work:
(1) encouraging faculty and offering emotional support are crucial aspects of
promoting distributed leadership (Weathers, 2011); (2) leadership at SCS has
become increasingly distributed as a result of Helens encouragement and teachers
willingness to take on extra work and assume new roles; and (3) LLA has supported
Helen in making distributed leadership central to her overall leadership style.
For teachers, beyond assuming leadership roles on individual projects, distributed
leadership at SCS has been enacted through the work of committees and peer
mentoring. A middle school teacher summarized the work of committees:
There are a lot more committees this year than last year. Im on the SST
[Student Support Team], but theres also a committee for technology and new
curriculum mapping. Theres a committee for testing. Theres a committee for
getting this accreditation program started. As things go on throughout the year,
there are always committees. There are more of them this year than last year.
When asked if Helen had delegated greater responsibility to faculty this year, this
lower-elementary teacher was definitive, and gave several examples of how Helen
fosters and supports teacher leadership:
Absolutely [leadership is distributed]. I think one of her key ways to do that
is the ILT [Instructional Leadership Team]. I know she is trying to bring
in more people, like with the SST. Thats another way to bring the staff in.
[And] with the instructional planner this year that were doing with the online curriculum mapping [a new system of lesson planning and sharing], shes
largely been hands-off. And, then there are some point people that you can go
to for help. I definitely think that she is delegating in that way. [Helen
says] I trust you to do this. Im going to [help] when I can, but this is what
I expect you to do. Ive laid the groundwork for differentiated instruction, or
DREAM BIG, and its up to you to follow through.
A veteran teacher also noted that such manifestations of distributed leadership build
more interactions between teachers, which is something that I know Helen has also
been trying to do. [And] that can really help open up lines of communication
between classroom teachers.
These teachers portray faculty committees as serving not only to identify relevant
instructional strategies for specific students, but as fostering teacher communication,
community and a collaboration. In this sense Helen is establishing what Torre and
Voyce (2008) call a relational model, where leaders provide processes designed
to encourage sincere consideration of new thinking and change and means for clear,
honest, and meaningful communication and interaction among all constituents (p. 162).
And this decentralization of power that Helens delegation of authority is fostering can
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Guiding Emergence

be understood as an effort to develop what Lambert (2009) calls leadership capacity:

broad-based, skillful participation in the work of leadership (p. 122).
The primary committee at SCS is the Instructional Leadership Team a new
administrative committee Helen created after being inspired by a cohort member
from LLA. The ILT meetings that I observed at SCS were fast-paced, talkative, and
engaging encounters collegial in the best sense of the word. The overall dynamic
suggested a genuine trust between Helen and the faculty. At one meeting, Helen
began in an informal and playful tone, saying, I want to pick your brains about the
process of looking at test results. To this, a teacher replied, I think its a waste of
time to look at tests during the professional development day. Though potentially
oppositional, Helen responded matter-of-factly, clarifying her intention while
acknowledging the merit of the teachers concern and continuing to pose questions
and solicit feedback:
Teachers should already know the test results prior to the professional
development day, so that we can look at them together at the meeting [i.e., we
will not be wasting time by just looking at them for the first time]. What is the
best grouping to look at the data?
The meeting continued in a professional manner with no apparent hesitation, selfconsciousness, or defensiveness on Helens part though there were instances when
teachers responded to Helens thinking with starkly different points of view. Most
dialogue involved rapid sequences of differing opinions, with no sense that teachers
deferred or capitulated to Helens authority. Clearly, Helen was the leader initiating
most topics and consistently responding to others but a creative tension permeated
the meeting, balanced by an egalitarian and respectful sense of collaboration.
In the ILT meetings that I observed, Helen appeared to intuitively grasp what
Ylimaki and Brunner (2011) mean by utilizing conflict within collaborative
decision-making processes to further the work of the ILT (p. 1278). The dynamic
nature of the meetings manifested a tacit knowledge that if all participants were
to express their views in a collaborative (shared power) process, opposing or
conflicting views would quite naturally emerge. [Yet to] disallow the expression of
conflictwould shut down authentic participation (p. 1278). Helens conception of
power not only supported collaboration, but also included authentic participation
with embedded conflict (p. 1278). In other words, knowing that intelligent group
action is dependent on the independent actions of diverse individuals (Davis &
Sumara, 2006, p. 85), Helen actively encourages independent thought and the free
exchange of ideas at SCS. In the five ILT meetings that I have observed thus far,
Helens responses to teacher input, even when in disagreement, encouraged teacher
contributions and teacher leadership.
Helen also encourages independent action and distributed leadership by
establishing teams and networks that she herself does not participate in, such as
grade level teams and peer mentoring. A lower-elementary teacher commented on
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B.Kershner

peer mentoring, relating its effectiveness to Helens flexibility and responsiveness to

teacher diversity and ability:
If someone is like, I cant set up these centers. This is really difficult for me.
Or, How are you doing your reading groups? then we can observe each other
and share those ideas. I think thats very important. One thing that has been
successful with those particular teachers is pairing them up, saying, Okay, this
particular thing is stressful for you. So-and-so is very good at that.
The practice of peer mentoring demonstrates how the culture of distributed leadership
permeates relationships between Helen and her faculty. Beyond establishing
committees and formal positions, the informal support teachers provide colleagues
reveals how distributed leadership can be understood as a function of leadership
style and school culture, not merely formal structures and roles. As Heifetz (1994)
argues, leadership is an action, not a position. Yet, the structures of committees and
teams help to support a collaborative culture. Teachers working in grade level teams,
for instance, meet every week to address problems of practice, and several of these
teams have developed curricula and assessment practices for their grade levela
job many schools assign to administrators or outside specialists. Further, the model
of developing curriculum was passed from one grade level team to another: the
first grade team learned from the kindergarten team, and then they shared the
process of curriculum development with the second grade team. It was an emergent
development conceived, shared, and enacted by teachers acting in communication
with, but significantly autonomous from, Helens leadership. In this sense, the
faculty as a whole is modeling Linda Lamberts vision of leadership, where
[l]eadership is about learning together, and constructing meaning and
knowledge collaboratively. It involves opportunities to surface and mediate
perceptions, values, beliefs, information and assumptions through continuing
conversations; to inquire about and generate ideas together; to seek to reflect
upon and make sense of work in light of shared beliefs and new information;
and to create actions that come out of these new understandings. (as quoted in
Hargreaves & Fink, 2006, pp. 3334)
By granting teachers autonomy and power over curriculum and assessment, Helen
has utilized distributed leadership as an approach to instructional leadership: she
supported teachers in their instructional planning and established committees for
teachers to focus on and improve their teaching. The characteristics that foster teacher
leadership and learning emotional support, committee work, peer mentoring,
practice-based professional development, increased autonomy in curriculum and
assessment, and establishing a common school culture of excellence also promote
better teaching (Showers & Joyce, 1996; Smylie, 1995). And, while much of this
work involves dramatic changes to teachers work lives with many more meetings
and higher expectations the trust and support from Helen and each other allows the
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Guiding Emergence

teachers at SCS to stay engaged in intense and stressful processes of change while
remaining on this side of chaos.
INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP: CHALLENGING AND SUPPORTING
TEACHERS IN THE CLASSROOM

The third strand of school change that emerged at St. Catherines, another tenet of
LLAs vision, was instructional leadership. Building on the initiatives to establish
a common school culture and encourage distributed leadership, Helen promoted
new approaches to teaching and learning among faculty. The primary instructional
initiative at SCS has been differentiated instruction. A lower-elementary teacher
offered her thoughts on the matter:
[I think] that [Helens] focus on differentiated instruction and assessment is the
most prominent [change]. I think that that stretches across every classroom in
this school in one way or another. I would say thats number one. I think most
teachers are feeling very confident in that. I think teachers understand why
thats important and how to make that happen. And, like I said, a lot of those
resources have been really useful and the professional development has been
there. So, I think that has been really, really key. And, I think that has really
changed a lot of instruction, a lot of learning.
Another teacher also maintained that efforts at differentiated instruction have
impacted the school, shaping not only students learning but their behavior as well:
I would say too thatwith differentiated instructionweve had less discipline
problems, which is good. There was a time when you could walk through our
middle school and see several students in the hallway which meant they
werent behaving in class and were asked to leave for awhile. You rarely see
that now. I believe its our differentiated instruction. Were using different
approaches to try and work with each type of learner. Theres less opportunity
for [misbehavior], because a lot of the discipline comes out of hiding the fact
that [students] dont understand whats going on and [they] dont want other
people to know that [they] cant do this. And we all took extensive classes
in [differentiated instruction]. There were day-long seminars that we either did
over the summer or on Saturdays. So we invested quite a bit in itand now
were more giving them choices and helping them in different ways.
In promoting instructional leadership, Helen has relied upon directly evaluating
teachers on a regular basis, a process teachers believe has been shaped by Helens
LLA experience. As one upper-elementary teacher remarked:
[S]ince Helen started that program [LLA], theres been a real critique of our
lessons. She doesnt [observe] a canned lesson anymore. Shell come into the room
and just observe and hone. And if she notices something, shell let you know. Shell
tell you. And that has been so helpful.
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B.Kershner

Teachers noted that Helen was a constant presence in the classroom, making
both frequent five-minute visits and regular 20-30 minute observations. They felt
that her presence in the classroom makes us better, that they enjoy that feedback,
and that it is excellent, that she has a pulse on her school, on every classroom and
on every teacher.
For these teachers, classroom observations seem neither stressful nor
burdensome, again affirming the trust that undergirds their relationship with Helen,
and the balance between challenge and support that permeates the social system
of the school. Teachers view her instructional leadership as personally helpful and
important for the school as a whole, as a source of both challenge and support for
their teaching. In essence, her commitment to quality teaching generates benefits
beyond the practical advice offered teachers it is a crucial component of a
distributed and supportive climate that fosters educational and cultural change. The
qualities and characteristics of distributed leadership, noted above, permeate and
influence Helens efforts to improve classroom instruction. And, while we do not
assess student learning here, there are positive implications of this leadership for
students (Harris, 2008; Heck & Hallinger, 2010). As Ylimaki and Brunner (2011)
argue, [B]y modeling appropriate instructional leadership behaviors and inviting
teachers to share leadership responsibilities, principals build instructional leadership
capacity for systemic school change and increase student engagement and learning
(pp. 12641265).
Also, key to instructional leadership at SCS is the movement toward peer
observations and the use of instructional rounds (City, Elmore, Fiarman & Teitel,
2009), both of which are in beginning phases at SCS in the spring of 2013. Indeed,
adequate coverage of instructional leadership at SCS warrants separate treatment, but
here the point to be made is that fostering a common school culture and establishing
distributed leadership as a faculty norm directly implicate instructional improvement
and a focus on learning. Peer leadership is essential to create learning organizations:
principals must not simply distribute leadership they need to distribute learningcentered leadership (Southworth, 2009, p. 108).
All of the above initiatives are aimed at improved teaching and learning. Learning
is the goal; establishing a common culture, distributed leadership, and instructional
supervision are all triggers for transformation (Davis, Sumara, & DAmour, 2012,
p. 396). Overall, the strategies of distributed and instructional leadership intertwine
to create a fabric of SCS culture, where leadership and authority are distributed
among faculty, thereby enriching both their leadership and instructional skills while
freeing the principal to actively shape what happens in the classroom. After all,
culture is not shaped simply by leaders saying what should happen, although such
communication does have a part to play. Rather, culture changes by them putting
in place certain processes and restructuring the school through specific systems.
Leaders bring about reculturing by restructuring (Southworth, 2009, p. 103). At
SCS, reculturing and restructuring have been taking place concurrently and through
multiple initiatives; the school system is being changed at various levels through
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multiple levers of change. In a complex system such as a school, there is no way to

grasp the whole, but each part influences others, and the more aligned the different
aspects of change are, the more coherent the resultant change can be expected to be.
GUIDING EMERGENCE: CHALLENGE, SUPPORT, AND BALANCE

According to Brent Davies in The Essentials of School Leadership, [l]eadership

is about direction-setting and inspiring others to make the journey to a new and
improved state for the school (p. 2). At St. Catherines School, Helen has taken
on this charge at full speed. More than charismatic, she has tried to enact what
Hargreaves and Fink (2006) call inspirational leadership, which encourages others
to join her in the work of educational change (p. 77). In so doing, she has brought
much change to SCS in the past two years, and, with it, much disequilibrium for her
faculty. In the language of complexity, such disequilibrium creates a state in which
the system is ripe for transformation, which is reorganization on a higher level of
complexity (Reigeluth, 2008, p. 27). But in the absence of balance and support,
such disequilibrium can veer toward over-stressed and over-worked teachers or
teachers who simply give up because the challenge is too great. Either way the
response is unsustainable. The trick is to stay on the edge of chaos without falling
off either side.
The faculty at SCS had much to say about how Helen has inspired and stimulated
them in their work. An inevitable aspect of this stimulation involved increased
work loads, expectations, and time commitments. As Michael Fullan (2005) notes,
successful schools tend to have a much more demanding culture (p. 58). In the
attempt to make SCS a more successful school, Helen has intensified demands on
teachers. One veteran teacher explained that:
Personally Ive gotten a lot more work. Im on the ILT team and that involves
quite a bit of reading. And then Im doing work in between the meetings. Im
also the chairperson for the recertification effort, coordinating that. So things
are delegatedand its all done after hours as well, which is hard. Theres
just no time to get everything done. Were just constantly juggling what needs
to be done today and what can wait until next week, and sometimes that will
flip flop. But I feel [Helen] is in the same boat.
The change process at SCS has been an experience of disequilibrium for many teachers
an experiencebeyond their comfort zone which [motivates] individualsto
integrate new knowledge or reshape existing perceptions (Nadler, 1993, p. 59)
which is why it seems critical that Helens leadership balances challenge and support.
As Beabout (2012) argues, there is an upper limit to turbulence if schools are to
engage in sustainable change, which means that faculty must be supported and the
pace of change must be monitored in order to avoid excessive and unconstructive
turbulence and disequilibrium (p. 26). Therefore, balance is key to educational
change, because faculty resistance or rejection is always possible; the intensity of
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B.Kershner

reform needs to be flexible and responsive to ongoing feedback from other elements
of the system in order for the system as a whole to stay on, and not go over, the
edge (Opfer & Pedder, 2011, p. 389).
In addition to acknowledging the difficulties of educational change, teachers
also highlighted how the way in which Helen introduced new ideas facilitated
broad acceptance of such change. A lower-elementary teacher described the process
through which Helen not only introduced the DREAM BIG initiative, but also led
faculty through its implementation, highlighting how she has both supported and
cajoled faculty into embracing this change, while maintaining a balance between
what teachers know and what they can learn:
Heres this big thing, but shes going to give you something tangible that you
can reach first. She is going to show you excitement about it. Thats her: She
is always excited about whatever new thing she has. Then, [she will] give you
something tangible that you can reach, like put this in your classroom. Then, as
the year progresses, she raises the bar for you. Its like starting you here but
then pushing it higher, especially for those that can get there.
This structured, progressive implementation of DREAM BIG seems consistent with
her efforts to balance her authority being hands-on, decisive and authoritative as
well as inclusive, delegating, and responsive. A middle school teachers remarks also
captured this dynamic:
Shes very hands-on. I dont think she has ever just said, This is what were
doing, go. Shes [more likely to say] This is what we are doing, and then
she checks in on you when she comes in, and she makes her presence known
and she provides feedback when necessary, but without [belittling you]. Ive
never felt belittled by her. Ive never felt like there was a power struggle. I
know shes my boss, and I know shes in charge butshes able to ask teachers
for their advice when she needs it.
For this lower-elementary teacher, this balance is itself contextual and dynamic; she
sees Helen becoming increasingly authoritative when circumstances call for it:
I would say she has been slightly more authoritative this year, which personally
I think is good. I think she has been a little more demanding and a little more
critical. So I would say that she has asked for morebut [has] provided
more feedback, or more ideas and a little more thrown on this year. I would say
this past year shes been a little bit more in charge.
These remarks paint an interesting contrast: many teachers testified to an increase in
distributed leadership and delegation of authority, as well as to the responsiveness
and inclusiveness of Helens relationship with faculty, yet she has also been more
in charge. This may suggest that effective leadership for change is not an eitheror phenomenon: top-down, authoritative leadership appropriately balanced with
inclusive, democratic processes and supportive relationships can engender substantive
40

Guiding Emergence

change. This view may help us to understand why, from a complexity perspective, a
focus on bottom-up versus top-down reform is a bit of a red herring. In other words,
the who of leadership may be less important than the what (Alsbury, 2008, p. 81).
The processes and conditions of the system as a whole are what is important. The
key questions to ask are: what is appropriate for this particular context, and how do
other elements of the system respond and adapt to system changes? Acknowledging
the balance between distributed and authoritative leadership can help us understand
why the ongoing process of change requires continual nurturing and attention, as its
very success depends upon maintaining trust and a balance of power.
As Bryk and Schneider (2002) demonstrated in their study of Chicago Public
Schools, where high levels of social trust exist, the cooperative efforts necessary
for school improvement should be easier to initiate and sustain (p. 13). They go on
to note that:
In the context of high relational trust, teachers and parents believe in the good
intentions of school leadership. As a result, they are more likely to afford
principals a wider zone of discretionary authority. This organizational
feature is also especially significant in times of reform. Given the privacy of
classroom practice, successful change efforts depend heavily on the voluntary
initiative and goodwill of school staff. The presence of high relational trust
increases the likelihood of broad-based, high-quality implementation of new
improvement efforts. In this regard, trustworthiness across the organization
helps coordinate meaningful collective action. (pp. 3334)
Helens efforts to establish bonds of care and trust and to promote distributed
leadership contributed to faculty accepting the changes she introduced, while
enabling them to provide her with a zone of discretionary authority as the leader of
the school. A broad sense of buy-in from faculty enabled the more top-down nature
of many of the changes at SCS to not impede or contradict the more distributed,
inclusive culture that Helen is also trying to foster at the school. One of the lowerelementary teachers captured this balance in her remarks:
She has the perfect mix. I call it warm strict. Shes tough, but at the end
of the day it comes down to the person. She wants the best for you. Shes
incredibly supportive in that shes reached out to teachers who have been
struggling. I think that she has a good mix of being authoritative, in that
you know shes in charge, but at the same time delegating when necessary
and making sure that all of her staff feels included and welcome. I think thats
very important, because you feel confidence in her, and shes in charge and
shes the end of the line. At the same time, you know that shes reasonable
and understanding and ultimately, shes so caring about people. Thats what it
comes down to at the end of the day for her.
An upper-elementary teacher touched on the theme of balance as well, while
highlighting the sense of trust that underlies effective collaboration:
41

B.Kershner

Shes very enthusiastic[but] shes very pragmatic too. Its like, If you cant
do it, you cant do it. Well figure another way around it. If youre having a
problem, she wants to know about it upfront. Im not afraid to go to her and
say, Okay look, this is whats happening. You know Im not afraid to do that,
because she can help. She helps figure out a way around it.
Enthusiastic and pragmatic, warm and strict, challenging and supportive, in charge
and inclusivethese are some ways that, following parents and teachers, I came to
conceptualize the leadership characteristics that enabled constructive change at St.
Catherines. And, these characteristics, in turn, are significant both in themselves
and in their relation to broader school aims and cultural changes. The view being
proposed here is that cultural change is adaptive change (Heifetz, 1994; Heifetz &
Linsky, 2002), adaptive change is fostered by relational trust (Daly & Chrispeels,
2008), and these elements work together to engender increased innovation and
improved teaching (Moolenaar & Sleegers, 2010). It is the multiplicity of factors
involved that makes complexity and systems thinking helpful if not necessary as
analytic frameworks for understanding school change.
Within the framework of complexity, understanding schools as complex adaptive
systems (CAS), we can also note that, as a system on the edge of chaos, the tensions
between distributed leadership or decentralization and top-down or centralized control
are not resolved. There is an on-going push-pull dynamic in place at SCS that is itself
changing. In a CAS, a diversity of agentsinteract with each other, mutually affect
each other, and in so doing generate novel, emergent, behavior for the system as a
whole (Lewin, 1999, p. 198). This frame of complexity is helpful because the nature
of change in a school such as SCS is non-linear, emergent, and sometimes paradoxical.
At this point, the overall dynamic and culture of the school is moving toward increased
distribution of leadership, but it would be premature to say that the SCS systems
manifests what could be called emergent distribution, which no longer requires the
direct instigation of senior leadership (Hargreaves & Fink, 2006, p. 122). Sticking
with Hargreaves and Finks formulation, we could say that SCS faculty is moving out
of a phase of progressive delegation to a period of guided distribution or firm
facilitation, where distribution of leadership is still heavily dependent on the senior
leader (p. 122). As they note, more traditional schools, like SCS, tend to need careful
guidance in the transition from centralized to decentralized systems (p. 137). This
study confirms that generalization, and it supports the notion that leadership can be
progressively distributed given appropriate support and challenge.
A key takeaway from this, especially in the context of the work collected for
this book, is that the balance that Helen enacted at SCS which involved both
clear-eyed vision-setting and a strong-willed implementation of that vision was
in service of empowering and liberating her faculty from overly limiting and
repressive norms that had been established at SCS in the past. The movement here
is definitely in the direction of distributed and decentralized and, in that sense,

42

Guiding Emergence

democratized leadership. The culture of the school has far to go if it is ever to

reach what could be called democratic education in practice (Knoester, 2012), but
systemic change involves multifaceted, emergent, non-linear, cultural processes of
transformation, and school systems are not transformed easily or quickly. Given
the initial conditions and systemic constraints on this school, the progress attained
toward empowered and engaged faculty is significant.
In addition to the balance involved in guiding a cultural transformation toward
decentralization, and potentially toward the emergence of a learning organization
(Senge et al., 2000), another key takeaway from this study is the significance
of having a growth mindset (Dweck, 2007), which is an orientation toward
ongoing inquiry and learning. As Tony Wagner and Robert Kegan (2006) argue,
the new ideal for school leaders is to be a leader-learner (p. 213). Perhaps
more than any other, it is the impulse toward learning, experimentation, and
transparency that best characterizes Helens leadership and explains the progress
she and her faculty have made toward collective growth. In her interviews, she
consistently repeated the intention to enact novelty, try new things, shake things
up, and push for change in novel and unexpected ways; not in a haphazard or
arbitrary way, but coextensive with a process of reflection and on-going learning.
She therefore modeled for her faculty the characteristics that can foster the
development of an open, learning organization; one that is deliberately looking
for information that might threaten its stability, knock it off balance, and open it
to growth (Reigeluth, 2008, p. 30).
At the very least, Helens actions disrupted the status quo at St. Catherines School,
changing the interactions among elements in this school system in notable ways.
From her perspective, much of this disruption and growth has been fostered by her
work with the Lynch Leadership Academy. Speaking to her overall experience with
the Academy, Helen said I thought it was the best damn professional development
Ive ever had in my life. I think its been invaluable. More could be said about
connections between Helens work with LLA and her work at SCS; indeed, the system
of SCS does not have permeable boundaries, and it would be difficult to untangle
where the influence of LLA begins and ends. But, Helen captured something of
this influence, and its connection to her orientation as the leader-learner of an open
system, when she said:
What Ive noticed is even over the past year with Lynch Leadership, my
faculty feels more at ease to come into this office with more ideas. And Ill
give them the resources to do it. It may not work! And, so theyll say, Well
this was a failure. And, Ill say, So what did we learn? We learned this and
this. So now lets do it this way. Lets tweak it! And so to see that theres no
blame. What Im trying to get across is that were all in this together. Were
all constantly lifelong learners. Were all constantly learning. So if it doesnt
work, well fix it.

43

B.Kershner

NOTE
1

All names are pseudonyms.

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CLYDE BARROW

4.THE ENTREPRENEURIAL UNIVERSITY

Where It All Went Wrong

THE ORIGINS OF A CONCEPT

The concept of the entrepreneurial university was introduced into higher

education policy debates beginning in 1982 as leading corporate executives and
business intellectuals became increasingly concerned about the competitiveness of
U.S. businesses in the newly globalizing economy (e.g., Business-Higher Education
Forum 1983; 1984; 1986; 1988; see also, Slaughter, 1990; Slaughter and Rhoades,
2004; Slaughter and Leslie; Fairweather, 1988; Etzkowitz, 1989). The term gained
increasing currency throughout the 1990s, particularly following the 1990-91
recession, and its use exploded in the 2000s after another recession (2000-2001)
(see Figure 1).1

Figure 1

The immediate cause for concern was that the United States was well into the
process of shifting from an industrial to a postindustrial economy anchored by
information-, professional service-, and technology-based industries (Bell, 1976).
Partly for this reason, United States trade policy (e.g., NAFTA and GATT/WTO),
as well as individual state economic development strategies, were purposely
ceding low-technology and low-wage mass manufacturing industries to developing
countries in Asia and Latin America. Thus, the preferred competitiveness policy
among business leaders and government officials was to compete in the more
advanced postindustrial sectors of the new world economy, where U.S. companies
still enjoyed a global competitive advantage (Porter, 1990; Johnson, 1984; BusinessHigher Education Forum, 1983). The assumption underlying this strategy was that
U.S. companies would be able to maintain their competitive advantage either because
J. M. Paraskeva & T. LaVallee (Eds.), Transformative Researchers and Educators for Democracy, 4756.
2015 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

C.Barrow

they occupied the cutting-edge frontiers of a particular service or product line, or

because automation and technologybased manufacturing processes would allow
U.S. firms to compete on the basis of exceptional workforce productivity, creativity,
and continuous innovation (Bartell and Lichtenberger, 1987; Johnstone, 1991). The
stated goal of this development strategy was to enable the United States to compete
effectively in global markets while maintaining its current standard of living by
remaining at the forefront of high-wage sectors such as finance, professional and
business services, and various forms of high technology.
However, as numerous studies documented during the 1980s and 1990s, the
success of a high-wage postindustrial trade and economic development strategy
depended on the ability to create a more highly educated and flexible workforce in
the United States (Thurow, 1991). Labor market projections by the U.S. Department
of Labor, private foundations, and various think-tanks all agreed that if the United
States was to reestablish and maintain its competitive position in the new global
economy, the American system of higher education would have to accommodate
larger numbers of students and simultaneously close a projected skills gap
between current educational achievement and the educational requirements of a
new workforce (Johnston, 1987; Silvestri and Lukasiewicz, 1987; Mangrum, 1989;
Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, 1990; Reich, 1991; Zemsky
and Oedel, 1994).
A second lacuna in the postindustrial economic development strategy was a
purported innovation gap that arose from the division of scientific labor between
universities, government, and industry (McMahon, 1984). Historically, a division of
scientific labor had evolved in the United States where universities conduct basic or
pure research, federal laboratories and bureaus conduct applied research, and private
industry engages in the commercial development of new products and processes
based on prior research conducted by universities and government laboratories
(Dupree, 1957). These boundaries have never been impermeable, but for the most
part, basic research and technological innovation have been conducted by different
individuals who are physically separated by location, and who are also divided by
the two cultures of academia and business. Consequently, basic research, on which
technological innovation depends, had been pursued without regard to its practical
applications and, as a result, there was typically a long time delay before basic
discoveries could work their way through federal laboratories and into industrial
laboratories for commercialization.2
The discussion about the need to close the skills gap and the innovation gap
were subsumed within a wider discussion about the the rise of the entrepreneurial
state, which was a term that designated the increasing array of interventionist
economic development policies being implemented by state and local governments
to stimulate new economic activity. For example, Peter Eisingers The Rise of the
Entrepreneurial State (1988) reviewed a wide variety of strategies and programs
adopted by state governments in the 1980s to stimulate state and local economic
development. Importantly, colleges and universities were becoming a major part
48

The Entrepreneurial University

of this strategy through workforce development, technology transfer, business

incubation, etc. However, Eisingers emphasis, as with other observers (OConnor,
2002), was that these new economic development initiatives were in fact public
subsidies to private businesses, and that if state governments were to pursue this
strategy then they were underfunding these activities given their lofty goals and
claims. In other words, a critical analysis of the entrepreneurial state was a call for
more spending by state governments to replace the spending cuts enacted by the
federal government during the Reagan years.
Thus, precisely because higher education was becoming the centerpiece of a
state-capitalist economic development strategy, it was contestable at the point of
production on two fronts: (a) funding and (b) curriculum. The funding war was
quickly lost as states continued to reduce state appropriations to colleges and
universities and shift the costs of higher education onto students (Barrow, 1995;
1996a). University administrators and boards of trustees quickly embraced the neoliberal austerity paradigm for higher education (1993), while faculty and students
were simply too unorganized to put up much resistance at the time. However, while
political fights in state legislatures would have required external organization (i.e.,
stronger unions and professional associations, links to political parties), it should
certainly have been possible to put up more internal resistance by contesting the
meaning and content of the post-industrial curriculum. For example, Robert Reich
(1991, p. 84), former President William Clintons Secretary of Labor, identified the
core skills of a postindustrial workforce as: (1) problem identification, (2) problemsolving, and (3) strategic brokering.
First, in the older industrial model of business enterprise, firms employed large
numbers of sales and marketing people whose chief responsibility was to inform
consumers of the existence of a service or product and to convince consumers that
they need this existing product. However, in the new high-value firms, sales and
marketing were being redefined as a problem identification activity, rather than
a persuasive activity. This new process requires individuals who can identify a
specific problem that particular consumers or firms are eager to solve and who can
bring that problem back to their employing firm for a solution. Hence, rather than
being familiar with a standard set of their own companys products or services, the
new problem solvers must familiarize themselves with the peculiarities of many
other companies and still be able to assess exactly what each particular customer
needs even when the potential customer may not be able to fully articulate that
problem directly for themselves. The process of problem identification is essentially
the same for highly technical information services all the way down to floor sales
in a clothing or electronics store. Thus, it requires individuals with flexible and
adaptable analytic skills that can be applied across a wide array of circumstances
instead of a specialized content-based knowledge (Ibid., p. 106).
Second, the necessity of responding to problems once they are identified requires
a second set of individuals with the ability to determine how these needs once
identified can best be met with customized products or services their firm is capable
49

C.Barrow

of producing (Ibid., p. 84). These skills are quite different from those employed in old
product development divisions where scientists and engineers might incrementally
improve existing products. Instead, since identified problems are brought back to the
firm in an ever-changing sequence and array, those who solve them must have the
ability to create an ever-new sequence of solutions (including to problems they have
never thought about previously). Basically, these problem-solving skills consist of
the ability to put known things together in unique and untried ways. The process by
which this takes place is the same, regardless of whether those things are metallic
alloys, molecules, semiconductor chips, software codes, movie scripts, pension
portfolios, or information links. Problem solvers must be able to combine critical
thinking skills with a specialized knowledge of applications in order to predict what
such things might be able to do when reassembled or assembled in new combinations.
Finally, a set of strategic brokers must mediate between problem-identifiers
and problem-solvers so that the right combination of technology, talent, marketing,
etc. is brought to bear on a particular problem (Ibid., pp. 10809). In the past, this
was typically a management and executive function that involved giving orders or
enforcing directives. The new management executive is also supposed to be a broker
between different elements of an organization whose main task is to insure that the
right team is brought together to address a particular situation.
Given this matrix of postindustrial skills, it was claimed that colleges and
universities must not only do more of what they do best (i.e., teach and research),
they must fundamentally restructure what they do and how they do it, which required
that college and university curricula be redesigned as a first step toward resolving
the contradictions between the structures of higher education and those of the
postindustrial economy. In this respect, the postindustrial curriculum was supposed
to be designed around two matrices of skills that can be conceptualized as technical
literacy and multicultural literacy.
The idea of technical literacy encompasses far more than mere familiarity
with basic computing and software applications. Technical literacy denotes an
emphasis on developing flexible skills that can be adapted to a wide variety of
circumstances and that can be applied to a wide range of problems (Hirschhorn,
1981). As suggested above, the technical skills associated with the new flexible
specialist were supposed to entail the creation, assembly, and reassembly of ideas
and concepts (as opposed to things). Moreover, flexible specialization entails the
ability to transfers ideas and skills into new arenas to identify or solve problems
by evaluating the relationships between things, people, problems, etc. (Carnevale,
Gainer, and Meltzer, 1988; U.S. Department of Labor, 1991; Rodriquez, 1992).
These abilities depend mainly on skills of symbolic analysis in which individuals
are able to apply integrated mathematical, visual, and verbal skills to a problem
area (i.e., conceptual relationships vs. manual dexterity or logistics). The computer
with its capacity to integrate the written word with spreadsheets and graphic
design in a single tool is clearly the foundation of this new type of literacy.
Furthermore, the flexible skills associated with problem identification or problem
50

The Entrepreneurial University

solving cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries and, therefore, proposed new
curriculum initiatives emphasized the need for curriculum integration, coherence,
and connectivity (i.e., general education) to educate individuals with transferrable
skills and knowledge.
Finally, during these transformative debates on higher education policy,
multicultural skills were also identified as a crucial element of the new curriculum
because the globalization and internationalization of economic, cultural, and political
relationships had made these skills a necessity in the contemporary workplace. The
United States could no longer dictate the terms of economic exchange on a unilateral
basis and, therefore, it had to cultivate a core workforce with the capacity to operate in a
multicultural environment within the workplace and in an international environment
outside the workplace. Thus, while many faculty have increasingly expressed a
concern that the renewed emphasis on job skills in higher education, as opposed to
cultural or civic values, will degrade the traditional liberal arts education; in fact, the
requirements of competing in an international arena necessitate a renewed emphasis
on the languages, history, culture, and politics of different parts of the world, as well
as technical literacy that includes critical thinking and problem solving.
The content of technical and multicultural literacy was always contestable from
within the university, but as I lamented several times during the 1980s and 1990s,
faculty were slow to grasp the magnitude and the permanence of the changes
being introduced into higher education (Barrow, 1996a; 1996b; 2000). College and
university faculty were politically and ideologically unprepared to challenge the
corporate version of these changes with an aggressive alternative agenda (Barrow,
1987; 1995; 2001), although many progressive scholars made such proposals. Thus,
the door was opened wide to a particular definition of the entrepreneurial university
when other alternatives were certainly possible.
REINVENTING GOVERNMENT

David Osborne (1992), a professor of public administration, took the concept of

public sector entrepreneurialism a step further than Eisinger by pointing out that
a genuinely entrepreneurial state would require new forms of non-bureaucratic
organization (see Table 1). If extended to universities, which are mostly state
institutions, its repercussions for how we organize universities would have been
transformative, if not revolutionary. Osborne proposed a model of public sector
restructuring designed to move public organizations like universities away from
the old bureaucratic ideal of centralized command and control systems that were
focused on rule-driven, process-oriented financial controls to a decentralized system
that emphasized mission-oriented and results-oriented organizations that empowered
front line employees (i.e., professors in a university).
The essential characteristics of Osbornes model of public sector entrepreneurialism
are, first, that mission-driven organizations deregulate internally by eliminating
many of their internal rules and radically simplifying their administrative systems.
51

C.Barrow

Table 1

Similarly decentralized organizations push authority down through the organization

or system and encourage those who deal directly with the customers (i.e., professors)
to make more of their own decisions. Results are measured by performance (e.g.,
teaching evaluations and publications) and not by compliance with means (i.e.,
processes, rules, regulations), and then financial rewards are provided for this
performance. The Osborne model not only pushes more decision-making authority
down to the front line of an organization, but it eliminates what are now unnecessary
layers of middle-management that are being automated out of existence in the
private sector to create flat organizations that reduce the distance between senior
management and production level employees.
In fact, during this time, books were appearing on Re-engineering the Corporation
(1993) and The Virtual Corporation (1992) which emphasized how successful postindustrial enterprises in the private sector were moving toward decentralization,
shifting decision-making to front line operations employees, eliminating layers of
middle management through automation (inventories management, information
processing), and creating flexible, quick moving independent production and service
units that could develop new products and services, enter niche markets quickly, and
sub-contract with other such units within the legal umbrella of a single corporation.
These network corporations or virtual corporations were replacing the pyramid
shaped hierarchical bureaucracies of the past, and many of these companies even
began referring to their facilities as campuses and offering employee sabbaticals,
performance bonuses, profit sharing, continuing education, etc. (Hammer and
Champy, 1993; Davidow and Malone, 1992). This concept of an entrepreneurial
organization, if combined with a contested concept of an entrepreneurial curriculum,
would have generated a concept and a practice of the entrepreneurial university
that is radically different than the current corporatization of higher education. It
would have strengthened higher education institutions intellectually, strengthened
52

The Entrepreneurial University

the faculty role in governance (I prefer faculty control to shared governance), and
opened wider opportunities for faculty to capture the new revenues generated by
their entrepreneurial activity.
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK

However, as successful corporations were restructuring themselves to look more

like universities, university administrations decided to intensify the old bureaucratic
corporate model inherited from the mid-twentieth century. Thus, an organizational
and business model that was being abandoned by the private sector as a failure
in the age of globalization and information was being embraced by university
administrations as the solution to its fiscal crisis. The fatal structural intervention
was the fiscal crisis in higher education that began during the 1990-91 recession
(Barrow, 1993). By the spring of 1991, seventy-one percent of college and university
administrators in the United States had come to view adequate finances as the main
challenge facing higher education institutions (Almanac of Higher Education, 1992,
p. 72). Similarly, two-thirds of state higher education executive officers, such as
governing and coordinating board officials, identified declining state support as the
dominant issue in higher education policy (Russell, 1992, pp. 1219). Consequently,
administrators responded to the burgeoning fiscal deficits in higher education
budgets by rapidly shifting from short-term problem solving to crisis management
and then strategic planning for a prolonged fiscal crisis.
Strategic planning is a direct descendant of Frederick Taylors principles of
scientific management (Mintzberg, 1994, pp. 2122; pp. 22526). Strategic
planning quickly became the fetish de jour among the state elites and state managers
who oversee the higher education apparatus (Barrow, 1996b), but, unfortunately,
the proponents of strategic planning never stopped to consider that its pitfalls,
fallacies, and exaggerated claims had already rendered it a dubious venture by the
time it was implemented in colleges and universities (Mintzberg, 1994, Chaps.
34). Strategic planning originated in the 1950s primarily as a budget planning
exercise among corporate financial officers. It spread quickly through the corporate
sector, particularly in the United States, and by the mid-1960s it was a virtual
obsession among American corporations (Ibid., 6). Yet, even at the pinnacle of
its popularity with U.S. corporate elites, management consultants from within the
private sector were already observing that the word planning is currently used in
so many and various senses that it is in some danger of degenerating into an emotive
noise (Loasby, 1967). The identified limitations of strategic planning included (1)
the inability of strategic planners to agree on how best to implement a strategic
planning process, (2) a lack of real commitment to strategic plans by high level
managers who were disempowered by strategic plans, (3) a tendency toward risk
aversion and a reluctance to embrace change among middle managers who therefore
obstruct implementation of the strategic plan once it is adopted, and (4) a strategic
plans tendency to generate an obsession with management or financial controls
53

C.Barrow

(i.e., micro-management) that not only stifles real creativity, independence, and
entrepreneurialism in large organizations, but overloads the management system
with decision-making bottlenecks and an endless quest for more information (i.e.,
centralized data systems, forms, and multiple signature authorities) (Mintzberg,
1994, pp. 15960).
Indeed, the strategic planning movement failed to prevent the collapse of
moribund U.S. corporations in the 1970s (Bluestone and Harrison, 1982). Sadly,
these recognized limitations and failures of strategic planning did not forestall its
export to government by political conservatives who saw it as a key to running
government like a business. The fundamental problem, of course, is that government
is not a business, for it produces public goods and services and not private goods and
services, yet it was now going to be managed using a business planning and decisionmaking system that by the 1980s was already being abandoned by U.S. corporations
for leaner, flatter, and more flexible forms of organization and decision-making.
Indeed, as early as 1973, the conservative political scientist Aaron Wildavsky (1973)
was reiterating warnings from the private sector that planning protrudes in so many
directions the planner can no longer discern its shape.
Nevertheless, as I have documented elsewhere, by the early 1990s state elites and
state managers in higher education ostensibly began linking system- and campuslevel resource allocations to a strategy of selective excellence that depended on
strategic planning (Barrow, 1996b). The strategy of selective excellence is a form
of strategic planning designed to rationalize the American higher education system
by clearly differentiating the missions of individual institutions, eliminating
programs that do not support that mission, and by shifting research activities
into applied research that directly supports government and business. The central
objective of this strategy was to manage the burgeoning fiscal crisis in higher
education by downsizing individual institutions while enabling the system as a
whole to adjust to the needs of the new economy. Thus, higher education elites
began adopting a business strategy that had been abandoned by corporate elites at
least a decade earlier and was already failing in the wider state sector for reasons
that were well understood by corporate elites, business consultants, scholars, and
government officials.
Administrators embraced the rhetoric of entrepreneurialism, but immediately
distorted it through the lens of established hierarchical bureaucracies. Economic
development has been transformed into a practice where universities starve the
academic mission to subsidize for-profit businesses at student and faculty expense
and where faculty entrepreneurialism is about generating revenues for administrators
to cover the deficits generated by their money losing economic development
projects. However, as I always tell my public policy students, when a policy fails in
a rationality crisis (Barrow, 2010), state elites and state managers do not abandon the
policy, they conclude that the policy failed because they did not do enough of it and
therefore they need to do more of it!
54

The Entrepreneurial University

NOTES
Figure 1 was generated using Google Books Ngram Viewer, which allows one to track how various
words or phrases have occurred in a corpus of books from 18802012, see, http://books.google.com/
ngrams.
2
See, for example, (Parker, 1993), who elaborates a typology that contrasts academic and corporate
research cultures to document how they clash with each other in their basic values and practices.
1

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56

MARY M. TAFT

5.HIGHER-ORDER CRITICAL THINKING

INTEACHER PREPARATION
Putting 21st Century Skills Into Action

American public education is confronting a world that has changed rapidly and
unalterably around it, even as it clings to its roots in the 19th century Industrial-era
economy. Although the population of students walking into American classrooms has
changed profoundly in terms of ethnicity and nationality, languages spoken, cultural
affiliations, learning styles, developmental, academic, and emotional challenges,
as well as socioeconomic status, the system has been slow to respond (DarlingHammond, 2010a; 2010b; Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005). Teachers
working with this increasingly diverse student population are charged, for the first
time in American history, with bringing all students to high levels of proficiency in
an accountability-driven system (Darling-Hammond, 2006a; 2010b; Levine, 2006).
Students currently graduating from the American educational system must be able
to compete with students graduating not just in the next town, but also on the other
side of the planet.
In the global system, the economies of developed and developing nations are
inextricably linked by process and product, and by monetary, immigration, and trade
policy. Jobs and economic activity are not distributed on the basis of national wealth
or natural resources, but on the basis of the competencies, quality, and availability
of a sophisticated and creative workforce (Friedman, 2007; National Center on
Education and the Economy, 2007; Trilling & Fadel, 2009). Recent data from the
PISA and TIMSS indicate that in mathematics and science, American 15-year olds
score average to below-average, which places them significantly below their peers
in other nations such as Singapore, China-Shanghai, China-Taipei, Finland, the
Netherlands, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea, thus calling into question whether
or not American students will be able to compete in the global arena (International
Center for Education Statistics, 2010; Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development, 2010).
Although the moniker of 21st century skills has assumed political overtones
and become something of a fad (Mathews, 2009; Pioneer Institute for Public Policy
Research, 2009; Sawchuk, 2009), the idea is a discursive response to the disruptive
changes in the American economy. The knowledge and skills labeled 21st century
are not new, but are newly relevant in an age where the ability to excel at nonJ. M. Paraskeva & T. LaVallee (Eds.), Transformative Researchers and Educators for Democracy, 5773.
2015 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

M. M.Taft

routine work is not only rewarded, but expected as a basic requirement (Partnership
for 21st Century Skills, 2010c, p. 7). Different conceptions of 21st century skills exist.
While there are elements common to different versions, there is no unified vision
of student competencies (International Center for Leadership in Education, 2011;
Metiri Group, 2010; Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2010b; Wagner, 2008a;
2008b). Elements that are common across different models of 21st century skills
include problem solving, communication and collaboration, literacy in Instructional
and Communications Technology, mastery of core academic content, curiosity,
global awareness and cultural literacy, and higher order critical thinking (Anderson,
Krathwohl, et al., 2001; International Center for Leadership in Education, 2011;
Metiri Group, 2010; Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2007c; 2009a; 2009b;
2010a; 2010b; 2010c; Trilling & Fadel, 2009; Wagner, 2008a; 2008b).
Models of teacher preparation programs vary widely from rapid-entry alternative
through four and five-year traditional university-based programs, but all have been
severely criticized as being shallow, out of touch with reality, and lacking in intellectual
rigor (Levine, 2006; Wagner, 2008). There is no research agenda on the steps needed
to prepare teachers to function in 21st century educational environment (DarlingHammond, 2006a; 2010a; 2010b). The reality of diverse classrooms demands a shared
vision of how teachers should teach and how the higher education curriculum should
make that happen: teachers must have opportunities to learn in the same ways they
will some day be expected to teach (Darling-Hammond, 2000, p. 7). Necessary
changes in teacher preparation programs represent a linchpin between global forces
and the preparation of a 21st century workforce (Darling-Hammond, 2010a; 2010b).
The link between teacher preparation programs and the demands of the 21st century is
undeniably important, yet it is poorly understood and seldom studied.
PURPOSE OF STUDY

This study investigates how higher order critical thinking, as a proxy for 21st century
skills, is integrated into classroom instruction by adjunct professors teaching in
the MEd. in Initial Licensure for Moderate Disabilities in the Extended Campus
Program at American International College in Springfield, Massachusetts. Subquestions include (a) how adjuncts in the Extended Campus Program define higher
order critical thinking, and (b) how adjuncts foster higher order critical thinking in
their classroom instruction and assessment.
The study focuses on instructor awareness of the profound changes in expectations
for new teachers, within the wide array of institutional, political, socio-cultural,
discursive, human and non-human factors that frame this process of change in one
teacher preparation program.

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Higher-Order Critical Thinking in Teacher Preparation

Research Design and Methodology

This study employs situational analysis, a postmodern variant of grounded theory. It
analyzes a situation of action by including social processes, human and non-human
actors, discourses, local to global influences, institutional structures, spatial and
temporal elements, political and organizational conditions, the relationships and
tensions amongst these complex elements (Clarke, 2005). Situational analysis is a
cartographic approach that creates visual maps and representations of the tensions,
contradictions, and interactions of elements within a situation. Unlike traditional
grounded theory, situational analysis strives to uncover the complexity in a
situation rather than the simplicity. The complex situation of the Extended Campus
Program at American International College, which includes twelve campuses across
Massachusetts, over 1700 graduate students and over 200 adjunct faculty, was
analyzed from the perspective of the Moderate Disabilities Program, one of thirteen
areas of Initial and Professional licensure. The study analyzes discourse from
national and state policy, research, and college program documents, and interviews
with twelve adjunct professors. The complex and fluid organizational structure of
the Extended Campus Program make it an ideal candidate for an analytical approach
that stresses complexity and change.
Conceptual framework for data collection and population sample. Situational
analysis requires multiple sources of data, given the multifaceted nature of the
methodology and the emphasis on uncovering relationships between elements present
in a complex situation (Clarke, 2005). This study employs data from college, state,
and national discourses, along with data from interviews with adjunct professors.
Texts offer significant insight into a complex situation because they constitute a
major source of evidence for grounding claims about social structures, relations,
and processestexts are sensitive barometers of social processes, movement and
diversity, and textual analysis can provide particularly good indicators of social
change (Clarke, p. 151).
Thirteen documents and texts representing different perspectives on (a) local,
state, national, and global influences on 21st century skills; (b) dimensions and
characterizations of higher order critical thinking; and (c) local, institutional,
state, national, and global changes to teacher preparation were coded and analyzed
according to the constant comparative methodology of grounded theory (Creswell,
2008; Holton, 2007; Taft, 2012). Data from the discourse sources were included,
along with data from interviews, in the construction of maps and diagrams that
depict various aspects of the situation under study.
The second data source is 12 interviews with adjunct professors who teach
courses in the Moderate Disabilities licensure track for Initial licensure in the
Extended Campus Program at American International College. The study employs
a purposeful sampling strategy for the selection of interview respondents, which
entails the strategic selection of participants because they can purposefully
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M. M.Taft

inform an understanding of the research problem and central phenomenon in the

study (Creswell, 2007, p. 125). By selecting faculty members from one college,
teaching the same set of courses from one licensure track, the sampling strategy
is homogeneous (i.e., focused on one category of respondent) and criterionreferenced (i.e., all respondents meet the criterion of being involved in the same
program leading to the same teaching license) (Creswell, 2007). A homogeneous and
criterion-referenced sampling strategy provides consistency of professional roles
and perspectives, thus promoting quality assurance (Taft, 2012).
It is important to note that the unit of study in situational analysis is not individual
respondents or texts, but the situation that is uncovered by simultaneous analysis of
all data sources (Birks & Mills, 2011; Clarke, 2005; Clarke & Friese, 2007). The
elements of the situation emerge through and from interaction between the researcher,
the respondents, the texts, and through the zig-zag or constant comparative method
of analysis (Creswell, 2007; 2008; Birks & Mills).
Data collection methodology, instrumentation, and study timeline. The study took
place between January and May 2012. Texts were chosen for discourse analysis
through the process of theoretical sampling as noteworthy facets of the situation
emerged (Clarke & Friese, 2007). It was not possible to analyze all potential sources
of discourse out of the universe of published and unpublished texts pertaining to
21st century skills and teacher preparation. The goal was to assemble a manageable
and representative collection of discourses that are most worth exploring, will fit
together relatively coherently, will provide valuable data, make sense together,
and serve as a productive foundation for identifying elements of the situation
(Clarke, 2005, p. 167).
The second data source is interviews with adjunct professors teaching in the
Moderate Disabilities program at different branch campuses around the state.
Interviews lasted approximately one hour. Topics included the sub-questions
stemming from the driving questions, but also covered additional topics that emerged
during the constant comparative analysis of discourse and prior interview data.
Discourse samples and interviews were coded and analyzed continually in
TAMS (Text Analysis and Markup System), and open-source qualitative coding and
analysis software package (Birks & Mills, 2011; Clarke, 2005). Concepts emerging
from the constant comparative analysis were mapped in a variety of cartographic
representations and re-mapped on a regular basis. The purpose of immediately
creating visual representations is to open up the data and reveal concepts in
innovative ways:
In the kinds of wallowing in the data requisite to doing these maps, the
researcher will notice new things already in the data that should receive analytic
attention, note areas of inadequate data that should be gathered, note areas
of theoretical interest where particular kinds of additional data are requisite.
(Clarke & Friese, 2007, p. 371)
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Context of research sites and researcher positionality. Qualitative analysis, and

grounded theory in particular, have long held to the pretense that the researcher
is a neutral, invisible entity that is somehow removed from the situation under
study (Birks & Mills, 2011; Clarke, 2005). The postmodern approach to qualitative
analysis accepts the fact that the researcher is positioned squarely within the
context of study, and in fact, could not be otherwise. The researcher is an actor,
designer, interpreter, writer, co-constructor of data, ultimate arbiter of the accounts
proffered, and is accountable for those accountswe are, through the very act of
research itself, directly involved in the situation we are studying [emphasis in
original] (Clarke, p. 12). The researcher typically approaches a project with deep
theoretical and background knowledge of the topic, which inevitably influences the
interpretation and cognitive processing of data. Although the postmodern approach
to qualitative analysis assumes that all knowledge is partial and perspectival, the
researcher utilizes that partial and situated knowledge to guide the development of
the research (Taft, 2012).
In the case of this research, the researcher is one actor among many in the complex
situation under study. The researcher has an ongoing professional relationship with
the Extended Campus Program at American International College in the areas
of program assessment, quality assurance, and curriculum development, and has
presented content about 21st century skills and higher order critical thinking to
the Extended Campus Program faculty in professional development sessions. The
researcher is the author and director of several courses offered by the Education
Department and has taught for the program for five years. Although the researcher
does not teach in the area of Moderate Disabilities, the inner workings of the
program are a familiar part of the professional world of the researcher. As Clarke
(2005) observes, researcher experience is one perspective among many, and while
not privileged in any way, must be acknowledged.
Data Analysis and Limitations of Study
Data collection and analysis followed the typical grounded theory pattern of zig-zag
or constant comparative analysis, where both phases co-occurred and informed each
other. The iterative nature of data collection and analysis, with constant mapping and
re-mapping of emerging concepts, focused on sampling to build a theory, rather than
to achieve a pre-determined number of respondents and data sources (Taft, 2012).
Since the situation of the Extended Campus Program is the unit of analysis and not
the respondents or discourse texts, the dimensions and variations emerging from
the data were analyzed in terms of theoretical saturation, in which no new concepts
or categories are discovered (Clarke, 2005; Clarke & Friese, 2007; Creswell, 2008;
Strauss & Corbin, 1990).
Analysis followed the typical course for grounded theory, in which data are
processed through open and intermediate coding. Codes are conceptual labels
representing categories of information, patterns seen in the experiences of informants,
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M. M.Taft

or concepts that occur frequently in the data (Birks & Mills, 2011; Chiovitti & Piran,
2003; Creswell, 2007). Unlike traditional grounded theory, however, data were
simultaneously re-ordered into a series of informal and formal maps. Initial, or
messy maps, are draft versions that enumerate and reveal relationships between
elements in the situation, as well as elements that are silent and need to be pursued
(Taft, 2012). Initial maps are then refined into ordered/working versions of situational
maps that establish and categorize elements in the situation in terms of (a) individual
human actors/non-human actants, (b) collective human actors/non-human actants,
(c) discursive constructions, (d) temporal elements, (e) political/economic elements,
(f) major issues/debates, (g) implicated or silent actors, (h) socio-cultural elements,
and (i) spatial elements (Clarke & Friese, 2007).
Diverse views of higher order critical thinking. Professors and the discourse both
heavily emphasize the urgent need to cultivate higherorder critical thinking in preservice teachers so that those teachers can carry the same thinking skills into the
PreK-12 classroom. However, the definitions of higher order critical thinking diverge
between the literature in the discourse and the professors who must apply these
thinking skills with real people. There is significant overlap, but there exists a set
of descriptors unique to each data source. Appendix A is a Venn diagram displaying
the key descriptors that emerged from the discourse, those mentioned repeatedly by
faculty, and those conceptions that represent an understanding common to theory
and practice.
The discourse emphasizes 21st century skills, which is an umbrella concept that
contains critical thinking, but also contains a range of other skills, depending on
the interpretation (Metiri Group, 2010; Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2010b;
2010c; Wagner, 2008a; 2008b). College and career readiness is a national and state
level concern that is prominent in the academic and policy discourse (Conley, 2007;
Council for Chief State School Officers, 2010a, 2010b; Partnership for 21st Century
Skills, 2010a). Blooms Revised Taxonomy (Anderson et al., 2001; Krathwohl, 2002)
is mentioned as a technical tool for creating rigorous objectives and assessments.
Few professors emphasized Blooms Revised Taxonomy by name, although four
of the six levels of cognitive demand were mentioned frequently. Most interesting
are the focus in the discourse on teachers as leaders and the heavy emphasis on
ICT skills. While nearly all the instructors remarked that the program should be
doing much more in area of technology, ICT remains a relatively silent actant in the
situation of the Extended Campus Program. The expectation of teacher leadership
as a product of critical thinking was not raised by interview respondents and thus
represents an area of silence.
Critical thinking skills mentioned frequently by both the literature and the
professors relate directly to Blooms Revised Taxonomy, although the title of the
taxonomy itself was infrequently noted. Analyzing, evaluating, applying, and
metacognitive thinking are four of the six levels of cognitive demand in Blooms
Revised Taxonomy (Anderson, et al., 2001; Krathwohl, 2002). These topics
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Higher-Order Critical Thinking in Teacher Preparation

emerged frequently in discussions with respondents. The knowledge dimension of

Blooms Revised Taxonomy, which consists of factual, conceptual, procedural, and
metacognitive knowledge, received far less emphasis in the discourse than from
the professors (Anderson, et al., 2001; Krathwohl, 2002). Professors balanced the
importance of metacognitive awareness with the need for students to master the
factual, detailed aspects of special education law. Curiosity, systems thinking, asking
questions, and solving complex problems were important critical thinking skills for
instructors and for theorists as well (Wagner, 2008a; 2008b; Partnership for 21st
Century Skills, 2010b; 2010c). One professor synthesized the components of critical
thinking:
Its a mosaic, but its about thinking about thinking, asking questions, curiosity,
putting pieces together to make a new idea, and then thinking about what
youve created and the significance of that.
Unique to the instructors is a detailed suite of critical thinking skills that emphasizes
habits of mind, attitudes toward self, toward learning, and toward other people, along
with practical thinking skills that are needed in the workplace. Another respondent
explained expectations for graduate student performance:
They have to be able to first define the question and then define what are their
resources around the question? What are their personal resources? Whats their
level of competence, confidence, their wisdom, their expertise, and when that
is exhausted, [what] resources and avenues they can go to find solutions to
whatever challenge dilemma question they have?
Another professor emphasized the need for teachers to continually come up with
innovative and creative solutions to challenges posed by special needs students.
The instructional goal for students is to gain a complex knowledge base that can be
applied in unique and ever changing circumstances with preK-12 learners who are,
by definition, non-traditional:
Higher-order thinking [means being] sure that in my curriculum that Im
teaching that my students are able to take knowledge and apply and synthesize
it, take it and be creative with it. Being able to think outside the box. Particularly
when you are dealing with special ed students, you often have to be very
creative. Youre not teaching a homogenous group of students in special ed.
Also included is an instructional emphasis on basic factual knowledge. This
isunderstandable, given that the Moderate Disabilities program prepares teachers
to implement state and federal special education laws. One professor explained
the need to balance critical thinking with factual knowledge by relating it to the
practical, fact-based obligations of the workplace:
Because in special ed, thats the stuff that gets you in trouble as a teacher. So
youd expect that as a result of going through this course of study, youre going
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to graduate and be proficient so that youre going to maximize student learning

and benefit the students you work with. But youre also not going to get your
school district in trouble. So thats the stuff thats in the textbook. Its the stuff
that doesnt get your school district in trouble. The 10 days, the forms
The instructors view critical thinking from a balanced perspective grounded in the
realities of daily educational practice, based on a realistic assessment of the thinking
and performance skills currently expected of teachers in public school districts.
Wide range of instruction and assessment strategies. High levels of dedication and
creativity characterize all of the professors, without exception. Instructors serve in
a variety of professional capacities in addition to teaching courses with the college.
Most are sitting superintendents, assistant superintendents, curriculum directors,
special education directors, or principals, in addition to veteran classroom teachers.
All instructors bring valuable professional views into the classroom.
The creativity displayed by faculty also presents a dilemma in terms of continuity
of instruction. Because instructors work in isolation, each individual must create a
blend of teaching and assessment strategies that will emphasize higher order critical
thinking and assist graduate students in mastering the course content. The strategies
used to teach higher order critical thinking are one of the most complex aspects of
the situation, given the sheer number of strategies used by faculty. Given that the
research only involves 12 out of approximately 200 professors in the program, the
potential number of instructional strategies used across the entire program could
be far greater. While creativity is certainly an asset, the range of strategies raises
questions about needless duplication of effort by professors, lack of continuity
from one location to another, and the need for the program to develop systematic
approaches to instruction.
Appendix B illustrates the remarkable range of teaching and assessment strategies
mentioned by the 12 interview respondents. There are 57 discrete strategies
mentioned in interviews, all of which are used to teach the same set of courses in
the Moderate Disabilities program. The range of assessment strategies is represented
as a word cloud generated by Many Eyes (IBM Research & IBM Cognos Software
Group, 2012). The relative size of the individual words or phrases in the cloud
represent the number of times that word or phrase was used. Code counts for each
strategy were recorded in an Excel spreadsheet and imported into Many Eyes. The
analytics software arranged the words in a cloud based on the frequency of each
word or phrase. Rather then force the strategies into smaller and more inclusive
coding categories, the data were left in the form of original codes to highlight the
intent of the professors (Taft, 2012).
The largest phrase in the word cloud is rubrics, which was mentioned 16 times
during interviews. In most cases, the rubrics were individually designed. This
represents a contested issue, since there are program-wide and course-specific
rubrics, which are evidently not being used consistently. Not all instructors use this
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tool in spite of its prominent position in the word cloud. Attitudes toward rubrics
vary, as do the role of rubrics in classroom instruction. One respondent alluded
to the subjectivity of the assessment process and suggested that even with rubrics
assessment, criteria are not always objectively and publicly shared with students in
a consistent manner:
Im a very difficult grader and that I am very meticulous. I want what I want. I
will model what I want. I will give you a sample of what I would like to see. I
will give you a sample of what you should be seeing in your classroom.
A different professor highlighted the frequent use of personally defined rubrics: I
make my own rubrics. These are my rubrics based on my curriculum. The data
raise questions about the content, consistency, and comparative rigor of rubrics
designed for the same set of courses by so many different individuals working in
isolation. In spite of repeated messages from institutional actors about the need to
ensure consistency of course delivery, the huge range of instructional and assessment
strategies used by 12 professors suggests that instructional consistency is more ideal
than real (Taft, 2012).
Another commonly employed instructional strategy, which also appears in large
font, is requiring students re-write and revise written assignments. This strategy
speaks to the pervasive difficulties that graduate students experience with formal
writing expectations. Professors encourage mastery learning by asking students to
keep working until success is achieved. Another strategy closely related to mastery
learning is feedback prior to submission. Instructors often ask students to submit
drafts of written work before the due date in order to provide constructive feedback
and to guide students to higher levels of performance:
So email me email back and forth. Its not going to be time consuming for
me. You send it back, they get it, theyll fix it, and like I said Im not dealing
with everybody. Maybe 20% of the class needs some real structures and real
help.
Many of the strategies used by professors are designed to push students to higher
levels of analysis, application, evaluation, and metacognitive awareness, such as
using case studies, personal reflections, asking why, authentic problem solving,
dialog and discussion, backwards design, role-plays, and application to personal
experience. The role of ICT is not predominant in the word cloud, which is consistent
with other evidence that ICT skills play a marginal role in syllabi and coursework
(Taft, 2012).
Objective quizzes and tests are a predominant assessment method that is balanced
overall by the creative use of many other strategies that demand metacognitive
reflection, application of theory to practice, analysis, evaluation, communication,
and authentic problem solving. Even within the category of written final exams,
instructors manage to extend student thinking into analysis, application, and
evaluation of information:
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M. M.Taft

I design my final exams to be on a much higher order level of analysis. Take

this case study heres a student and their problems, heres all the data that
are collected during a Functional Behavioral Assessment. They have to write
their plan.
One reason for the large size of the word cloud is that most professors incorporate
rich varieties of instructional and assessment methods into practice. Professors try to
reach all learners, activate multiple modes of critical thinking, engage and challenge
all students, and keep the class moving briskly at a late hour when most students are
tired after a long workday. Some instructors focus on immediate engagement as a
way to get students thinking:
I try to model good teaching practices for my students. So I start out each class
with a nightly agenda. I know these folks have been in school all day; theyre
tired and need to re-focus. I put out some piece of evidence. I call it Read,
react, and share. I take something to do with the topic of the evening and find
some short article or paragraph or two about something that they read, spend
a few minutes reacting to with their peers in small groups, and then they share
their thoughts with the whole class. This is an activator, something to get them
thinking. Its great because it gets them all upset and realizing that they each
bring their own personal perspective to that. It usually starts and sparks some
kind of discussion, a lively personalized discussion that focuses them on the
major theme or topic of the night.
Beyond the initial activator, professors employ a differentiated menu of strategies
during a typical class period to further engage, challenge, and stimulate critical
thinking:
I make sure I have within the lesson plan opportunities for a variety of different
types of instructional methods. Theres always going to be some type of
lecture, some piece of information that theyre going to take from me but also
followed up with some type of higher order critical question or activity where
they work together in small groups And [we do] some kind of activity that
has something to do with the topic of the evening that involves brainstorming
solutions to problems. Generally things we talk about have to do with special ed
and teaching practices, and theory behind behavior management. I give them
the theory piece and have them apply it to their own experience by giving them
a scenario or asking for scenarios from them. Based on their own experiences,
I find they have a lot of deeply held emotional ideas about how they perceive
what they do and how they work with special ed kids. This opens up a much
broader discussion. It gives them opportunities to find out what their peers are
doing about the same types of situations. They find ways to ask help from each
other. What advice can you give? What did you do in your school?

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Challenges and Needs of a Growing Program

Professors were remarkably consistent in framing the problematic issues in the
situation of teaching higher order critical thinking in the Extended Campus Program.
Regardless of location, professors raised the same set of challenges. Weakness in
student writing is a universal concern, but professors do not offer any solutions
per se. This may be because instructors are already coping with student writing
difficulties or because the issue of weak writing is viewed as an artifact of the
American education system in general (Arum & Roska, 2011). Instructors request
a consistent set of protocols from the institutional actors in order to cope with
writing problems. Beyond writing, the need for consistent ICT access, professional
development, and updated syllabus design are all elements that affect the situation
of teaching critical thinking. Professors express concern that the Extended Campus
Program is not keeping up with rapid changes in ICT currently underway in preK-12
and higher education, and that students may not be fully prepared to succeed in the
21st century educational workplace:
Were working very hard to integrate technology into the administrative
level of education. I dont mean as an administrator, but how we administer
education. Hand-held devices, mobile technology, all of that, is a critical part
of allowing us as educators to be able to manage the data that the state and
feds want. So just at that level there needs to be integration of technology, for
technologys sake alone. But then to take it to the next critical aspect, is using
the technology for analysis of the data that is generated, to manage all that to
address issues and solve problems. Its very important that we try to integrate
that much more into our classwork.
The integration of ICT and critical thinking skills into syllabi and changes to
syllabi design to reflect best practices in backwards design and critical thinking
were discussed on 13 occasions with respondents. Although some professors
criticized the course syllabi for being cluttered with minute, fact-based objectives,
others acknowledged the need to be sure students pursuing licensure in Moderate
Disabilities master this basic factual material because it is relevant and necessary in
the workplace. Thus, the attention given to lower-order critical thinking in some of
the Moderate Disabilities syllabi represents a contested issue amongst the faculty. No
one, however, disputes the need to integrate information literacy into these courses:
They have information at the touch of their fingers. What I struggle with more
is the information that they use isnt really accurate or reliable or valuable or
valid. So that whole Internet information literacy piece is more important to
me. Its not about access to information. Its more about skill to analyze what
theyre reading, using it on a paper, and realizing that the source was not really
any good.

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M. M.Taft

The contested issue of coverage vs. un-coverage presents a vexing dilemma for
professors. Should instructors emphasize critical thinking at the expense of emphasis
on facts or stick to the script? Where is the boundary between following the syllabus
and enriching it with a personal perspective? Professors do not see a clear path:
What is the expectation of the college? Do they expect us to cover the material,
or expect us to focus on certain basic components that students should know
and be able to do when they graduate, and its our job to help them explore
those areas deeply?
One professor aptly described the tension inherent in the situation of teaching higher
order critical thinking to students who must function in a professional world that
demands mastery of legal and procedural facts as well as creative problem solving:
AIC would need to make that statement though, to their people who are
teaching. I havent heard that yet. There is this great divide between what
were talking about and the reality of the work that has to get done.
There is indeed a great divide between the hard working and isolated professors
who have a deep and broad knowledge of daily educational reality and the
institutional actors and actants existing on campus. Although professors employ
a wealth of strategies to infuse higher order critical thinking into instruction and
assessment, the overall situation appears to be one in which actors and actants
have difficulty achieving instructional equity and efficient transfer of information,
overcoming isolation, and moving into a web-integrated educational environment.
None of these challenges are insurmountable. The Extended Campus Program
represents a rapidly moving target, in the sense that it is constantly changing and
improving practices and policies. Many of the issues raised in the research have
been or are being addressed.
RESULTS

Results show that the Extended Campus Program does not reflect criticisms of
teacher preparation programs common in the literature. Adjunct professors are
intensely aware of the demands for critical thinking in the educational workplace
and find numerous and creative ways to integrate critical thinking into instruction
and assessment. However, adjuncts are also mindful of the need to teach basic facts
about special education law. The range of instructional and assessment strategies
used by adjuncts to teach critical thinking is enormous, suggesting the need to revise
syllabi to ensure consistent course content and delivery across the state. Adjunct
conceptions of critical thinking differ somewhat from conceptions in the discourse,
but share many key attributes, including categories of high cognitive demand as
represented in Blooms Revised Taxonomy (Anderson, et al., 2001). Challenges that
adjuncts experience in instilling critical thinking in pre-service Moderate Disabilities
teachers are primarily related to (a) logistical and communication challenges being
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Higher-Order Critical Thinking in Teacher Preparation

experienced by a rapidly expanding and geographically dispersed graduate program,

(b) a complex and somewhat contested relationship with graduate students, and (c)
by the need by the college to incorporate more Instructional and Communications
Technology into course syllabi and instruction.
Need for Further Research within a Larger Framework of Inquiry
This study fits into the overall research agenda of the author on situational analysis,
critical thinking, teacher-student learning, and the practical integration of 21st century
skills into classroom instruction, curriculum, and assessment. The data represented
here require further analysis through the lens of the Paul and Elder model of critical
thinking (Elder, 2012; Paul, 1995; Paul & Elder, 1999; 2009). Additional discourse
data needs to be considered, particularly the recent national report on teacher
preparation published by the National Council on Teacher Quality (2013). The
NCTQ report is highly critical of teacher preparation programs across the country.
The report establishes rigorous standards of quality for teacher preparation programs.
Because of the impact the report is having nationwide, this discourse is an essential
element that needs to be included in continuing analysis.
The Paul and Elder model (Elder, 2012; Paul, 1995; Paul & Elder, 1999; 2009)
was briefly consulted in the original analysis of this data set, but not employed as an
analytical tool. A re-consideration of this data set would require a careful, systematic
comparison between the views of critical thinking in the discourse and in the
interview data with the model developed by Paul and Elder: how do the standards
for critical thinking, the elements of thought, and the intellectual traits of critical
thinkers relate to the discourse data and interview data with adjunct faculty? The
data analyzed here are one facet of a broader inquiry into not only what kinds of
critical thinking are important to bring into the special education classroom, but
also how critical thought happens from a process perspective. The ultimate goal
of preparing all students to fully participate in the 21st century global society will
demand a deeper explication of how critical thinking works as a cognitive process
for pre-service teachers and what aspects of critical thinking are present or need to
be present in any given instructional situation.
CONCLUSIONS

Adjunct professors bring cutting-edge knowledge of best practices into the graduate
classroom. Higher order thinking is strategically and thoughtfully balanced with
attention to basic and necessary factual knowledge of special education law. The
Extended Campus Program, as it is current represented, embodies core values
of 21st century learning: innovation, creativity, higher order critical thinking,
and commitment to continuous improvement in the face of constantly evolving
circumstances. Results of this study are tentative, limited, and perspectival. Further
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M. M.Taft

research into a process-oriented model of critical thinking is necessary to capture the

complexity of this innovative program.
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APPENDIX A
Higher Order Critical Thinking Strategies

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APPENDIX B
Teaching Strategies of Adjuncts

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JEFFRY W. BEARD & KATHY DESROACHES

6.TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP
Positivity and Power in a Cohort Model Doctoral Program

Plymouth State University (PSU) is a public university located in New Hampshire,

offering a cohort-model Doctoral Studies program in Educational Leadership.
Approximately 50 percent of all doctoral students fail to complete, although most of
the non-completers have finished their coursework. Doctoral student cohorts have
been shown to be somewhat more effective in promoting the retention of doctoral
students (Stallone, 2011). A cohort provides academic as well and emotional support
to the participants. Cohorts rely on the interaction of students and the intensity and
exclusivity of the group membership (Saltiel, 2001).
We are in a doctoral cohort program that meets for two intensive weeks in the
summer. We have enjoyed our cohort experience and wondered if others do as well.
We wondered if all the members of our cohort were as delighted with the dynamics
of the group as we were. We wanted to validate our observations about the decisionmaking process in the cohort. Generally, we questioned our cohort experiences
related to power sharing. Did our colleagues share our positive experience? We
believed that we were a collaborative group, but wanted to support our findings
through research.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Collaborative, or social learning, was the grounding theory in the design of PSUs
cohort-model program of Doctoral study. Two of the seminal thinkers in collaborative
learning are Albert Bandura and Lev Vygotsky (K. Norris, Personal Communication,
March 21, 2013). They strongly support collaborative adult learning to create
profound and lasting knowledge. Bandura (1977) captured the strong feelings of
identity, coupled with the development of personal transformation and creation of
understanding that were the intent of the designers of the cohort model at PSU. On
the topic of social learning theory, Bandura (1977) wrote that when learners work
synergistically, they build understanding or knowledge.
Collaborative learning is an effective way for adult learners to gain new skills
and knowledge (Bandura, 1977). In collaborative study, participants may share the
stresses and emotions of advanced study, which can be very taxing on the individual
(Burnett, n.d.; Saltiel, 1998). One of the stresses, which may arise for students, is the
feeling of dissonance between the best practices in the field, as suggested by inquiry
J. M. Paraskeva & T. LaVallee (Eds.), Transformative Researchers and Educators for Democracy, 7581.
2015 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

J. W.Beard&K.DesRoaches

and research, and the daily practices that we encounter in our work (Fenge, 2012).
Sharing these experiences with others in a cohort scaffolds students.
Burnett and Fenge were both in Doctors of Philosophy (Ph. D.) programs,
while others such as Barnett and colleagues were in Doctors of Education (Ed. D)
programs. Their work shared the common theme of the importance of colleague
support among the members:
interpersonal support is important in a cohort, regardless of kind of doctoral
degree, the ability to share personal stories afforded by the cohort experience,
a feeling of being supported by ones colleagues, and a sense of dissonance
between ones daily practice in a job (Barnett, Basom, Yerks, & Norris, 2000;
Barnett et al., 2000; Barnett & Muse, 1993; Burnett, n.d.).
A rationale for creating a cohort in a doctoral program is the support that students
may offer one another (Barnett & Muse, 1993). The shared experiences and pointof-view can be a source of reassurance.
While cohorts provide support, they may also create a source of tension through
the interpersonal dynamics of the group. Leslie Fenge (2012) argues it is possible
that divergent points-of-view or interpretations of shared experiences can become a
point of contention and dissonance.
There are opportunities for strong emotions to surface in group inquiry and
study, especially in the discussions, both formal and informal. The respect,
or lack thereof, within these discussions can either be a source of cohesion or
dissonance within a doctoral cohort, and a determining factor in the individual
or collectives success in completing the dissertation (Barnett et al., 2000).
The research summarizes the approach of other researchers in their study of doctoral
cohorts. Looking at others research allowed us to construct a rationale for our study
and create questions to critically examine our cohort at PSU.
DESIGN OF QUESTIONNAIRE

Our survey was designed to be anonymous. The intent was to prevent bias when
sorting and analyzing the data. We also completed surveys, adhering to the protocol
of anonymity that we had established with our cohort colleagues. This was to
enhance the validity of the survey. All but one member of the cohort responded.
We used a mixed-method approached, asking both qualitative and quantitative
questions. SurveyMonkey (a web-based software tool to facilitate surveys) was used
as our instrument. The survey was sent to the fourteen members of our doctoral
cohort group. The survey questions began with the experience of being part of the
cohort and then moved on to inquire about the decision-making process within the
cohort (See Table 1 in the Appendices).

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RESPONSES AND ANALYSIS

Thirteen of the fourteen cohort members completed the survey. Later, the fourteenth
member self-disclosed that he/she had forgotten to complete the survey. Although the
intention of the survey was to be anonymous, we have worked with our colleagues
for three years and we recognized some of their voices in the qualitative responses.
As researchers, we shared our responses with each another, believing this was
necessary to gauge if our experience was validated by the results.
The number of responses was relevant, as we wanted to gain as complete a picture
of the perspectives within the group as possible. This relatively full participation
indicates an interest on the part of our colleagues to share in a discussion of their
experience. It also indicates a curiosity by the cohort of its colleagues; a wonder that
we shared.
We categorized and sorted the responses into themes. Themes were identified
by the frequency in which respondents mentioned them. In the analysis, individual
responses were noted, as this information helped to provide a more complete picture
of the perspectives of cohort members.
RESPONSES

Our survey results indicated the following: 1) some people were as happy as we were,
and 2) some were unhappy with what they deemed a power struggle. Additionally,
we learned that there were key moments that shaped our collective experience.
The opening question, What has been your experience within the cohort? was a
way to have participants think about their cohort experience. On person wrote, I have
been strongly influenced, for the better, through my interaction and collaboration
with members of our cohort. This response was indicative of the overall tone of the
responses. All of the responses were affirming. We, too, shared the positive feeling
and the responses validated our sense that our colleagues shared this experience.
We wanted to know if others had a cohort experience that might influence their
perceptions of this cohort. The majority of respondents answered no. Out of 13
responses, only one had worked within a cohort model, during a masters degree
program.
The main focus of the study was to acquire data on group decision-making. We
asked, In the cohort, how are decisions made? We expected responses to the
question that laid out certain procedures or methods for making group decisions,
such as: there is a discussion, and then a vote is taken. We were surprised by a few
respondents reporting that they felt six or seven cohort members were more forceful
and vocal in expressing opinions concerning group decisions.
The power-struggle theme challenged our perception of the cohort decisionmaking process, as we believed decisions were made through a process of discussion
and consensus building. If there was indeed a power-struggle, then our perception
was wrong. One person pointed out that we are part of a leadership program and
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there are some that never step up. If people would step up, this could negate the
struggle.
We wondered to what extent the cohort practiced the groups value of authentic
democracy in decision making, both inside and outside of the classroom. Do we
walk the walk of deep democracy? We realized that this question was not clear
as the responses indicated confusion. Some were uncertain about the meaning of
the phrase deep democracy, while others werent sure about the phrase walk
the walk. The answers were useful despite the fact that they deviated from our
expectation. For example, one cohort member was uncomfortable with the fact that
the group discussed politics or values that did not align with this individuals own.
This discomfort could threaten group cohesion. Upon reflection, we agreed that we
should have reworded the question in order to make it more clear. Doing this may
have provided answers more in line with our intention.
We wondered about group cohesion and asked, Has being part of a cohort made
an impact on your personal life? All of the answers were in the affirmative: the
experience had impacted our lives. One representative response was emblematic of
the group responses: Being part of the cohort reminds me that Im never actually
alone and I can admit my weaknesses knowing that I wont be attacked, but fully
supported. Ive learned that its okay to ask for help.
We sought to learn about the impact of the cohort experience on the personal
development of its members by asking, Was there a time that contributed to
personal transformative change? All of the respondents mentioned specific shared
group experiences rather than individual experiences. Even through major life events
such as the birth and death of family members, divorces, and the experiences of
one cohort member in the Egyptian Revolution of 2010, the members responded to
this question by citing significant events within the group experience. Responses to
question six indicated the influence of shared experiences, which will be discussed
in more detail in the next section.
The final question was: Is there anything youd like to add to this survey? Many
cohort students took the opportunity to wish us well in the completion of the study.
Some answered with responses that summarized the cohort experience. Among these
responses were: the summer is very intense and I miss this feeling throughout the
year; I feel as though Ive matured through this experience; I feel appreciated;
and I hope we graduate together.
Answers of this kind seemed to serve two purposes: 1) to elaborate on previous
questions or 2) to provide a summative response to the entire survey, and by
extension, a brief summary of the individual experience.
EMERGENCE OF TWO PROMINENT THEMES

Two prominent themes emerged in the survey responses. These themes were: 1)
significant events that contributed to the formation of group affinity and 2) the
existence of a power differential.
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SIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN THE COHORTS TIMELINE

Four cohort events were identified as having significance to the formation of group
affiliation.The first of these was a social event at the lakeside house of our first
professor. This event she informally dubbed Mandatory Fun (a name later adopted
by the cohort members to refer to the event). This was a purely social evening in
which all of the cohort members participated. The event provided us an opportunity
to define ourselves in relation to others, through the sharing of personal information
and storytelling. Many responses cited this event was highly important to the group
formation and affiliation.
A second event was a team project completed during the second course. This
project was assigned as the courses final summative assessment and was a program
evaluation proposal. Cohort members paired up and were given specific pieces of
the evaluation proposal to accomplish over a weekend. The tasks were integrated
into a single evaluation proposal to be presented to representatives of the Board of
Directors for a local non-profit agency.
The survey responses expressed that its impact on the cohort was important in two
ways. First, it helped to build trust and confidence among the members. Many of the
participants had previous experiences working in groups that were not satisfying.
Second, it allowed the individual strengths of cohort members to be recognized and
strengthened the sense that the group was the sum of its parts, each with something
diverse and valuable to contribute.
The third event occurred during our fourth class. The professors personality and
instruction style clashed with the majority of the cohorts learning preferences. Many
were offended by the professors colorful language. Through the survey, we learned
that the shared experience of dealing with this difficult professor strengthened the
bond of individuals within the cohort. One respondent wrote: When confronted
with opposition, we regroup. This brings us back to walking the walk.
The final event was our Synergy and Synthesis class. This was the sixth course
of the doctoral program. The classs objective was to reflect and create a synthesis
of knowledge and skills gained through our completion of the program. Survey
responses about this event expressed the importance of being able reflect on our
past, and to then share our future goals and research interest.
We found these events to be significant and validated that the majority of our
cohort colleagues shared our perceptions of the cohort experience.
THOSE WHO STEP UP AND THOSE WHO HOLD BACK

We were surprised by the frequency with which our colleagues expressed a concern
for the inequality in power and influence to affect decision-making. As discussed
earlier, the sense of disparity emerged from a small number of participants. They felt
that the dominant members usually made suggestions in the group decision-making
process (for both formal and informal settings) and the rest of the group remained
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J. W.Beard&K.DesRoaches

silent and were slow to offer options. One respondent wrote: I think the power
shifts through 7-8 people. I think there are those who never step-up. The questions
that elicited this general response were specifically about the cohorts alignment
with the concepts of group self-determination and authentic democracy. Both of
these constructs rely on a co-equal sharing of power, to the greatest possible extent.
When there is not shared power, those who have greater power also have greater or
more input into decision-making.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

The results of the surveys provided sufficient data to answer our initial question
and confirmed the sense that our perceived experience was aligned with our cohort
peers. We now wonder if the responses to the survey would be similar if it were to
be given to other doctoral students in PSU cohorts. Surveying the other doctoral
students would enhance our own validity.
Administering the survey to other cohorts has the potential to demonstrate
larger trends or tendencies and may provide researchers with information about the
interpersonal process of power sharing and decision-making within doctoral cohort
groups.
The additional surveys will add to the current body of knowledge on the topic
of in-group interpersonal dynamics. Relevant data might also be applicable to nonacademic settings in which groups of people work closely together to create meaning
and to make decisions.
REFERENCES
Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc.
Barnett, B., Basom, M. R., Yerks, D. M., & Norris, C. J. (2000). Cohorts in educational leadership
programs: benefits, difficulties, and the potential for developing leaders. Educational Administration
Quarterly, 36(2), 255282.
Barnett, B., & Muse, I. D. (1993). Cohort groups in educational administration: promises and challenges.
Journal of School Leadership, 3, 400415.
Burnett, P. C. (n.d.). The supervision of doctoral dissertations using a collaborative cohort model.
Counselor Education and Supervison, 39(1), 4652.
Fenge, L. (2012). Enhancing the doctoral journey: the role of group supervision in supporting collaborative
learning and creativity. Studies in Higher Education, 37(4), 401414. doi:10.1080
Saltiel, I. (1998). Adult students as partners in formal study. New Directions for Adult and Continuing
Education, 1998(79), 1321.
Saltiel, I. (2001). Cohort programming and learning: Improving educational experience for adult
learners. Malabar, FL: Krieger.
Stallone, M. N. (2011). Factors assocated with student retention in an educational leadership doctoral
program. Journal of College Teaching & Learning, 1(6), 1824.

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APPENDIX
Table 1. Survey Questions
1. What has been your experience within the cohort?
2. Have you had (previously) a similar cohort experience?
3. In the cohort, how are decisions made?
4. Do we walk the walk of Deep Democracy?
5. Has being part of a cohort made an impact on your personal life?
6. Was there a time that contributed to personal transformative change?
7. Is there anything that youd like to add to this survey?

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7.HOW CAN THE PROCESSES OF ORGANIZATIONAL

CHANGE PROMOTE A CULTURE THAT FOCUSES
ONIMPROVED STUDENT LEARNING?

INTRODUCTION

The need to improve educational outcomes in colleges and universities has been a
focus of national importance for several decades. During President Obamas 2012
state of the union address, he stated:
. To prepare for the jobs of tomorrow, our commitment to skills and education
has to start earlier.For less than one percent of what our Nation spends on
education each year, weve convinced nearly every State in the country to raise
their standards for teaching and learning the first time thats happened in a
generation. (www.washingtonpost.com)
This focus on student learning outcomes begins in the early years of education and
continues throughout the students high school and post-secondary educational
development. Since post-secondary institutions measurements of success are
varied, the way in which each college and university address organizational change
within their campuses must be varied and unique to their individual community. The
difficulty in improving student learning is not identifying the issues that exist, such
as minority learners, first generation learners, or socioeconomic issues, and then
prohibit the students success. These populations continue to exist throughout all
levels of education. For several decades, school reform has addressed many of the
barriers of access to educating all students regardless of their disabilities from K-12.
In higher education, however, these barriers are not addressed with the same fervor
as within private and public school systems. Therefore, finding workable solutions
and the difficulty in upholding these solutions may be the problem. The problem at
the post-secondary level is the presence of a complex set of structural obstacles and
deterrents toward improved undergraduate instruction that have been present in the
system of higher education for several decades.
A strong argument can be made that defends the role of external authority. External
authority consists of members of external organizations or groups that suggest
or recommend actions that impact the institution. State-level action to improve
the quality of the output of the institution is often needed to convince institutions
to address the issue. Such an action is most effective when it indirectly induces

J. M. Paraskeva & T. LaVallee (Eds.), Transformative Researchers and Educators for Democracy, 8395.
2015 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

D. E.Bryden

institutions to undertake self-improvement, rather than directly mandated changes

in particular policies and procedures. Instructional improvement does not occur as a
result of compliance mechanisms. More likely in such cases is that institutions will
go on the defensive and block needed efforts. Post-secondary educational leaders
must promote processes of organizational change that promote a culture that focuses
on improved student learning in such a way as to maintain open dialogue and to
embrace this change in a positive manner.
LITERATURE REVIEW

What Are the Processes of Organizational Change?

In order for organizational change occur, post-secondary institutions must identify
the obstacles that prevent their colleges from forward progress. One key problem
has to do with establishing improvements as a priority, changing organizational
structures to facilitate improvement, and providing clear incentives for change
(Ewell, 1985, p. 7). These initiatives are the responsibilities of leaders and managers
at both the state and institutional levels. Ewell (1985) explores the findings in a
study conducted by the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems
(NCHEMS). In this study, over 40 colleges and universities concentrated their efforts
in improving the assessment of programs and information about student outcomes.
Their results showed ways that campus leaders can use assessment information to
promote dialogue, mobilize action and effect change (Ewell, 1985, p. 7).
Ewell (1985) identified four obstacles to improved undergraduate effectiveness in
higher education. They are lack of visible commitment, fragmented responsibility,
lack of incentives for improvement, and lack of acceptable information about
outcomes attained (p. 7). In many colleges, research, publishing, graduate instruction,
and public service competed with undergraduate teaching for the attention of faculty
members and administrators. In the absence of incentives to the contrary, faculty
members follow the demands of their examples when approaching these tasks. There
is diversity of instructional goals. Ewell (1985) argues that this diversity serves as
a distractor to the mission statements of the majority of colleges and universities
(p. 7). Although undergraduate education is often a part of such statements, it is
generally held as a given, rather than singled out as the priority.
Another obstacle to improved undergraduate effectiveness is fragmented
responsibility.
Student success in postsecondary education has multiple definitions to many
individuals. Some leaders may consider student success as being quantifiable, such
as with regards to grades, persistence to the sophomore year, length of time to degree
attainment, and graduation. Graduation and transfer rates are a measurement of student
success in two-year institutions. And, in other institutions, student success may be
defined as post-graduate employment and income. In post-secondary institutions,
with regard to student success, faculty and staff believe that success of students is
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How Can the Processes of Organizational Change Promote a Culture

everyones business, but the responsibility does not lay on one specific department.
There is a back and forth between academic affairs and student development on the
ownership of this measure. Ewell (1985) suggests that within the post-secondary
institution, the student development department frequently will pass blame onto
the admissions department for the quality of the students who enroll, and academic
affairs will pass blame onto student development, asserting that the students are not
provided the support services they need to be successful. Fragmentation can also
occur due to the fact that undergraduate education may form affinities by academic
major or program. Ewell (1985) states, Because of the disciplinary training of
faculty members, faculty concentrate their efforts on instruction in upper-division
courses (p. 9). This causes a disconnect between departments and the success of
the students.
Another obstacle to improved undergraduate effectiveness is lack of incentives for
improvement. Supporting fragmentation in the organization is the lack of concrete
rewards for improving undergraduate education. In the public sector, institutional
budgets are largely driven by formulas. Ewell (1985) asserts, This is a practice that
encourages quantity production rather than quality improvement. Within institutions,
the constraints of formula budgeting are apparent in reallocation strategies which are
based on enrollments, as well as the signals which are given to deans and faculty
members that clearly imply that the achievement of high numbers is important
(p. 9). These tendencies are magnified at private institutions that are largely driven
by tuition.
The last obstacle that Ewell (1985) identified is the lack of acceptable information
about outcomes attained (p. 10). In addition to a lack of incentives, there is little
agreement about how incentives should be structured. There is a perception that
instructional effectiveness is impossible to measure when it is defined in terms of
student outcomes. This difficulty could be cultural. Many of the presumed outcomes
of higher education are held to be immeasurable, and attempts to assess them are
resisted purely on this basis. Another problem is that there is disagreement about
what is to be measured. The intended outcomes of higher education are very diverse,
and they vary across institutions. Furthermore, different external populations have
their own criteria for assessing and rewarding outcomes. These difficulties resonate
with educators today, as outcome assessments can vary from one campus to another.
There is an additional disagreement about what to measure in the assessments.
Given the information regarding these obstacles, institutions find it difficult
to develop or improve systematic attention to improving the effectiveness of
undergraduate instruction because of the complexity of each of the obstacles.
Additionally, pressure from external authorities such as boards, legislatures, and
accrediting bodies, and a lack of visible commitment has changed. As a result,
institutional leaders are increasingly willing to make a commitment (Ewell, 1985,
p. 10). Leaders realize that it is no longer a question of Should I act? but What
should I do? (p. 10). Once these obstacles are identified and addressed, organizational
changes can occur that will enhance student learning. Many address the need for
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D. E.Bryden

improvement in general education and the need for colleges and universities to test
the student knowledge and ability. As a first step, a school improvement plan that
is grounded in data and based on a comprehensive needs assessment can provide a
framework for effecting change in curricula, student support systems, and climate
(Ewell, 1985, p. 11).
The Impact of Innovation on Organizational Change and Student Learning
Building commitment to a common goal takes a considerable amount of time.
Improvement is a result of steady and consistent reform rather than spectacular,
short-term actions. Currently, many external authorities and institutional leaders
are demanding too much too fast. Through the lenses of various individuals on the
post-secondary institution campus, the leaders interpret student success differently.
Therefore, when there is a focus on improving student success, each member of the
leadership team has a unique response to improvement. Communication amongst
the departments is imperative to a co-curricular improvement approach.
One model that works in one college or university may not work as well at
another college or university. Leadership in this arena therefore means both patience
and restraint. Ewell (1985) states that innovating institutions must consider the
following:
1. Insist on concrete information about student learning and development.
2. Create visible centers for improvement.
3. Create concrete incentives for improvement.
4. Concentrate on the level of actual student experience.
5. Use external requirements as opportunities for improvement. (pp. 1116)
Carey, Wildavsky, and Kelly (2011) assert that colleges and universities seek to
maximize value in their education; however, faculty spends more time deciding on
what to teach their students rather than how to teach their students (p. 39). Lack
of progress on campuses is the result of placing the focus on what needs to be
accomplished at that moment, within a limited amount of time. The attention of the
campus faculty is spent on task matters that are driven by academic departmental
needs. Faculty members do not have time to try new software or teaching methods
due to overwhelming demands on them as they teach overcrowded classrooms and
must make modifications to their curriculum. They default to what they know best,
what is most familiar to them. For example, their syllabi remain unvaried, they may
utilize outdated case studies for research studies, and the way that they assess their
students may not be current with new student-learning information.
How Can the Processes of Organizational Change Impact A Schools Culture?
Organizational change is necessary, and it is inevitable. Change, however, is difficult
and complicated. Carey et al. (2011) found that the challenge for colleges is how to
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How Can the Processes of Organizational Change Promote a Culture

overcome the omnipresent deterrents for change. Innovation can begin to take hold
in colleges and universities once these obstacles are met. Carey et al. (2011) confirm
the work done by the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT). The
NCAT relies on technology and peer instruction to redesign introductory college
courses, lowering their cost and improving academic outcomes (p. 240). Another
example of this innovation is the Carnegie Mellons Open Learning Initiative.
It creates online courses that draw on cognitive psychology to tailor lessons to
individual learners, both independent students and those studying in traditional
institutions (p. 240).
As exhibited at the Western Governors University, organizational change through
innovation is successful at universities that were designed from scratch as test
sites for serving students in new ways. Carey et al. (2011) provide an example of
such a university; the Western Governors University that was created by 19 states,
mostly western states. This university moved away from granting credit for seat
time in traditional classrooms, and now it tests students to see which subjects they
have already mastered and then offers targeted online classes that allow them to
complete degrees. Including technology as a learning tool speaks directly to the
needs of todays diverse student population. Not only has the age of college students
increased, their needs are not traditional. This new student group of the 21st century
requires learning on its schedule. On-line, hybrid, weekend, and evening classes
are essential for these students. Traditional colleges are beginning to adapt their
course offerings to include a selection of online courses, as well as hybrid courses
to accommodate these students. Another benefit of on-line instruction is reduced
costs for both the university as well as the students. As costs for higher education
continue to increase, this offers a cost savings for students who wish to complete
their degrees.
Martyn (2003) found that hybrid model classes that encompass a first class faceto-face meeting, weekly online assessment, synchronous chat, asynchronous online
threaded discussion, e-mail, and a last class face-to face exam provides an excellent
way for institutions to enter the on-line arena and still ensure quality courses. This
model demonstrated effectiveness for adult learners at a small liberal arts college.
Based on the success of the program, the college plans to increase the number of
hybrid online courses offered (p. 23).
Another way that colleges and universities are changing their culture to improve
student learning outcomes is that they are offering more lab courses, such as
accounting, physical sciences, and technology courses. By increasing the credit
hours of a class, the focus is moving from a strictly lecture-based forum to one
that is experiential. Many classroom environments today provide examples showing
how students of the 21st century learn through group projects and shared learning.
An increasingly larger number of colleges and universities are adopting this form
of experiential learning in their classes in the sciences, mathematics, business, and
language arts.
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The Impact of Innovation on Organizational Change and Student Learning

One final component of innovation on organizational change and student learning
initiatives is the infusion of a global experience in select courses. Colleges and
universities are offering semester abroad programs, intersession international travel,
learning experiences, and global internship opportunities. American International
College states that:
One of the major features in the new Master of Business Administration (MBA)
curriculum is the international comparative study trip. In previous years, AIC had
worked in concert with the Mountbatten Institute to offer an international MBA
program where students traveled to London and Thailand for their global education.
An international experience is key to todays well-rounded MBA experience, said
Johnson. (http://www.aic.edu/academics/ba/mba/streamlined)
Studying and living in another country gives students first-hand international
experience, which sets the individual apart from other students. Students who have
global learning experience develop better adaptability skills, improved critical
thinking, and problem solving, as well as the ability to analyze issues from multiple
perspectives (aic.edu).
How Can the Culture Improve Student Learning?
Research has identified a set of elements that highly effective schools have incommon
(Designing Effective School Improvement Strategies, 2009). A school improvement
plan can incorporate each of these elements to provide a plan for more effective
teaching and higher student achievement. The Center for Comprehensive School
Reform and Improvement has found six quality indicators of high-achieving schools
and discusses related strategies that may be incorporated into a comprehensive plan
for school wide improvement initiatives (p. 2). The six quality indicators that highly
effective schools have in common are:
1. Aligned and rigorous curriculum
2. Effective instruction
3. Use of formative assessment and student assessment data
4. Positive school climate focused on achievement
5. Effective school leadership
6. Family and community engagement. (Center for Comprehensive School Reform
and Improvement, 2009, p. 2)
Aligned and rigorous curriculum is the foundation to having high standards in the
curriculum. The manner in which this program is articulated and understood is the
beginning for effective instruction and learning. As a first step, a school improvement
plan that is grounded in data and based on a comprehensive needs assessment can
provide a framework for effecting change for a schools programming support systems
and climate (Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement, 2009, p. 2).
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How Can the Processes of Organizational Change Promote a Culture

Effective instruction leads to student success. Schools are required to ensure that
all educators meet the criteria to be designated highly qualified. Effective schools
ensure that the strongest instructors are assigned to the most critical areas of student
need. These effective teachers are successful in engaging and challenging their
students.
The Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement (2009) also
finds that use of formative assessment and student assessment data supports colleges
to become data-rich environments. In addition to the annual summative assessment
data, educators need frequent, formative assessment data and other data to report on
student progress and make instructional decisions throughout the year. In designing
an effective school improvement plan, stakeholders may concentrate on how this
new data can be used to identify strengths and weaknesses and to track whether
improvement strategies are making a positive difference. An example of this is when
educators benefit from ongoing support in using data systems that collect and report
a range of data. Professional development for faculty in data-driven instruction as
well as ongoing collaboration to routinely analyze data and use that analysis to plan
instruction is critical to making the most of data collection systems. As a result
of this data-driven information, educators can report student progress and faculty
development accurately (p. 5).
Positive school climate focused on achievement allows students in post-secondary
institutions to feel safe and supported. Colleges and universities that implement
a school environment that has an atmosphere of connectedness and caring will
provide students within the community to perform at a higher level. An institution
that encourages a learning environment that has a clear code of conduct is enforced
fairly and consistently. Through messaging that is distributed from deans and
department chairs, from the higher levels of administration to the students, a sense
of impartiality is achieved. Additionally, faculty and staff send consistent messages
to students about high academic expectations (Center for Comprehensive School
Reform and Improvement, 2009, p. 6).
Every institution approaches this effort differently. What is needed to develop
and sustain a positive and supportive school culture will vary widely. One school
may want to focus on first year transition programs while another college may want
to focus on raising academic expectations for minority or underprivileged students.
In order to address the issue of creating and maintaining a positive school
climate, educators have recognized that young adults need to be taught strategies
for resolving conflict and solving problems (Center for Comprehensive School
Reform and Improvement, 2009, p. 2). Some approaches provide a framework for
supporting positive behavior that can be modified to suit the specific needs of the
school community. In other programs, an established curriculum is implemented to
address specific aspects of school culture such as problem solving or the prevention
of bullying.
Leadership practices that can most directly influence student achievement include
establishing a schools purpose and direction, allocating resources to grow and
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D. E.Bryden

develop expertise, managing time, and building a leadership team with a shared
commitment (Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement, 2009,
p. 6). School leaders can strongly influence other school level factors that also
correlate to student achievement, including school culture, stakeholder participation
in decision making, and relationships with families of the students (Center for
Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement, 2009, p. 6).
Family and community engagement have an important role in the success of
organizational change in the post-secondary institution. In successful organizations,
there is twoway communication between families and the community and the
college or university. This communication positively impacts student achievement.
When parents of students are involved in their education, the student achieves
success in the school setting. Clear, frequent communication through a variety
of media in addition to multiple venues to allow for input and feedback from
family members fosters awareness of and support for the schools efforts. Family
feedback and participation are encouraged through newsletters produced by the
student development office as well as the advancement office and though alumni
affairs.
School improvement plans may direct attention toward increasing family and
community engagement. Each school and community is unique, and the strategies
a school employs to address the community can serve as a starting point to form
partnerships. As a result of these partnerships, internship programs, co-operative
education, and student employment opportunities may be gained (Center for
Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement, 2009, p. 8).
DISCUSSION

What Are the Components of Change That Are Needed in Higher Education in the
21st Century?
Components of change that are needed in higher education in the 21st century begin
with financing and finding ways to improve instructional productivity (Carey et al.,
2011, p. 73). In addition to instructional productivity, post-secondary institutions
must approach these components on four different levels within their community
(Carey et al., 2011, p. 73). These levels include individual courses at the level of
whole departments or teaching programs, at the campus level, and above the campus
level (p. 73). The systems level is higher than the campus level. The systems level
would include higher education coordinating boards or institutional governing
boards. To improve instructional productivity, with improved student learning
specifically in mind, post-secondary leaders must tap into the intrinsic interest of
faculty in doing a good job for their students and in solving challenging intellectual
problems. In order to accomplish this task, Carey et al. (2011, p. 73) state that the
following requirements must exist:

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How Can the Processes of Organizational Change Promote a Culture

1. A conceptual structure for productivity that professors can buy into

2. A workload planning schema that allow time for productivity improvement work
3. A reward system that values such improvement, and does not undermine it.
(p. 79)
Carey et al. (2011) explain that because professors and academic departments
differ substantially in their understanding of what it takes to produce high-quality
undergraduate teaching and learning, each department may have different learning
and assessment processes (p. 79). Some faculty members may assess the outcomes
with coherent learning objectives, effective pedagogical activities that strongly
engage students in the learning process, and well-aligned and timely learning
assessments. Other faculty members apply the lessons of cognitive and behavioral
science to enhance teaching and learning (p.79). Universities and colleges that are
committed to changing a culture to enhance student learning will begin with their
faculty and provide their faculty the time and reward system needed to develop high
levels of academic quality work.
Redesigning courses is a way that post-secondary institutions can change to
improve student learning. This idea began 20 years ago at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute (RPI) by introducing studio courses in physics, chemistry, calculus,
engineering, computer science, and biology (Carey et al., 2011, p. 80). This innovation
in the classroom was designed initially to incorporate the use of technology in
the cooperative learning environment that consolidated lectures, virtual labs, and
discussion sections. Prior to incorporating this innovative idea to the classroom,
faculty and deans had concerns regarding the effect of lectures on students. This
concept increased student engagement and hands-on learning facilitated the learning.
Another change to improve student learning that Carey et al. (2011) have found
is the department-level productivity improvement process. This model of reform
addresses the departments portfolio of courses and teaching assignments as a whole.
Department-level productivity improvement initiatives take two forms: a decision to
redesign individual courses and redesign of the departments portfolio of courses and
teaching assignments (p. 84). Looking at the collection of courses allows educational
leaders to envision what is involved and also points the way toward improvement.
This model can help motivate the redesign of individual courses and also inform
resource-allocation decisions by deans and provosts. An example of department
level productivity improvement includes boosting teaching loads and increasing the
size of conventional classes. Another example of this productivity improvement is
to shift examinations from essays to multiple choice or short-answer questions that
staff could grade more easily. By making this modification in course examinations,
students are assessed in a way that eliminates subjectivity in grading. This form
of department level productivity improvement impacts student learning as colleges
and universities are able to modify the syllabi that the faculty use in such a way that
supports the current student population. These students are more technologically

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savvy, appreciate experiential learning, and are familiar with the use and impact of
the World Wide Web.
Campus-level productivity improvement occurs when campus administrators can
improve instructional productivity by stimulating and facilitating more effective
work at the department and course levels (Carey, Wildavsky, and Kelly, 2011, p. 92).
This is another change to improve student learning. This also means that instructional
productivity improvements begin with transformational leadership, providing
resources, and getting the incentives right. Specifically, campus administrators
may develop models and data that focus on departmental activity. By utilizing data
extracted from information that faculty advisers obtain, administrators are able to
develop dashboards and then employ volunteer departments to work out the flaws
in systems. Another initiative that administrators may pursue would be to embed
appropriate expertise in the institutions teaching and learning center. The infusion
of English faculty in the academic resource center allows the college or university
to minimize costs and time it would incur by hiring another faculty or staff member.
The addition of obtaining the support of school deans is also instrumental.
To ensure that productivity is improved, there must be systematic follow-up. This
can be in the form of regular oversight of the departmental productivity improvement
activities or more formal and intermittent reviews. In order to provide productivity
improvement, steps such as these are very important. As a result of these reviews,
department faculty pay more attention to the instructional quality that they provide
their students in the classroom. Department deans are able to address productivity
and offer suggestions for improvement. By offering improvement suggestions such
as academic productivity improvement tasks, the deans will increase the department
productivity.
Carey et al. (2011) propose that these suggestions may assist the deans when
a review period approaches. Formal review periods may be needed in order to
maintain and increase productivity and innovation in the classroom. One of the
most successful ways to review faculty is to offer an internal academic audit (Carey
et al., 2011, p. 93). These audits focus on departmental processes including their
productivity improvement work, research competence, and curriculum. Because
such audits dont require deep disciplinary expertise, processors from within the
university but outside the department can perform them inexpensively. Audits can
also be a formative and evidence-gathering exercise. By using the campus-level
productivity approach, faculty resistance is reduced. Additionally, because peers are
used as reviewers, the audit process helps spread good practice across the institution.
The final component for effective campus-level action is to link productivity
with budgeting (Carey et al., 2011, p. 93). The university or college should reward
departments that try to improve productivity, and it should inform those not
improving that they arent getting the incentives. This productivity that Carey et al.
(2011) suggest relates directly to stimulating and facilitating more effective work at
the department and course levels. This outcome can also relate to research and also
efficiency of administration and support services. Special incentive funds should be
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given to those departments meeting these productivity goals. This strategy of linking
effective productivity improvement work to a departments discretionary spending is
a powerful incentive (Carey et al., 2011, p. 93).
To support the campus-level productivity improvement that Carey et al. (2011)
illustrate, Danielson and McGreal (2000) analyze the teacher evaluation process
and offer ways in which the assessments can be made to be more productive. The
authors identify important lessons to be addressed in order to develop a blueprint for
teacher evaluation. These authors illustrate that the evaluative criteria can be unclear
or inappropriate. Furthermore, there is limited administrative expertise, as well as
the one-way communication that occurs that yields a meaningless exercise for the
educator. Instead of a meaningful outcome, the result of an assessment could be
perceived as a gotcha moment, one that has little value to the educator.
Danielson and McGreal (2000) recognize that the evaluative criteria or the
what in the evaluations need to be reconsidered. Many evaluation systems in
use currently are outdated. Many of the tools used in evaluations were developed
in the mid-1970s and reflect what educators believed about teaching at that time.
Additionally, the evaluations used today rely heavily on observable behaviors. This
form of evaluation is predictable and allows educators to focus on only a few of
the desired measurable behaviors. When the evaluation tools were developed, the
focus was on the research that surrounded student learning that accompanied student
achievement: norm-referenced, machine-scorable, multiple-choice tests of fairly
low-level knowledge (p. 13). This information is outdated today, as research shows
that the nature of the brain and how it learns requires a broader understanding of
learning and then, therefore, a different way to evaluate teaching. Danielson and
McGreal (2000) suggest, Evaluations should be based on a research-based set of
teaching standards (p. 78).
Danielson and McGreal (2000) identify how to best handle the evaluation
process by appraising the design process. They identified three tracks that support
the structural framework of their evaluation system. Realizing that the evaluation
system is driven by the form with which the evaluators assess the educators, the
authors suggest that the forms must contain three essential elements:
A coherent definition of the domain of teaching, including decisions concerning
the standard for acceptable performance.
Techniques and procedures for assessing all aspects of teaching.
Trained evaluators who can make consistent judgments about performance, based
on evidence of the teaching as manifested in the procedures. (p. 21)
Additionally, campus leaders must insist that claims of quality be backed by
concrete data, and concrete data be used to raise questions about the effectiveness
of individual units and curricula. Multiple indicators should be used whenever
possible, and imperfect data should be sensitively and appropriately applied.
Furthermore, data on effectiveness should be regularly and visibly used in decision
making. Success will be achieved when institutions visibly incorporate such
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D. E.Bryden

information into their regular planning, budgeting and program-review processes

(Ewell, 1985, p.14).
A strong argument can be made that the proper role of external authority at the
state-level to improve the quality of the output of the institution is often needed
to induce institutions to address the issue. Such action is most effective when it
indirectly induces institutions to undertake self-improvement, rather than directly
mandate changes in particular policies and procedures. Instructional improvement
does not occur as a result of compliance mechanisms. More likely, in such cases
institutions will go on the defensive and block needed efforts to share information
about effectiveness.
CONCLUSION

Implications for Post-secondary Education

Examining the methods, theories, and research applied to the philosophy of
organizational change identifies opportunities for post-secondary institutions
to create a successful method for improved student education. Processes of
organizational change such as introducing innovation, modifying educational
plans, incorporating research, study abroad, cooperative/internship experiences,
and adopting a variety of campus-wide productivity improvement initiatives can
promote a culture that focuses on improved student learning. Many colleges and
universities have evolved in ways that respond to changing professional, economic,
and technological advancements. Moreover, changes that promote a culture at postsecondary institutions that improves student learning must address the needs of
students. These changes will promote improved student learning outcomes.
Innovation stems from many resources. Innovations in education that represent
organizational change within the post-secondary environment can only be successful
if they are adopted by others. By using new technologies and class structure, faculty
must support the new paradigm of learning. This change may fail to spread more
widely and quickly in institutions where there is a lack of willingness to embrace the
change in curricula.
Some institutions of higher education understand that there are positive outcomes
that are derived from change. These ideas range from intelligent use of new
information technology and re-thinking of curriculum structure to focusing on a
central educational goal, thus avoiding the perception that postsecondary institutions
slowly make changes in the way that they operate (Carey et al., 2011, p. 240).
Incentives to innovation vary widely and barriers that exist cause post-secondary
institutions to operate with little innovation in its vision. With the landscape of
education changing with the economic recession that has affected so many families,
and the demographic of the college student becoming more and more diverse,
colleges and universities must take this opportunity to make the changes necessary
to make a positive impact on the students of today.
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Workable solutions to improve student and teacher assessment have many

benefits. Not only will they improve student retention and success, faculty members
will also improve their methods in a way that brings relevant learning tools by means
of updated technology, hands-on experiential learning, and the benefit of additional
learning through internships, co-operative education, and study abroad. Breaking
down the obstacles and deterrents toward improved undergraduate instruction
that have been present in the system of higher education for several decades is the
responsibility of all stakeholders in the college or university.
REFERENCES
Carey, K., Kelly, A. P., & Wildavsky, B. (2011). Reinventing higher education; The promise of innovation.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement. (2009). Designing effective school
improvement strategies. Newsletter. Center For Comprehensive School Reform And Improvement.
Retrieved June 15, 2009 from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED506366.pdf
Christensen C., Johnson C. W., & Horn M. B. (2011). Disrupting class. New York, NYMcGraw-Hill.
Danielson, C., & McGreal, T. L. (2000). Teacher evaluation to enhance professional practice. Alexandria,
VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Ewell, P. T. (1985). Transformation leadership for improving student outcomes [Monograph].NCHEMS,
6. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED310653.pdf
Glickman, C. D., Gordon, S. P., & Ross-Gordon, J. M. (2007). Supervision and instructional leadership:
A developmental approach (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Martyn, M. (2003). The hybrid online model: Good practice. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 26(1), 1823.
Silins, H., Mulford, B., & Zarins, S. (1999). Leadership for Organisational Learning and Student
Outcomes. The Lolso Project: The First Report of an Australian Three Year Study of International
Significance. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED432046.pdf
Strauss, V. (2012). Obama on education in State of the Union address. Retrieved January 24, 2012from
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/obama-on-education-in-state-of-the-unionaddress/2012/01/24/gIQAVfAwOQ_blog.html

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8.UNACCOMPLISHED UTOPIA
Neoliberal Asphyxiating on Higher Education in Europe

INTRODUCTION

The current outrageous revolution facing the higher education system in the
European Union is striking evidence of the avaricious effects of what I called (vide
also Paraskeva, 2007; 2009) neoradical centrist policies, something quite predictable,
especially after the fall of the Berlin wall (cf. Torres Santome, 2005). As McLaren
and Farahmandpur (2002, p. 37) accurately remind us,
the defeat of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union,
followed by the blue wave of pinstriped warriors from Wall Street, armed with
laptops, and taking up positions in Red Square where steely-eyed statues of
Lenin once stood, leaves little doubt as to who won the major ideological battle
of the twentieth century.
Such ideological (and cultural) battle(s) have been the very DNA of what Sousa
Santos (2008) calls globalizations. That is, an intricate multifarious social terrain
in which nonmonolithic hegemonic and counter-hegemonic forces or what Sousa
Santos (2008) calls insurgent cosmopolitanisms collide vividly before, among
other issues, social and cognitive justice, equality, freedom, democracy, human
rights, and common good. Whereas the first is usually understood as neoliberal,
top-down globalization or globalization from above (Sousa Santos, 2008, p. 396),
the latter consists of the transnationally organized resistance against unequal
exchanges produced or intensified by globalized localisms and localized globalisms
(Sousa Santos, 2008, p. 397). Taking the educational field as an example, while
one should not minimize the interesting gains in this battle portrayed by insurgent
cosmopolitanism movements and organizations (e.g., examples such as The Miami
University Center for Community Engagement1), it is undeniable that neoliberal
globalizations forms, or what I called neoradical centrist globalization (Paraskeva,
2007; 2009), have been able to express a triumphal position.
One of the social spheres that have been under attack by neoradical centrist forces
is higher education. Within the European Union, the Bologna Declaration (BD) and
the creation of a Common European Higher Education Area (CEHEA) are just but

J. M. Paraskeva & T. LaVallee (Eds.), Transformative Researchers and Educators for Democracy, 97127.
2015 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

J. M. PARASKEVA

two graphic examples of how the higher education system has been the target of
neoradical centrist impulses.
In fact, higher education in the European Union is at a critical defining moment
with the creation of a CEHEA, in which the BD (1999) constitutes a towering
document aiming at the construction of the European Unions knowledge-based
economy and society.
According to the BD, the higher education system in the European Union needed
to be drastically changed, in some cases almost dismantled. A new market-driven
system needed to be implemented one that would foster mobility and employability
both for students and teachers, and for researchers and administrative staff within
the Union, and guarantee that competition occurs not only among European higher
education systems, but also among international higher education systems. The BD
represents a vivid example of the continuous ferocious attacks, with no apologies,
as Giroux (2007) would put it, of rightist policies to the public and common good,
as well as an ideological attempt to reinforce the process of Westernizing the West,
by legitimating particular kinds of knowledge and skills (Apple, 2000). One would
have to be profoundly nave not to see such strategy as profoundly eugenic, as an
attempt to perpetuate Western white heterosexual supremacy (Bonilla-Silva, 2003;
Kincheloe, Steinberg, and Gresson III, 1996; Gillborn, 2006; 2008). The password
has been already registered: harmonizing. Memmi (2000, p. 93) is profoundly
accurate when he claimed that racism and the general structure that underlies it
and of which it is a particular case, summarizes () the systematicity of social
oppression. That is, Memmi (2000, p. 93) argues,
racism subsumes and reveals all the elements of dominance and subjection,
aggression and fear, injustice and the defense of privilege, the apologetics of
domination with its self-justifications, the disparaging myths and images of
the dominated, and finally the social destruction or social nullification of the
victimized people for the benefit of their persecutors and executioners.
The way the BD has been conceptualized and imposed does not foster a society
that challenges Memmis claim. Quite the opposite. The market is not a neutral
agora.The market is raced, classed, and gendered. In fact, and to use Girouxs (2007,
p. 111) metaphor, higher education in the European Union is in shackles, and what
was once the hidden curriculum of many universities the subordination of higher
education to capital has now become an open and much celebrated policy of both
public and private higher education.
The BD, and the consequent creation of the CEHEA, is a vivid example of what
Novoa felicitously (2000, pp. 3947) called rationalities behind the educational
discourse of Brussels. Such rationalities are quite rooted in Brussels intricate creed
for social regulation, a belief that is anchored in an economic logic, a discourse
about quality, and a rhetoric of citizenship (Novoa, 2000, pp. 4047). We are clear
before a conservative reform that completely restates and reshapes the role of the
state, thus paving the way for new public managerial forms (Whitty, Gewirtz and
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Edwards, 2000), praising and prizing issues such as excellence, quality, diversity,
autonomy, accountability, competivity, and mobility. As this chapter shows, not
only are such issues subsidiary concepts of the BD aiming at the eager needs of the
market and its endless greed for economic competitiveness, but they also need to be
perceived as new quasi compulsory set of cards that forces significant changes both
at the level of curriculum form and content naturally exclusively focused and aligned
with market needs. The dangers of such commodification and corporatization of the
higher education system not only brings to the pulpit the perilous claim of knowledge
production as a tagged commodity, and creates an unbalance cultural and economic
equation between technical overdevelopment and social underdevelopment, but
also depoliticizes its curriculum, framing it as a pale neutral commodity (Apple,
2000). Moreover, the colonization of higher education institutions by market
mechanisms not only needs to be understood as a brutal attack on the public sphere
(offentlichkeit), but it also raises serious concerns over academic freedom and the
role of intellectuals. As Miyoshi (1998) argues, uncertainty prevails in the work of
intellectuals who are not allowed to conceptualize their own scholarship, decide
what to teach, what not to teach, who can teach, and who cannot teach. Never mind
the fact that they are blinded by their own subjective knowledges within the Western
canon generally. Common sense has been transformed without recognition
Needless to argue that behind such rhetoric is what one might call financial
asphyxiation which pushes public higher educational systems into savage agony
and coerces it to a kind of capitulation. Those were the days in which so many
generations dreamed about an institution that would foster equality, social justice,
and common good. The end of an unaccomplished remarkable utopia is near. Giroux
(2007, p. 10) is quite accurate over the dangers of the university as a brand name
corporation:
While the university should equip people to enter the workplace it should
also educate them to contest workplace inequalities, imagine democratically
organized forms of work, and identify and challenge those injustices that
contradict and undercut the most fundamental principles of freedom, equality,
and respect for all people who constitute the global public sphere.
What is frightening is that the marketing processes of the higher education system
in the European Union is happening precisely before the financial collapse of some
of the very towering market secular icons, as one witnesses with the bailouts at
Wall Street. In a paper presented at the Union for Radical Political Economics at
the Left Forum, held in New York on March 11, 2007, Foster was quite sentient in
claiming for the need to pay close attention to what he called the financialization of
capitalism.
Drawing from Gerald A. Epstein (2005), Foster argues that
[c]hanges in capitalism over the last three decades have been commonly
characterized using a trio of terms: neoliberalism, globalization, and
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financialization. Although a lot has been written on the first two of these,
much less attention has been given to the third. Yet, financialization is now
increasingly seen as the dominant force in this triad. The financialization of
capitalismthe shift in gravity of economic activity from production (and
even from much of the growing service sector) to financeis thus one of the
key issues of our time. More than any other phenomenon it raises the question:
has capitalism entered a new stage?
In the past, George Counts (1932, pp. 2552) in his noteworthy analyses over the
interplay between schooling and the capitalist society, anticipated the ineptitude and
inefficiency of capitalism.
Capitalism is proving itself weak. It fails to meet the pragmatic test; it no
longer works; it is unable even to organize and maintain production. In its
present form capitalism is not only cruel and inhuman; it is also wasteful and
inefficient. It has exploited our natural resources without the slightest regard
for the future needs of our society; it has forced technology to serve the interests
of the few rather than the many; it has plunged the great nations of our earth
into a succession of wars more devastating and catastrophic in character.
However, while the bailout momentum shows that the neoliberal mantra that There
Is No Alternative has been replaced by a new, equally insistent and increasingly
pervasive call for reform and regulation (Giroux, 2008, p. 2), it is indisputable that,
before the current financial and credit crises, we need to pay close attention over
how the educational force of the culture actually works pedagogically to reproduce
neoliberal ideology, values, identifications and consent (Giroux, 2008, p. 3). That is,
before the latest neoliberal globalization metamorphosis, before such new multiple
cracks stage how exactly is it possible to imagine a more just, more equitable
transformation in government and economics without a simultaneous transformation
in culture, consciousness, social identities and values? (Giroux, 2008, p. 3)
According to Boltanski and Chiapello (2008), capitalism actually exhibits a new
spirit, coined among other issues by a new management doctrine. In fact, as they
claim, whereas until in the 1970s capitalism was deeply paced by a crude Fordist
model of development (meaning exploitation), since the beginning of the 1980s it
was able to develop its model now deeply focusing in the employees initiative and
responsibility, accountability, and its (quite relative) autonomy, obviously with huge
material and psychological damages (Boltanski and Chiapello, 2008). Sousa Santos
(2005a; 2005b) quite accurately claimed that, when standing before the current
neoliberal globalization forms, one has to be profoundly sentient not only about
what it shows, but especially about what it silences.
In this chapter, I analyze the interplay between the BD and what Slaughter and
Rhoades (2004) call academic capitalism as it has been developed in Portugal.
I contextualized the BD within the context of what I called neoradical centrism
policies that are forcing a new dangerous role for higher education within the
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European Union. In doing so, I was also able to claim that the current transformation
in the higher education system of the European Union needs to be seen not only as an
attempt to market higher education, but also as an ideological and cultural strategy
that attempts to Westernize the West.
ACADEMIC CAPITALISM

Understanding and analyzing neoliberal globalization (Sousa Santos, 2005; 2008)

involves an accurate set of critical hermeneutical processes that digs extensively into
the very marrow of the cultural, economic, and political origins of these policies.
Neoliberal globalization in its multiple forms did (and it is) not happen(ing) in
a social vacuum. Actually, it is precisely in its oppression of non-market forces
that we see how neoliberalism operates not only as an economic system, but as a
political and cultural system as well (McChesney, 1999 p. 7; Olssen, 2004), which
creates endless intricate tensions between cultural homogenization and cultural
heterogenization (Appadurai, 1996). Thus, accurately examining the forms of
neoliberal globalization (Sousa Santos, 2005) implies a cautious consideration of the
emergence of Reaganism Bushism and Thatcherism Majorism in the United States
and England. They were quite responsible for the origins of a cultural revolution
that, among other issues, initiated a feverish and frenetic attack not only on the state
(apparatuses), but also precisely on the very idea of the welfare state, highlighting
the market not only as the solution for the crises, but also, actually, the only one. The
1980s will be known as the Reagan decade (House, 1988, p. 18), or as a period that
witnessed a conservative right turn that renounced the commonsense meanings of
particular central social concepts that underpin a just society (Hall, 1988). Such a
right(ist) turn needs to be understood as a nonmonolithic bloc which has been able
to edify an intricate and powerful coalition, incorporating seemingly antagonistic
groupsneoliberals, neoconservatives, authoritarian populists, and a fraction of a
new middle class (Apple, 2000). As I have been able to document elsewhere2 (where I
have conceptualized and justified Apples organic intellectuality as anchored in each
book of his trilogy), Apples outline might not be a proper fit to explain particular
frightening realities in Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Angola, or Mozambique. However,
it helps us understand, as Sousa Santos (2005, p. vii) claims, the neoliberalism
contrary to what is commonly maintained, is not a new form of liberalism, but rather
a new form of conservatism, in which discreetly specific yet powerful religious
groups are steadily assuming prominent power positions. Actually, the role played by
O(cto)pus Dei nowadays, a Vatican within the Vatican (Hutchison, 2006) and a kind
of sophisticated expression of light Christi-fascism (Kincheloe and Steinberg, 2007),
threatens the way we examine the hegemonic forces behind neoliberal globalization
that have been developing and upgrading their strategies.
In analyzing the latest metamorphosis of New Rightist policies, Mouffe (2000, p.
108) stresses that both Blair and Clinton were able to construct a radical centre.
Unlike traditional political groupings, the radical centre is a new coalition that
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transcends the traditional left/right division by articulating themes and values from
both sides in a new synthesis (Mouffe, 2000, p. 108). However, as I have examined
elsewhere (Paraskeva, 2007), Fairclough (2000, pp. 4445), unlike Mouffe (2000),
stresses that the radical center strategy does not consist only in bringing together
elements from these [left and right] political discourses but also in its ability to
reconcile themes which have been seen as irreconcilable beyond such contrary
themes, transcending them. Fairclough (2000) also argues that this strategy is not
based on a dialogic stance. That is to say, the radical center achieved consent
within the governed sphere not through political [democratic] dialogue, but through
managerial methods of promotion and forms of consultation with the public; [that
is to say] the government tends to act like a corporation treating the public as its
consumers rather than citizens (Fairclough, 2000, p. 129). While such radical
centrism targets the state, Hill (2003) claims neoliberal forces actually need a strong
state to promote their interests, especially in areas such as education and training
fields that are deeply related to the formation of an ideologically submissive labor
force. What has evolved then is a State that has fostered the development of the
magnet economy (Brown and Lauder, 2006) so that whatever the market cannot
provide for itself, the state must provide for it (Gabbard, 2003, p. 65). It is actually
the state that has been paving the way for the market (Sommers, 2000; Paraskeva,
2003; 2004; 2009; Gabbard, 2003; Macrine, 2003). Recent bailouts of banks,
insurance companies, and car industry bear testimony to our claim.
As Appadurai (1996) and Olssen (2004) claim, although from different angles,
state sovereignty has never been in jeopardy within the contemporary global cultural
flows. In essence, neoliberal imprimatur is a result of nonstop struggles between the
state and market forces. Such intricate tensions are the needed fuel for the neoliberal
intellectual engines (Paraskeva, 2001; 2006a; 2009). In fact, such radical centrism,
while searching for the dissolution of old contradictions between right and left
(Fergusson, 2001), was able to lay the solid foundation for the gradual emergence
of a new concept of the state (especially with regards to its role) anchored in a
need to modernize government at almost any cost. Democratic forces have been
colonized by managerial insights in such a way that governments end up being weak
executives of a Res PLC,3] which operates with the blessing of an anemic popular
vote (Fergusson, 2001).
We argue that such mercantilist neofundamentalism has paved the way for what
Agamben (2005) called a State of exception the embryo of what I have called
neoradical centrism. While radical centrism, claims to offer a broad managerial
concept for the public good by showing new managerial dynamics per se (Newman,
2001, p. 46), neoradical centrism actually refines the entire commonsense cartography
edified and sutured by radical centrism. What is at stake nowadays for the neoradical
centrists profoundly influenced and driven by menacing O(cto)pus Dei judicious
desires is not the rapacious need for modernizing forms of governments but
precisely the unbalanced tension between force and law. In short, force transcends
law, paradoxically, in the so-called democratic nations. Marx was not very wrong
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when he argued in his theses on Feuerbach that religious frameworks are somehow
ingenuous ideas, concepts, and ideas edified by individuals in (re)action to their
compounded material milieu.
The issue today is so complex that it goes well beyond Clarke and Newmans
brilliant analysis (1997) found in Managerial State in which they challenge, among
other things, the tension(s) within welfare without a state. Nowadays, as Clarke,
Gewirtz, and McLaughlin (2001) accurately argue the issue goes well beyond
the creation of mixed economies of welfare or the emergence of a new public
management, of transforming citizens in consumers or even the emergence of forms
of entrepreneurial government.
The issue today is that the state is stumbling before the tyranny of transformation
in a way already flagged by Clarke and Newman (1997). Nowadays Welfarecide
have been orchestrated and paved by the so-called radical centrism policies. In
fact, neoradical centrism emerges as an answer to a compound framework of needs
prompted precisely as the consequence of such Welfarecide. While radical centrism
cannot be seen as a crises but as an answer to the crises (Apple, 2000), neoradical
centrism cannot be seen as a need but the only answer to address ever more pressing
needs. As Agamben (2005, p. 1) argues anchored in Schmitts approach (1922)
the necessities transcends the law. In this way, and to rely on Agambens
approach (2005, p. 1), neoradical centrism is able to overcome the multifarious
tensions prompted by state of exception vs. state sovereignty and edifies a point
of imbalance between public law and political fact. In fact, Agamben (2005) claims
the state of exception appears as the legal form of what cannot have legal form.
Neoradical centrism is ambiguous, uncertain, borderline fringe, at the intersection
of the legal and the political (Agamben, 2005, pp. 12) in its layout, making it
conveniently well-situated in coded no mans land and quite juicy for marketers.
If we view recent events, such as oil gate, food gate, and biodiesel gate, as the
dangerous costs of democratic mumble, we will be able to critically recognize how
the state of exception tends increasingly to appear as the dominant paradigm of
government in contemporary politics [a] threshold of indeterminacy between
democracy and absolutism (Agamben, 2005, pp. 23).
On the basis of a need to defend the values that support an insolent Western eugenic
culture, the state of exception (which is a state of necessities) has legitimized the
conditions for the naturalization and legalization of torture and genocide, allowing
mass imprisonments, massive extermination of particular categories of dangerous
individuals, and fabricating new identities. For instance, it become commonplace
to talk about the detainees in Guantanamo Bay and not about POWs who
should be treated according to the Geneva Convention. Simultaneously, the State
of Exception reinforces the conditions that anchor societal development to a pale
economic equation. In fact, the state of exception is not a special kind of law (like
the law of war) [quite conversely] it is s suspension (in our understanding [Aeternum]
of the juridical order itself (Agamben, 2005, p. 4; Todorov, 2003). In essence,
such neoradical centrism wins the consensus of the vast majority of the population
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assuming neofundamentalistic perspectives (Todorov, 2003, p. 20). Todorov (2003,

p. 21) argues that we are not witnessing a conservative, neoconservative, or even
paleo-conservative movement rise, but rather, a neofundamentalist hegemonic
bloc. Odd as it might be, Todorov (2003) writes that such a political platform
gathers such disparate political entities as Maoists and Trotskyists. Unfortunately,
some of the best Marxists are on the right center (Paraskeva, 2006b). Welcome to
what iek (2008) calls liberal communists, the new Porto Davos elite generation.
Why then, despite almost three decades of distressing effects on society and
attacks on the even more localized rest (Bauman, 2004, p. 3) does a hegemonic
bloc continue to dominate? As Jessop, Bonnett, Bromley, and Ling (1984) and Apple
(2000, p. 23) remind us, one must question, How is such an ideological vision
legitimated and accepted? It is undeniable that neoradical centrism is not exactly
a pure detour from the orthodoxies laid out by the radical centrism. It is actually
a moment of complexities, and in some ways it is a platform that, as Hall (1992)
would put it, goes towards radical centrism by taking advantage of particular kinds
of contradictions within the very marrow of neoliberal globalization. Neoradical
centrism should be seen as the latest capitalist metamorphosis of righting the left.
Such an aim cannot be detached from the politics of the commonsense and the role
that the media plays in building a particular weave. Notwithstanding its disastrous
impact on the oppressed populations all over the world, such an new hegemonic
power bloc managed to achieve support from that majority on the social perimeter.
ENQA AND OECD NEOLIBERAL FINAL BLESSING

It is not easy to characterize Portugal despite the size of the country 10 million
within 100.000 sq.km. According to Simo, Santos, and Costa (2002), Portugal is
usually defined either as country of illiterate people or the country of MAs and
PhDs. an insidious/purposeful dichotomy.
It is a country that persists in a belabored claim over a notable and laudable past
quite debatable one must say. Currently, cold figures do not lie though.
At the beginning of the third millennium, Simo, Santos, and Costa (2002) argue,
only 9.8% of the age cohort completed higher education, 11.7% concluded high
school, and 78.4% finished school prior to the conclusion of elementary education.
We are before a heterogenic universe, quite responsible for a national wealth of
12,540 Euros per citizen, a painful figure when compared with the European average
of 21,310 Euros (Simo, Santos and Costa, 2002). Within the European Union, such
figures push Portugal into an uncomfortable situation. The cruelty of such figures
allows us to question, along with Aronowitz (2000, pp. 102124), who gets in,
whos left out of colleges and Universities an issue that we will recapture later.
Lets now pay close attention to the current situation of higher education in Portugal.
In comparison to other EU State Members (hereafter STMEs), ENQAs 4 million
Euros report (2006, pp.1821) claims that Portuguese higher education is fairly
diverse as regards the types of institutions that constitute the system. There are three
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major lines of institutional differentiation: a binary distinction between universities

and polytechnic institutions, a distinction between specialized schools typically with
a single focus area and larger integrated multi-focused institutions, and finally the
coexistence of both public and private sectors of higher education.
According to the OECD (2006) and ENQA (2006, p. 19) reports, higher education
in Portugal expanded dramatically in the eighties and early nineties as a response
to an increase in student enrolment. The number of students in higher education
institutions has grown from 30,000 in the sixties to nearly 400,000 in 2000.
While this is accurate evidence of the massification of higher education over the
last three decades, the fact is that the spectacular expansion of higher education in
Portugal is deeply related with the European Unions cohesion structural funds as
well something that inexplicably both OECD (2006) and ENQA (2006) reports
completely silenced. In Portugal, a substantive portion of such European Unions
cohesion funds were in the hands of private institutions. The very fact that the
expansion of higher education was mainly seen in the private sector (ENQA, 2006,
p. 19) bears testimony to such undisputable claim. Quite naturally, unfortunately,
as Duran (1997, p. 94) accurately denounces, we all know within the European
Union that Maastrichts cohesion funds actually has nothing to do with social
convergence one of the European Unions top priorities. The European Unions
cohesion structural funds such as the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)
constitute a precious example of Europes inconsequence in creating a more just
Union. Initially created to promote economic and social cohesion by correcting the
main regional imbalances and participating in the development and conversion of
regions while ensuring synergy with assistance from the other structural funds, it
is undeniable that, in Portugal, such funds would end up creating an irreversible
unbalanced and uneven development. The vast majority of the European Unions
cohesion structural funds were utilized in Lisbon and the Lisbon area. The massive
majority of such funds channeled for education and training programs are in the
hands of private corporations or institutions funded by public finance, yet with
private management.
Such unbalanced and uncontrolled growth of the higher education system and,
in particular, of the private sector, has affected the quality of the education and
compromised the credibility of the system (ENQA, 2006, p. 19). What is quite
frightening is that despite such growth and quite contrary to what is sometimes
affirmed, Portugal does not have too many graduates, but actually has too few
(OECD, 2006, p. 32). This unhinged development of the Portuguese higher education
system is overtly visible in terms of programmatic diversity as well (OECE, 2006,
p. 23).
This uncontrolled and jumbled growth was quite towering until very recently
though. As ENQA (2006, p. 8) shows, in 2005, a total of 141 new degree study
programmes for public universities were registered. In comparison, 61 of a total of
157 degree programme applications from private institutions were approved, and 43
of a total of 94 for public polytechnics. Such lack of balance is quite palpable if one
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pays attention to the location of higher education institutions. As OECDs (2006, p.

22) report bluntly shows, [b]eyond these major lines of sectors and size, regional
and locational differentiation are also important: four of the 14 public universities
are located in the interior of mainland Portugal, two on the islands and eight in the
more developed coastal area. Seven of the fifteen public polytechnic institutes are
located in the interior.
While this mirrors demographic trends, ENQAs (2006, p. 22) document stresses,
(the United Nations estimates that 85% of the Portuguese population may be
concentrated in Lisbon and Porto by 2015) it raises a series of questions concerning
the role of higher education in regional economic development and the level of
internal student mobility that is desirable and achievable. This dangerous, uneven
growth, propelled not by a clear project, and combined with a set of neoliberal
impulses (in which states defunding policies constitute vivid examples) pushed the
Portuguese higher educational system to a catastrophic situation.
To say that higher education is in crises in Portugal constitutes a truism. To
say that there is not a single Portuguese university department or center (let alone
university) within the very first 250 top world universities and colleges is really
commonplace. To say that higher education institutions in Portugal universities
and colleges are bankrupt is not a platitude. To say that higher education
both public and private is penniless is profoundly seismic. Unfortunately, this
is the case. It is actually an earthquake. During the last week of January 2007,
Arajo (2007), University of voras Rector, and Rodrigues (2007), Rector of
the University of Minho, declared publicly without any euphemism that their
public universities were about to achieve a flat broke situation. Nvoa, currently
the Rector of the University of Lisbon, aligned with his peers making a much
more ballistic argument. According to Nvoa (2006), the all-Portuguese higher
education system is collapsing.
In fact, after long periods of time, operating in the limits of the abysm, the
Portuguese higher educational system has moved a step forward. Clearly, at the end
of the second millennium it achieved an unsustainable and indefensible condition
deeply propelled by an intricate set of neoliberal strategies. Among those strategies
one should not minimize (a) surgical defunding policies for public institutions; (b)
mistreatment of European Unions cohesion structural funds; (c) a lack of a strong
and clear public policy for education in general, and higher education in particular;
and (d) European Unions nonstop growing project of incorporating new territories,
thus gaining new (and bigger) marketswhich push countries like Portugal to an
uncomfortable position.
Such a set of neoliberal strategies in Portugal like elsewhere (Paraskeva,
2008) were able to rework specific meanings within the commonsense and with
the medias help. We are experiencing a well achieved (de)(re)meaning reworking
process within the commonsense that allows New Right policies to establish a
hegemonic position and to build safe conditions to say what just a few decades
would have been unsayable as well as unthinkable.
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Today in Portugal, the vast majority accepts (almost pacifically) that public
higher educations days are justifiably numbered, and that the solution is to follow
OECD and ENQAs orientations. In a word, higher education no matter public
or private must adapt to market mechanisms. To make a long story short, and
along with Gewirtz (2002, p. 13), higher education in Portugal embraced a process
of reacculturation. Much of this social sense is achieved by the way particular
social concepts and aims are positively twisted semantically, thus giving birth to
a new discourse. Through a complex network of policies expressed in a myriad of
foundations, institutes, scholars, and writers, the New Rightists were able not only
to (de)(re)mean particular key concepts, but also to push them to an economic logic
sphere, and in so doing create a language that has the force to justify the unjustifiable,
to produce a strong discourse as a perfect representation of reality (Macedo,
Dendrinos and Gounari, 2003), one that although not impossible, is really difficult
to challenge and deconstruct (Gee, Hall and Lankshear, 1996, p. 29). Marketeers
were able to build an acquiescence of destroying what they dared to coin as state
monopoly in higher education in Portugal, thus perverting the very idea of the public
good.
Basically, the higher education report by the OECD (2006, p. 24) identifies a
set of challenges for Portuguese higher education at a systemic level, namely,
specialization, improving quality in education and research, clarification of the roles
of universities and polytechnics, rationalization of human resources, addressing the
market needs, connection with the knowledge-based economy, managerialism and
autonomy, etc.
The very deep structure of such challenges leaves no doubt over the parlous state
of higher education in Portugal. This is characterized by declining enrolments,
the existence of cohorts of potential students with ability that are not catered for
at present, low through-put rates within higher education, a very limited emphasis
on short-cycle programs, and the inward focus of much of the Portuguese higher
education system reflecting a strong academic culture and the limited involvement of
external stakeholders in systemic policy formulation and institutional governance
(OECD, 2006, p. 25). This, connected with an attack on education as a public good
perpetrated by neoliberal policies, was a singularly juicy opportunity for both OECD
and ENQA to dare put forward a set of goals quite compulsory one might say, since
basically there is no alternative for the future Portuguese higher education system.
Among those objectives, three can be highlighted.
The first goal makes clear the need to reform secondary education as well and
make a laudatory call to follow the Lisbon Strategy (hereafter LS) (2000). As the
OECD (2006, p. 29) explicitly stresses vibrant Portuguese higher education sector
needs reform in upper secondary education, must be well articulated with the science
and technology system, needs to be linked to developments in the labour market and
to Portugals ambitious plans flowing from the Lisbon strategy.
The second goal acknowledges the need for a symbiosis between state, markets,
and academia, anchored on the so-called knowledge-based economy. That is, higher
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education is of central importance to Portugals economic strategy, and its development

of a knowledge economy implies that high-level strategy for the sector must involve
high-level input from the state, the market and academia (OECD, 2006, p. 29).
The third goal sees the Bologna Declaration (BD) (1998) as an opportunity,
unique opportunity for the renewal of study programmes in Portugal, and for a
reconsideration of educational processes with a greater focus on student learning and
outcomes, as well as a more explicit concern for the links between study programmes
and the labour market.
While both OECD (2006) and the ENQA (2006) reports show a set of truthful
X-rays on the Portuguese higher education system, unveiling a painful reality, some
of the reasons for such a chaotic state are completely ignored, and the suggestions
they put forward to change the course of the facts are quite dangerous. Although
we admit the Portuguese academic establishment would react strongly against
this position, inevitably Portuguese higher education catastrophe achieves a superior
level of crises not only especially before, but also precisely because of the LS
(2000) and the BD (1999) which, in fact, recaptures some of the major issues that
structured the Bologna Magna Charta Universitatum of 1988.
In fact, higher education in the European Union (EU) is at a crucial turning
point with the creation of a Common European Higher Education Area (hereafter
CEHEA), in which both the LS (2000) and the BD (1998) constitute towering
documents aiming at the construction of the European Unions knowledge-based
economy society an issue that we will return to later on.
It is important to examine more deeply both the LS (2000) and the BD (1999),
pertinent turning points within the Portuguese higher education system, since both
vividly display the neoliberal cartography for future EU and Portuguese higher
education.
According to the BD (1999) as the May 2001 Report to the Ministers of
Education (hereafter RME) in Prague explicitly acknowledged higher education in
the European Union needed to be radically transformed. This transformative impulse
would lead to the will to construct a completely different higher education platform
based on three solid pillars, namely, to facilitate conditions for (a) mobility; (b)
employability both for students and teachers, and for researchers and administrative
staff within the Union; and (c) guarantee that competition occurs not only among
European higher education systems but also with international higher education
systems (Lourtie, 2001).
While mobility implies issues such as trust and flexibility, employability
becomes the most elusive of the three main goals of the [BD since it implies] quality
assurance, relevance of programmes, clear information on objectives and learning
outcomes of the programmes, and accreditation (Lourtie, 2001, p. 7).
To make the long story short, we are experiencing an intricate turmoil of new
technicalities.
According to Lourtie (2001, p. 8), international competitiveness may be analysed
from at least two different perspectives, although intertwined: the competitiveness of
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European transcripts in the international scene and the capacity to attract students from
outside the European Higher Education Area. The BD (1999) is, in fact, a political
attempt to deconstruct nation-states higher education systems, and, simultaneously,
to create a trans-state common Higher Education Union platform. Lourtie (2001,
p. 3) is quite clear about this political position, arguing that transnational education
is growing and challenging traditional education [and that policies] geared towards
transparency and quality of qualifications should contemplate the transnational
offer. As Lourtie (2001, p. 10) documents, transnational education is part of the
equation when discussing international competitiveness. The global educational
services market is growing fast. It challenges the traditional institutions and can no
longer be ignored.
That is, the growth of transnational education may be considered as an indicator
that traditional education is unable to respond to the needs of students, either by
lack of capacity or by insufficient adaptation to the real needs of students (Lourtie,
2001, p. 18).
The pressure for such a revolution in higher education in the European Union is
quite visible in Adams (2001, p. 22) words:
In Europe we are faced by enormous common educational challenges. Higher
education can no longer exist as an island isolated from secondary, vocational
and adult education. It must integrate more with these sectors by building
appropriate bridges that help create a workable system for lifelong learning.
All national education systems need to reflect on their own structures and
practices in the light of these imperatives.
Actually, the revolutionary forces currently impacting European education
represent huge difficulties and challenges for all involved in education and training.
Such forces include globalisation and advances in information technology, that are
leading to rapid adjustments in national education systems (Adams, 2001, p. 22). In
fact, as Hoffman (2001, p. 25) argues, transnational education is the most obvious
manifestation of globalization in higher education [and] is flourishing in almost every
country. It is demand-oriented and thus introduces a commercial component that is
completely new to most higher education systems in Europe. The relation between
transnational higher education and market impulses is undeniable. As Adams (2001,
p. 5) claims, transnational education is complex. Firstly, by the way it links to
the unique pattern of educational provision in Europe, and secondly, by the way it
impacts on a number of related areas including globalization, the marketization of
education, lifelong learning, consumer protection, recognition and transparency
and quality.
Transnational education, Adams (2001, pp. 45) argues, should be viewed as a
positive set of opportunities that needs to be fully exploited [thus] any threats that it
might represent should be recognized and countered by sensible strategies.
Needless to say, the vast majority of higher education institutions in the European
Union are not ready for such a step. Taking Portugal as an example, almost every
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single higher education and college department is not ready for such transformation.
The BD (1999) must be seen as an intricate process that is now moving towards a
competency-based system, a system that will have a common path regardless of
the different and complex paces and rhythms of each nation-state higher education
system. Needless to mention is the interface between the BD (1999) and the European
Unions transnational educational policies and politics. Adams perspective (2001,
p.5) deserves to be highlighted:
Transnational education has a close relationship with the Bologna Declaration.
The creation of a European higher education area interacts with transnational
education in a number of positive and negative ways. Transnational education
represents opportunities as well as threats. European education providers
cannot isolate themselves from external non-European transnational forces,
nor is it sensible to ignore the unintended consequences that the construction
of a European education space will have. Competition between European
transnational education providers, as well as from non-European providers, is
likely to increase.
Summing up, the BD (1999) shows a political purpose of constructing a CEHEA
by 2010 in the European Union. Such CEHEA, as the BD (1999) expresses, not
only will be much more attractive, competitive, and solid for students, teachers, and
other countries outside the European Union, but will also promote mobility and
employability of both teachers and students within the EU space. Actually, the BD
(1999) cannot be dissociated from the LS (2000) (Simo, Santos, and Costa, 2002).
In fact, the Lisbon Integrated Guidelines (hereafter LIG) (2005, pp. 310) is overtly
explicit over the role of education, in general, and higher education, in particular, in
the European Unions cultural project, namely, developing and strengthening centres
of excellence of educational and research institutions in Member States, as well as
creating new ones where appropriate, and improving the cooperation and transfer
of technologies between public research institute and private enterprises adapting
education and training systems in response to new competence requirements through
raising and ensuring the attractiveness, openness, and quality standards of education
and training, broadening the supply of education and training opportunities and
ensuring flexible learning pathways, and expanding possibilities for the mobility of
students and trainees.
As Simo, Santos, and Costa (2002) argue, the LS (2000) anchored quite clearly
its objectives in a triangle relation sustainable economy; knowledge competitivity;
and social cohesion. Simo, Santos, and Costa (2002) claim that it is a remarkable
achievement, in EU policies, quite towering to construct and accomplish a
knowledge-based society, a desire that deeply relies on social cohesion (investing
in people to fight social exclusion) and in (a new) education foreseeing a new
economic architecture, and social cohesion as well. Both the BD (1999) and the
LS (2000) impose a new mission for higher education system, a mission anchored
in four pillars citizenship, culture, science, and innovation (Simo, Santos, and
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Costa, 2002). What is actually impossible to not notice is the economic card, which
is undeniably towering in the LS (2000). More than half of the twenty-four listed
guidelines in LIG (2005) are anchored or driven by an economic leitmotif.
Such economic architectural fundamentalism has been seen as the only best way
for Portugal and the rest of EU state members (STMEs) to participate dynamically
in the so-called knowledge-based economy. Echoing Nasbitt and Aburdene (1999)
1980s perspective, the LS (2000) overtly shows, between 2005 and 2015, STMEs
need to transform the EU economy into a knowledge-based economy, the worlds
best, more vibrant and competitive economy capable of securing sustainable
economic growth, which will assure better jobs and social cohesion.
According to the OECD (1996, p. 3), the term knowledge-based economy results
from a fuller recognition of the role of knowledge and technology in economic
growth [and] the OECD economies are more strongly dependent on the production,
distribution and use of knowledge than ever before.
In fact, the OECD (1996, p. 11) document highlights it is skilled labour that
is in highest demand in the OECD countries especially in peripheral countries,
like Portugal (Simo, Santos, and Costa, 2002). The OECD (1996) leaves no doubt
about the starving relation between skilled labour and employment policies. The
importance of a knowledge-driven society is not minimized by the BD (1999) either.
As the document overtly expresses, we are witnessing a growing awareness in
large parts of the political and academic world and in public opinion of the need
to establish a more complete and far-reaching Europe, in particular building upon
and strengthening its intellectual, cultural, social and scientific and technological
dimensions (BD, 1999, p. 5). Thus, the BD (1999, p. 5) claims,
a Europe of Knowledge is now widely recognised as an irreplaceable factor for
social and human growth and as an indispensable component to consolidate
and enrich the European citizenship, capable of giving its citizens the necessary
competences to face the challenges of the new millennium, together with an
awareness of shared values and belonging to a common social and cultural
space.
The OECD (1996, p. 16) report is quite convinced over the relation between
knowledge and employment:
the knowledge-based economy is marked by increasing labour market demand
for more highly skilled workers, who are also enjoying wage premiums.
Studies in some countries show that the more rapid the introduction of
knowledge-intensive means of production, such as those based on information
technologies, the greater the demand for highly skilled workers. Other studies
show that workers who use advanced technologies, or are employed in firms
that have advanced technologies, are paid higher wages.
Summing up, the knowledge society should be seen as an open field in which
different social actors interplay in a scientific-cultural environment propelled by
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the same purposes generating global development dynamics deeply based on

sustainable practical knowledge (Simo, Santos, and Costa, 2002). The higher
education system is promoting a new citizenship that will generate a social capital
that is the core of the success in a knowledge-based economy. Simo, Santos, and
Costa (2002) claim that such a concept of new citizenship is deeply related to the
idea of a European citizen with Portuguese roots. Undeniably, for Simo, Santos,
and Costa (2002), the future of higher education in Portugal relies on its capability of
promoting (new) citizenship, culture, science, innovation, quality, and competitivity.
Indisputably, OECD countries continue to evidence a shift from industrial to postindustrial knowledge-based economies (OECD, 1996, p. 18).
We are not claiming here that the Portuguese higher educational system is not in
need of a huge reform. However, one aspect is the requirement for a huge reform,
whereas another quite different is to follow OECD and ENQAs compulsory
policies, which are basically the final blessing for an already anaemic moribund
system. We do have serious concerns over the implications of the BD (1999) for
peripheral countries like Portugal. Some of the BDs crucial effects (1999) are
already visible and perfectly palpable in Portugal, namely, (a) sedimentation of
defunding policies, (b) mercantilization of the higher education system, (c) the
emergence and crystallization of an English-only movement, (d) the legitimization
of a two speed European Union, and the last but not least (f) a relegitimization of
particular kinds of knowledge that universities should transmit intricate issues that
we will deal in the next section. Welcome to neoliberal euthanasia of the Portuguese
public higher education system. Welcome to the inaugural moment of the attempt to
legitimize an unaccomplished noteworthy and noble utopia the right to dream and
to maintain a full, free public higher education that will allow the oppressed masses
to fulfil its rights.
FINDING WHAT IS MISS(Y)ING

It is actually clear that the BD (1999) legitimates a set of defunding policies from
the state government pushing higher education to a financial asphyxiation. Before
the BD (1999), Portuguese higher education system undergraduate courses were 5
years. For example, to be a teacher, a person needed to enroll in a minimum of a
5-year undergraduate course. Obviously, the government had to finance a 5-year
program per student. With the implementation of the BD (1999), the massive
majority of undergraduate courses were shortened from 5 years to 3 years. The state
responsibilities were shortened from 5 years to 3 years as well.
Such a strategy raises a number of argumentative situations. First, such a reduction
did not occur in undergraduate courses, such as medicine, creating immediately
different academic castes between students and faculty staff. Second, it is undeniable
that before budget cuts, reduced funds, and shortened undergraduate courses,
universities had no material conditions to maintain a substantive percentage of
professors. During the last 2 years, a significant proportion of university professors
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lost their jobs, and the number will increase until the system becomes stable so the
government says. As Aronowitz (2000) highlights, in places where the university
or college is the main employer, we do have a social crises. Third, those who
maintain their position are facing new challenges. There is no such thing as tenure
even if you are a full professor since it is a privilege, not an undisputable right,
which functions to cut and diminish competition while promoting collegiality and
cooperation. Fourth, those professors who become jobless have no unemployment
fund. Despite its effects, the BD (1999) is a highway to downsize the Portuguese
higher education system and relegitimize defunding policies. The continuous
reduction of state funds, Slaughter and Rhoades (2004, p. 14) argue, marked by
periodic, intense fiscal crises, has played an important part in legitimating academic
capitalism.
Such a defunding strategy, or what I call the financial asphyxiation of the
public higher education system (which is a cultural policy) opens the door for the
mercantilization of Portuguese higher education. The lucky few that is, those who
were able to escape the BD (1999) effects need to justify their salary and are forced
to bring in substantial money for research projects in the university. Among other
issues, this raises some puzzling concerns, namely, the loss of academic freedom. As
the former President of Teachers College Rector Levine (2003, p. 33) argues, before
the current intern and extern higher education revolution one needs to question
how it is possible to keep academic freedom, something that implies institutional
autonomy, when faculties and schools are completely in the hands of the market,
a market that determines what counts as legitimate. Levine (2003, p. 34) stresses
that in our society we have indeed too many institutions and organizations who
participate dynamically in research projects, however it is the University the only
institution deeply committed with the open search for the truth without any forms
of restrictions. The university, Levine (2003, p. 34) argues, is actually a space
(and time) in which one can raise any kind of question and find (or not) any kind of
answer, an ideal that no other institution has even been close to achieving. Academic
freedom is an inconvertible right and not a privilege, a right that allows professors
and faculty staff members to work without any kind of interference. For an academic,
it is the basic condition to develop his work. As Altbach and Peterson (2007, p. 72)
argue, academic freedom fosters an open and public debate over issues involving
society, facilitating the research that deals with tough issues, and fosters a strong
university, allowing the emergence of cutting-edge thinking, encouraging a powerful
discussion. There can be no social cohesion in the midst of intellectual repression.
Academic freedom is viscerally intertwined with institutional autonomy. According
to Molnar (2006, p. 64), one of the toughest challenges facing public intellectuals is
the new reward and incentive system designed by the universities. Such a system is
a clear obstacle to public engagement. Engagement with and in politics is actually
discouraged. Molnars Commercialism in Education Research Unit, based at the
Educational Policy Studies Laboratory at Arizona State University, identifies eight
categories that have been quite determinant in a market-driven university; among
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those we need to highlight, programs, school, and curriculum materials sponsored

by private corporations, appropriation of school spaces, electronic market, and the
lunatic race for funds.
The subordination of higher education institutions needs to be contextualized
within the realm of neoliberal strategy that is forcing higher education institutions
to engage in a business ideology a strategy that pursues an ideology of control
before particular kinds of inconvenient truths. This perspective is vividly denounced
by Gabbard and Anijar (2006, p. 6), claiming that neo-conservatives want to
extend their growing hegemony over institutions of higher learning to eliminate the
discomfort we (well, some of us) bring to the powerful.
The RT-39/2008 issued by the Rector of University of Minho (once a wealthy
institution) is one of the most striking evidences of the agony provoked by the
financial asphyxiation of public higher education systems. According to Rodrigues
(2008), the state budget allocated to the university only covers around 80%. Thus,
Rodrigues (2008) warns, the budget cannot support and guarantee expenses related to
faculty and administrative staff, and New Years subsidies were in danger. Scenarios
like this have become quite a truism in Portugal nowadays. Evora, Algarve, Beira
Interior, Lisbon, Porto, and Coimbra (the third oldest Western public university in
the world, and a bastion against half a century of dictatorship) are in a state of agony.
Scenarios like these help fuel the conditions for the inevitable emergence of what
Altbach (2005, p. 23) calls pseudo-universities, that in essence are not universities
at all, but completely mortgaged in the hand of the market impulses. The dangers
of such market-driven universities are well explained in the Special Report of the
Financial Times Business Education Executive Programs, May 12, 2008. According
to the Report, Duke University, listed as the third worlds most prestigious university,
feels the daily distress between what the compulsory needs and desires of the market
and what the Professors understand as the best for the students (Bradshaw, 2008,
p. 1). According to Dukes Program Director, corporations wanted the programs
and the courses designed even without any kind of diagnostic. What we do have
here is a full blast academicide.
It is needless to mention the tremendous lethal impact in teacher education due to
such financial asphyxiation. To rely on Apples arguments (1986), teacher education
programs will engage openly in a selective production of deskilled teachers. It is,
as Kincheloe (1993, pp. 116) argued, the legitimation of cognitive passivity and
the reinforcement of the technification of teacher education. As Kincheloe (1993,
pp.12 14) states:
Questions of the nature and purpose of schooling, the connection between
school and society, the relationship power and teaching, schools as social
organizations, or curricular questions of what is worth teaching or the nature
of school knowledge are infrequently asked. Rarely considered are the implicit
meanings of commonly used terms such as educational excellence or quality
education. Thus, teacher education students tend not to be seekers of
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alternative ways of seeing; they often are not especially interested in finding
new lenses through which to conceptualize knowledge and pedagogy. Instead
they walk into classes searching for recipes information delivery and classroom
discipline.
Although this is societal as well, pedagogy has shifted to control and management
through discipline while parenting has shifted to pacification through TV and
videogames Generation NOW! Such teacher education fosters cognitive
segregation, a set of, as Kincheloe (1993, p. 14) would put it, cognitive experiences
that encourage conservative, individualistic, competitive and decontextualized
experiences.
Another puzzling concern is how the Portuguese higher education system is
giving up before what Macedo, Dendrinos, and Gounari (2003) call the hegemony
of the English language. Shamelessly, it is now openly defended that what counts as
good research from now on has to be published, not only in English, but especially,
in particular, English peer-reviewed journals or a well-known English language
publishing house (meaning US and UK publishing houses). Such a deplorable
submissive position leaves no doubt over the lack of academic freedom in Portuguese
universities nowadays. Mercantilizing of higher education pushes higher education
practices to a dangerous position. Not only what counts as legitimate knowledge is
what is produced in English never mind if you dont think in English but also
it must be published in particular English language spaces. Through the academia
and an economic logic, the English language is becoming what Esperanto language
was quite incapable of achieving. What counts as legitimate knowledge depends on
issues of language and where it is published. A good idea is not definitely in a hostage
position from any kind of language. This is not a pale issue since it determines who
stays in the system and gets promoted and who has to leave the system. This is not
education, according to Giroux (2007, p. 184), it is a flight from self and society. As
Phillipson (2003) argues, the role that English language has been playing within the
so-called hegemonic globalization project is a threat to other languages, identities,
cultures, and ideological apparatuses within the European Union.
At my own institute at the University of Minho at Braga and in the middle of all
of these devastating policies the Full Professors Council (2005) had the temerity
to draw a Reference Internal Act, what those who opposed called a groceries list
that will allow one to maintain ones position or get promoted. Needless to say, the
vast majority of that very Council did not meet the groceries list4. Moreover, what
is quite bizarre is the latest claim from what one might call the stewards of the
epistemology which was officially formulated based on an odd and flamboyant
scientific argument that overtly prohibits anyone but them to think, debate, interact,
invite, organize issues, events dealing with issues of public education, educational
policies and politics, issues of gender, class, race, and ethnicity within the educational
institutional premises. As Marx would put, welcome to the misery of pedagogy, or
one might say the misery of mediocrity. As Jacquinet (2008, p. 7) points out, the
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problem (of the Portuguese higher education system) is not one of bureaucracy
in a sense given by Max Weber, but one of lack of it. That is, Jacquinet (2008,
p. 7) argues, too much interaction and decision (employment control, renewal of
contracts, promotion, admission) are based on personal relations and acquaintances
and not very much on impersonal relations or mechanism that intricate phenomena
such as favouritism and the likes. Those interactions are named as follows:
amizade, cunha, or caciquismo (inbreeding, endogamy, and locally). Examples like
this vividly show a crude crisis within the very marrow of the Higher Educational
System. However, the market(ism) that we currently are seeing is not the solution.
The practice of a 3-year enrolment for the massive undergraduate courses hides
another issue that is a subsumed strategy to move to an EU core curriculum in
higher education. Undeniably, such a strategy will be reachable at the level of state
members without any major effort. We are actually experiencing an attempt of what
Steinberg (2006) called an infatuated cognitive and epistemological diet. After all,
the BDs praiseworthy claim (1999) for mobility, employability, and competition
that occurs not only among the European higher education systems but also with
international higher education systems, will force higher education systems of
undergraduate programs to find a common pace toward curriculum content. Issues
such as mobility, employability, and competition actually unveil what the BD (1999)
is precisely aiming at the consolidation of a two-speed European Union and
not actually social cohesion. To make the long story short, and as for, say, mobility
concerns, it is obvious that we will assist the migration of students and teachers
from peripheral countries like Portugal this is already happening to what we
called the European Unions locomotive state members England, France, and
Germany. A very tiny residual percentage of English, French, and German students
will use mobility policies to come to a Portuguese higher education institution. This
raises serious issues over who will benefit from such policies. Ortega and Gassets
perspective (1944, p. 33) over secular segregation stigma within higher education is
profoundly accurate.
All those who receive higher education are not all those who could and should
receive it; they are only the children of the well-to-do classes. The university
represents a privilege difficult to justify or defend.
As we have been claiming, it is undeniable that the Portuguese higher education
system is in a deplorable position. Such agony becomes even more expressive before
an epoch characterized by huge and rapid transformations. Deweys (1900, p. 9)
statement is actually crystal clear, leaving no doubt over the role of education in the
face of nonstop societal changes.
One can hardly believe there has been a revolution in all history so rapid, so
extensive, and so complete. Through it the face of the earth is being made
over, even as to its physical forms; political boundaries are wiped out and
moved about, as if they were indeed only lines on a paper map; population is
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hurriedly gathered into cities from the ends of the earth; habits of living are
altered with startling abruptness and thoroughness; the search for the truths
of nature is infinitely stimulated and facilitated, and their application to life
made not practicable, but commercially necessary for profits. Even our moral
and religious ideas and interests, the most conservative, because the deepestlying things in our nature are profoundly affected. That this should not affect
education in some other than a formal and superficial fashion in inconceivable
What Dewey never ever claimed is a passive and lacklustre role for educational
and especially higher education institutions before the societal avalanche of
change. This is not the claim that the BD (1999) and LS (2000) edifies for Portuguese
higher education though, and thats why so many EU and Portuguese educators are
quite concerned schizophrenic, as Adams (2001, p. 6) argues with this silent
revolution.
As we had the opportunity to see before, both political architectures urge for the
need of Portuguese higher education to adapt education and training systems in
response to new competence requirements. It is actually this passive role that is
so clearly visible in the new European Unions cohesion structural program fund,
Strategical Priorities of National Board Strategies 20072013 (hereafter QREN).
That program claims, specifically in its 24th directive, the need to adapt education
and training systems in order to address new challenges related to competences.
Such a compulsory drive to adapt the higher education system for market desires,
instead of allowing higher education to have its own agenda and leading societal
transformations and development bring to the fore a complicated issue the very
mission of higher education. The approaches of Ortega y Gasset (1994), Aronowitz
(2000), Levine (2003), and Slaughter and Rhoades (2004) can teach us a great deal
here.
According to Ortega y Gasset (1944, p. 28), what is a university for, and what
must it consequently be is the fundamental question to understand the mission
of the university. While Ortega y Gasset (1944) was not shy in claiming that
universities should basically assume three functions, namely, (a) transmission of
culture, (b) teaching of the professions, and (c) scientific research and the training
of new scientists, it is unquestionable that he vehemently opposed the dangers of
an atomistic, limited skew, and heavily specialized learning within universities.
Civilization has had to wait to the beginning of the twentieth century, to see the
astounding spectacle of how brutal, how stupid, and yet how aggressive s the man
learned in one thing, and fundamentally ignorant of all else (Ortega y Gasset, 1944,
p. 42).
What we have here is a claim for a holistic higher education, one that dynamically
participates and led the production and implementation of (new) knowledge in order
to addressing social problems (Levine, 2003, p. 34). The mission of the university
is not minimized in Aronowitzs approach (2000) either. As he (2000, p. 172)
argues, the fundamental mission of higher education should be to play a leading
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role, perhaps the leading role, in the development of general culture. Moreover,
Aronowitz (2000, p. 126) stresses the very mission of postsecondary education (he
clearly prefer to use this term) is profoundly related with intricate questions such as
who can get into college and what is taught when they arrive.
It is quite obvious from Portuguese crude figures that higher education is a deeply
segregated space, yet showing a puzzling paradox. That is, while it is undeniable
that the massive majority of schooled people cannot make it to higher education,
it also true that the massive majority who have completed higher education cannot
find a job. Today in Portugal over 40% of undergraduate and graduate students are
unemployed. Along with Aronowitz (2000, p. 121), one has to say that there is still
a lot of work but few jobs, if by that term we mean steady employment carrying
pension, health, vacation, and other benefits.
The Portuguese higher education system has been a system segregated by social
class (not neglecting racial and gender dynamics though). Such segregation will
increase as a result of the BD (1999). As Aronowitz notes (2000, pp. 102106),
admission policies have always been a polemic issue. The commodification of
postsecondary education brought to the fore issues such as uniformization, raising
standards, blind audit policies and practices, which, among other issues, will create
more obstacles in the vast majority of the population, or better said, in the deserving
poor. Moreover, what is actually amazing, we do concur with Aronowitz (2000,
p. 108) that right before the third millennium we are actually promoting a social
sense that higher education is not for everybody. Admissions become even much
more surgically selective, with societys leftovers channelled to vocational
schools. Again, Aronowitz (2000, p. 123) is quite accurate in his analyses.
As mass schooling comes under increasing pressure from the bean counters
and educational conservatives, some earlier formulations may rise to the surface.
The classical expectation enunciated eloquently by Thomas Jefferson, Frederick
Douglas, John Dewey, and more recently by the civil rights and feminist movements
that in addition to economic opportunity, education may help usher in a more
democratic society has, for the time being, passed from the decade. In the vanishing,
what will have been lost is a critical citizenry capable of governing itself.
It is also quite clear that what it is taught in higher education is a result of
what Williams (1961) called selective tradition. That is, as Apple (2000) argues,
curriculum content and decision-making over what is in vs. what is out is not
simply a result of an act of domination perpetrated by dominant groups. As he
(2000, p. 64) claims, the cultural capital declared to be official knowledge, then,
is compromised knowledge, knowledge that is filtered through a complicated set
of political screens and decisions before it gets to be declared legitimate. It is in
this context that we have to place the concubine state market relations acting as a
recontextualizing agent in the process of symbolic control as it creates accords that
enable the creation of knowledge for everyone. It is precisely this kind of selectivity
that allows Macedo (2006) to claim that schooling and higher education is not an
exception is immersed in pedagogies of big lies, that maintains silence on particular
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kinds of knowledge and cultures through what Chomsky (1992; 2002) felicitously
calls historical engineering, which is fueling the cognitive stagnation of the modern
West (Kincheloe, 1993). It goes without saying that such selective and segregated
knowledge set of processes, coupled with the nightmare of English language
hegemony, is a clear strategy to (re)Westernize the West. Nowadays, such a task is
now in the hands of a market-driven university led by a particular group of political
commissars or new cultural managers, as Chomsky (2003) would put it, quite thrilled
of acting like CEOs. In the past, Veblen (1918) anticipated such dangerous realities.
Such cultural managers are actually building new social formations in which the
future of the universities will rely heavily in the number of enrollment of students
and material investment figures, such as buildings, neglecting scholarship issues.
In a system already fuelled by what Jacquinet (2008) calls ceremonial adequacy
(a mechanism of academic and social regulation in the universities that imposes
rules of the nomination and progression in the professional careers, namely that of
professors), this is a social catastrophe.
The BD, by claiming the need to edify a common educational area, is also clear
evidence over how neoradical centrist hegemonic movements are using higher
education as a powerful space and time to foster the process of fabricating Europe
(Nvoa and Lawn, 2002) a Europe fundamentally determined by Western values.
The BD is a refine superior cult of a set of heterophobic impulses. In a letter addressed
to Lionel (Jospin), Michel (Rocard), Jacques (Delors) and to all French socialists,
Touraine (1996, p. 27) shows his perplexity over the sibylline way in which the socalled contemporanean or modern socialists dare to submit all universities to the
same rules, dismantling any viability of elaborating and fostering their very own
policies. It is obvious that what the European Unions higher education institutions
are being guided to transmit is deeply linked to the need to reinforce a particular
kind of Western culture. We are, in fact, before an economic and cultural device that
will help the European Union in a new dimension, a new process that not only needs
to be contextualized within what Gewirtz (2002) calls postwelfarism epoch one
which education becomes a commodity driven by visions of competition, efficiency,
effectiveness, freedom, blind results but also has to be perceived as a strategy to
Westernize the West. In fact, in the European Union, CEHEA has nothing to do with
Sadikis understanding (2001) of internationalization of higher education, one that
fosters a real global community, engages in a real curricular plurality that does not
minimize non-Western or subaltern epistemologies.
Undeniably, the BD (1999) must be perceived as an ace card within what
Slaughter and Rhoades (2004) call theory of academic capitalism that not only
claims the need to mercantilize higher education systems but, in so doing, ends up
reinforcing higher education institutions as powerful devises of an economic and
cultural Westernization of the West, which is precisely the Portuguese case.
According to Slaughter and Rhoades (2004, p. 1) the theory of academic capitalism
(hereafter TAC) does not see the universities has been corporatized. However,
as Deem (2004, p. 294) argues, although concepts such as new managerialism,
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academic capitalism, and entrepreneurialism are distinguished from each other in the
process of intellectual formation, there is evidently some degree of overlap. TAC,
Sheila Slaughter, and Gary Rhoades argument (2004, p. 1) tries to move beyond
thinking of the student as a consumer to considering the institution as marketer.
Indisputably, globalization forces changes in the interfaces between the higher
education institutions and society. While it is not easy to change higher education
institutions, Slaughter and Rhoades (2004) are quite aware of that difficulty; they
bluntly identify the effects of TAC in higher education. Among those effects, one
must highlight (a) a shift from a public good knowledge and learning regime to an
academic capitalist knowledge and learning regime; (b) knowledge as raw material;
(c) networks of actors that link universities to each other, to corporations, and to
various state agencies; (d) reshaping students identity and higher education borders;
and (e) standardization of teaching and learning.
It is precisely this set of new relations between higher education institutions
and agents and society by and large (local and global) in which higher education
assumes a core curriculum that is business that are quite frightening, especially
when one thinks in peripheral realities like Portugal. Looking at examples such
as the Missyplicity that Slaughter and Rhoades (2004) describe, what comes to
mind is MITs colonization of the Portuguese higher education system. While in
the case of the Missyplicity cloning project, Sperling used his fortune to clone his
dog, the Portuguese government paid over 60 million Euros to MIT to work closely
with specific university departments and centers. Needless to say that that money
was taken from the higher education budget driving higher education institutions
into a bigger chaotic situation. If, as Slaughter and Rhoades (2004, p. 2) argues
the Missyplicity project captures many of the promises, pitfalls, ironies, and
contradictions that characterize the changing relations of colleges and universities
to the new economy, what would we say about the MIT predatory relation with
the Portuguese higher educational system? Like Missyplicity, MITs interface with
the Portuguese higher education institutions allows one to question the way the
government is using tax payers money, and raises questions about the terms of the
academys engagement with the new economy, as well (Slaughter and Rhoades,
2004, p. 7). Finding out what is (a)Miss(y) will be the new mission for the Portuguese
higher education system. Needless to say that it will be a delirium, especially for
humanities or humanities-related courses (Paraskeva, 2005).
Undeniably TAC must be contextualized under one of the primordial strategies
of a neoliberal state, something that was not neglected by Slaughter and Rhoades
(2004) and recaptures some of the arguments that were raised above. As Slaughter
and Rhoades (2004, pp. 2021) argue, corporations work closely with the neoliberal state to construct the new economy. The neoliberal state focuses not on
the social welfare for the citizenry as a whole but on enabling individuals as
economic actors. To that end, neoliberal states move resources away from social
welfare functions and toward productions functions. The neoliberal state redefines
government, privatizing, and commercializing, deregulating state function to
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Unaccomplished Utopia

promote new economy in global markets. While universities were not primary
players in creating the neoliberal state, they often endorsed initiatives directly or
indirectly. The neoliberal state has developed new legislation and regulation to cover
knowledge-based products, processes, and services in the new economy, extending
global protection to commercial endeavours or corporations and universities. The
neoliberal state has also promoted privatization, commercialization, deregulation,
and regulation, and colleges and universities that pursue an academic capitalist
knowledge and learning regime that have benefitted from these processes.
Under such frightening realities, higher education in Portugal (and elsewhere)
will persistently carry on fostering processes of segregation (cf. Teixeira, Rosa
e Amaral, 2006), quite deplorable for a social formation that aims at equality, social
justice, and democracy.
DEMOCRATIZING DEMOCRACY

As Sousa Santos (2003, p. 25) argues, we are living in paradoxical times. On one
hand, our current time is marked by huge developments and thespian changes, an
era coined as the electronic revolution of communications and information, genetic
and biotechnological revolution. On the other hand, despite such dramatic changes
we witness puzzling regressions or developments, that is the return of particular
social evils that humanity thought would eradicate by the end of the millennium
the return of slavery, exploitation, acceleration of repulsive human inequality
(Sousa Santos, 2003, p. 25). Higher education has to play a leading and key role in
addressing one of the most challenging issues that we have before us democratizing
democracy. It is undeniable, Vavi (2004) claims, that democracy bypasses the poor.
A peripheral country such as Portugal is a credibility check for this paradox.
Sousa Santos (2003, p. 26) is quite accurate when he claims that we are living in
an era with modern problems without modern solutions. In order to democratize
democracy, Sousa Santos (2003, p. 26) suggests that we need to reinvent social
emancipation since traditional modern social emancipation has been pushed into a
kind of dead end by neoliberal globalization.
However, a different form of globalization, a counter hegemonic globalization
that has propelled a myriad of social movements and transformations, has challenged
such globalization however hegemonic as it might currently be. It is exactly
within the very marrow of such counterhegemonic forms of globalizations and in
its clashes with the neoliberal hegemonic globalization, that new itineraries of social
emancipation are developing. Such clashes, such economic, political, and cultural
quarrels were metaphorically coined by Sousa Santos (2003, p. 26) as the clash
between North and South, which would bring to the fore already overtly visible in
some realities the wrangle between representative and participatory democracy.
Despite appearing hegemonic, globalization has been promoting a low-density
democracy; such privatization is creating more social inequality in one that anchors
in blind, but not innocent arguments.
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Thus, the struggle for democracy, Shivji (2003, p. 1) argues, is primarily a

political struggle on the form of governance, thus involving the reconstitution of
the state and creating conditions for the emancipatory project. This is important
to emphasize in light of the hegemony of neoliberal discourse which tends to
emasculate democracy of its social and historical dimensions and present it as an
ultimate nirvana.
Somehow we are clearly before what Sousa Santos (1998, p. 60) noted as a
state that should be seen a spotless new social movement. That is, a more vast
political organization in which the democratic forces will struggle for a distributive
democracy, thus transforming the state in a new yet powerful social and political
entity. Such a state is even much more directly involved in redistribution criteria,
and profoundly committed with economic and cultural inclusive policies (Sousa
Santos, 1998, p. 60). It is actually such a state as a spotless new social movement
Sousa Santos (1998, p. 61) argues, that will reawakening the tension between
capitalism and [real] democracy, and this can only be achieved if democracy
is conceived and plasticized as redistributive democracy. The struggle for a
redistributive democracy is the very first crucial step to reinforce the states role in a
more just society converting the state into a spotless new social movement (Sousa
Santos, 1998; Shivji, 2003). It is time to recapture higher education as a new public
sphere (Giroux, 1995, p. 239).
The task is to reinvent daily how to democratize democracy. This is the way to
recapture a hijacked utopia of a real public sphere quite towering in the struggle for
a more just society. Such struggle needs to claim, as Fraser (1997, p. 92) accurately
argues, not merely bracketing, but rather the elimination of social inequality. What
we are claiming here is the need to fight for a new public community university that
will engage in a collective task of developing a politics that extends beyond the
nation-state and reclaiming the academy as a democratic public sphere (Giroux,
2007, p. 203). Probably, a new struggle has to begin. This is the best way, as the
Mozambican writer Couto (2005, p. 10) claims, that we have to challenge a past
that was portrayed in a deformed way, a present dressed with borrowed clothes, and
a future ordered already by foreign interests. Wisely, we will not choose money as
our weapon, since, as Nyerere (1967, p. 129) argues, the development of a country
is brought about by people, not by money something that painfully, not only the
ENQA (2006) and OECD (2006) but also the BD (1999), LS (2000), and CEHEA
seem to neglect. Public education does have a key role in the critical transformative
processes of democratizing democracy. Marx (1986, p. 121) was sharply aware of
this commitment.
The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing
forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential to educate the
educator himself. This doctrine must be fulfilled. Therefore, society is divided into
two parts, one of which is considered superior to the other. The coincidence of the
changing of circumstances and of human activity of self-changing can be conceived
and rationally understood only as a revolutionary practice.
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NOTES
I am in debt to Richard Quantz and Tom Dutton for bringing this to my attention. For more detailed
information about this interesting community project, please refer to www.fna.muohio.edu/cce.
2
For a much detailed analysis over Michael Apples work, please refer to Paraskeva, Joo Menelau
(2004).
3
PLC stands for public limited company. This concept is based on Balls exhaustive and important study
(2007) that tries to understand the effects of private sector participation in public sector education. Cf.
Ball, Stephen (2007).
4
Such documents instigate a strong reaction among faculty; some of us react publicly against what I
called social fascism and tyranny. There was no reply from the advocates of such document a tiny
minority. However, oddly as it might be, years later some of them where at the very front line of a
movement to create what they called a Citizenship University. As Mao Tse Tung would say, [men]
are contradictory.
1

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9.GLOBALIZATION
The Loadstone Rock to Education

INTRODUCTION

Globalization ripples through every fissure in society. People hear the word and
envision the unification of countries all over the globe. For Americans, images
of Epcot sail through their heads to the cheery tune of Its a Small World. And
currently, London is afire with the 2012 Summer Olympics, reinvigorating the images
of competing nations that celebrate each others successes; an image of world peace
streams through the media beginning with a glorious opening ceremony. Yet, the day
after, a British parliament official tweeted, Thank God the athletes have arrived!
Now we can move on from leftie multi-cultural crap (Voigt, 2012). He did correct
himself, saying that it wasnt multiculturalism that he was discussing, but the show,
which only deepened the meaning in his words (Voigt, 2012). However, to many
the Olympics still represent humanity embracing the diverse ethnicities and cultures
of the world, but the elaborate opening ceremony, which cost England millions of
pounds, exemplifies how globalization is not just a happy family ride through Epcot.
Globalization is more than the uniting of countries and cultures in a euphoric
state of free trade and competition. As Eagleton (2011) states, a virulent form of
utopianism has indeed afflicted the modern agethe crazed notion that a single
global system known as the free market can impose itself on the most diverse
cultures and economies and cure all their ills (p. 105). In order to compete in the
global market, nations have had to give up portions of their heritages or identities at
the altar of this universal struggle a struggle at once practical and spiritual. Each
nation has had to pillage the whole world in search not just of the best machines but
also of the most effective practices and institutions the ones that would deliver the
greatest boost to national capabilities with the least proportional disturbance to the
entrenched structure of privilege in the national society (Unger, 2005, p. 50). As
nations pillage the world for a spot in a global economy, who is gaining and who is
losing? For instance, Santos (2006) remarks that globalization is still considered
a great triumph of rationality, innovation and liberty, capable of producing infinite
progress and unlimited abundance, for others, it is increasingly an anathema, as it
brings misery, loss of food sovereignty, social exclusion for ever vaster populations
of the world, and ecological destruction, etc. (p. 395).

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Globalization and exclusion go hand in hand. While the economy provides an

enormous amount of profit, that wealth is not distributed equitably, unless it is
equitable to keep it in the hands of the few. In fact, the total wealth of the top 358
global billionaires equals the combined incomes of 2.3 billion poor people (45
percent of the worlds population) (Bauman, 1998, p. 70). This unequal dispersal
of wealth demonstrates the effects of the worldwide restratification where what
is free choice for some descends as cruel fate upon othersthe process of the
concentration of the capital, finance and all other resources of choice and effective
action, but also perhaps above all of concentration of freedom to move and to act
(Bauman, 1998, p. 70). This restratification reveals how the union of the world does
not necessarily mean that everyone is included. In contrast, this union strengthens
the elite while creating new oceans to separate the majority from that global wealth
and enjoyment. Those without cultural capital are bound to their locality without
freedom of movement. Education plays a key role in the acquisition of this cultural
capital.
Education is mirroring and creating the amalgamation of the state and the free
market. This extends to educational reform, where market discourses trump the
critical democratic cosmopolitan discourses that could provide a countervailing
force to neoliberal cosmopolitan discourses (Camicia and Franklin, 2011, p. 315).
However, educational reforms have been successful in increasing educational
access, just not equity, for many throughout the world, especially in the United
States.
The US prides itself on its educated youth, the supposedly future leaders of the
free world. Ironically, free seems less to be associated with the revolutionary
foundations of our country as in liberty and more to do with the free market, which
shifts U.S. schools from being ideal spaces for critical discourse and democracy
and establishes them even further as sites for the training of tomorrows workforce.
As Leistyna (2002) notes, the United States often works against the values that
its citizens publicly profess, such as the growth and health of children, the social
and economic well-being of all people, and the basic tenets of democracy (p. 72).
The United States, instead of establishing public schools as democratic spheres
that reflect its heritage, has increasingly chosen to transform schools into factories
of efficiency and standardization. Equality for all students means holding them to
standards that eventually mold students in their image, instead of engaging students
in a process of redefining knowledge and developing their own critical perspectives.
This is expressed implicitly and explicitly throughout the Common Core initiative
which aims to enforce standards that will set the stage for U.S. education not just
beyond next year, but for the next decade, and they must ensure all U.S. students
are prepared for the global economic workplace (Common Core State Standards
Initiative, 2010). Since A Nation at Risk, and perhaps going even further back
than the Industrial Revolution, the United States has positioned itself as a leader in
creating schools of efficiency and standardization and that legacy continues with
Common Core.
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STANDARDIZATION AND EFFICIENCY THROUGH

CURRICULUM AND PEDAGOGY

Standards-based reforms pervade schools at a time when schools are epicenters of

diversity and multiculturalism. However, Barber (2002) notes the irony, because,
despite our diverse population, we know less than most nations about the world
from which those people come. At one and the same time, we are truly multicultural,
we represent the globe, and yet we know little about it (p. 26). Our schools do
not function as agoras for critical global and multicultural discourses; instead they
are designed for the education training of the masses, an assembly line in a car
factory. This institution of mass education has several functions:
(1) It focuses on the socialization of individuals for membership in society.
(2) It aspires to extend membership to all individuals within the society. (3)
It articulates a secular vision of progress, in which action and achievement
take place in this world, not in some transcendental cosmos. (4) It sets forth
an increasingly standardized curriculum (Benavot et al. 1991). (5) And it
putatively links mastery of the curriculum with personal development and the
latter with the progress of the nation-state. (Meyer, Ramirez and Soysal, 1992,
p. 131)
These features of mass education are working well in education today with the
establishment of a curriculum based on scientific efficiency and research devoid of
the public questioning for whom and for what we are efficiently schooling children.
The assessments designed to measure students learning have been developed and
scored by judges who were to draw the inferences from the data, and these judges,
almost invariably, would reflect dominant interests in American culture (Kliebard,
2004, p. 158). Although not talking of Common Core, Kliebards (2004) points are
still valid to how the the feverish and uncritical fashioning of tests in terms of
the existing curriculum and in the name of efficiency has undoubtedly served to
fasten upon the schools an archaic program of instruction and a false theory of the
nature of learning (p. 158). These tests are designed to measure a certain type of
knowledge, which are a product and tool of the hegemonic bloc. Education reforms
of standardization are framed by the belief that by setting a high bar, society is
preparing youth for the workforce, which will in turn strengthen and improve the
U.S. economy, i.e. Common Core. However, will a homogenized curriculum of
standardized excellence truly provide equity for all students and reinvigorate the
U.S. economy?
Tienken (2011) counter-argues this and first points to the inequity found within
the standards by forcing everyone to achieve the same standard which will ensure
that not everyone will receive what they need and that certain groups of students,
those that do not fit into the new system, will lose out. They will be labeled not
proficient or in need of something, when perhaps they just need more choices, more
pathways, and more diversity of curricula (p. 13). Also, Tienken (2011) addresses
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the claim that a universal curriculum will ensure economic success, asserting
that perhaps its not universal curriculum standards that make the difference.
Maybe its a comprehensive social system that provides a quality social safety
net for children and mothers that has the greatest influence on ultimate education
outcomes. The data points in that direction (p. 10). In fact, research shows that the
correlation between national exams and successful economies is weak. McCluskey
(2010) analyzed several studies and found an indefinite or nonexistent connection
between national standards and economic success. For instance, when looking
only at countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development generally, economically advanced nations the same noncorrelation
holds: four OECD members outperformed the United States, six did worse, and
all but the United States and Australia had national standards (p.8). In addition,
McCluskey (2010) also posits whether there may be more to the success of certain
nations other than these national exit examinations. For instance, he draws up Jrges
and Schneiders study of exit examinations, which found that there did not seem
to be a direct relationship between the examination and students achievement,
but that culture did seem to play a role based on the success within Asian nations
(McCluskey, 2010, p. 11). Research demonstrates that economic success and student
achievement cannot be directly linked to nationally standardized curriculum and
assessments. Also, besides lacking positive effects, high stakes testing, such as these
national examinations, can narrow and homogenize the curriculum. For instance,
after analyzing 49 qualitative studies on the effects of multiple-choice testing on
curriculum, Au (2007) stated that:
High-stakes tests encourage curricular alignment to the tests themselves. This
alignment tends to take the form of a curricular content narrowing to tested
subjects, to the detriment or exclusion of nontested subjects. The findings
of this study further suggest that the structure of the knowledge itself is also
changed to meet the test-based norms: Content is increasingly taught in isolated
pieces and often learned only within the context of the tests themselves. The
control over knowledge content and the form the knowledge takes are related
to and associated with control of pedagogy as well. (Au, 2007, p. 264)
The utilization of high-stakes testing not only is an added pressure to teachers and
students, but it also ends up shaping the curriculum. Consequently, curriculum is
confined to test subjects instead of being broadened to encompass diverse beliefs
and knowledges that are open to analysis. Pedagogy is also affected by high-stakes
testing. Au (2007) demonstrated these effects on curriculum and pedagogy by pairing
different effects into eight themes (p. 264). Content contraction and teacher-centered
pedagogy occurred in 70.3% of studies and was also the most frequent theme pairing
(p. 264). However, the analysis needs to be taken further than just the awareness
that the curriculum is contracting and that pedagogy is teacher-centered. How are
schools selecting the materials and techniques for implementing the standardized
curriculum and assessments? Many buy training programs, textbooks, educational
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resources, software, etc. to ensure student success on tests. These companies and
programs do more than serve as intermediaries between policy designs and policy
practices; through their interactions with school and district offices, they act as
carriers of broader cultural norms that frequently reinforce the very practices that
reform designs aim to change (Burch, 2007, p. 86). This establishment of cultural
norms means that students who do not fit into these parameters are rejected from the
discourse of schools which alienates the psychological, cultural, racial, and spiritual
identities of students and teachers. These companies and programs are carriers of
cultural forces that help define what is meant by good mathematics or literacy
instruction and what counts as a significant effect on student achievement (Burch,
2007, p. 90). As teachers and administrators adapt and change to fit these policies
and standards, they are legitimating certain types of knowledge and stifling authentic
learning opportunities. As Osberg and Biesta (2008) explain:
In creating learning environments (curricula) that aim to achieve certain
educational outcomes educators are, in effect, expected to ensure that only
legitimate meanings emerge in the classroom although they may know
too well from their own experience that it is difficult if not impossible to
delimit learning in this waywhile it is possible to distinguish education from
unguided learning, education still remains a form of planned enculturation or
training. (p. 315)
The process of training students and legitimating knowledge suppresses students
and teachers from engaging in discussions during which meanings are analyzed
and knowledge is questioned. Educational reforms may be reacting to globalization
through standardization of curriculum, but other educational leaders and researchers
would like to see schools transformed into more than assembly lines and instead
have students interact and understand diverse views as citizens of the world.
EDUCATION FOR COSMOPOLITANISM AND WORLD CITIZENSHIP

Cosmopolitanism and world citizenship have become increasingly a part of discussion

surrounding education. The concept of being citizens of the world is within the
cosmopolitan belief that maintains that individuals are part of a common humanity
or world order rather than to a set of particular customs or traditionsthat peace among
nation-states is possible only if they transcend their parochial identities and interests
in the name of a global state or consciousness (Trepanier & Habib, 2011, p. 1). This
is merely a base definition of cosmopolitanism, and many interpretations have been
crafted, like patriotic cosmopolitanism (Appiah 1997), insurgent cosmopolitanism
(Santos 2006), critical cosmopolitanism (Delanty 2006), etc.
Appiah (1997) discusses the need to see cosmopolitans not just as citizens of the
world but as citizens of states and notes that it is the celebration of cultural varietywithin states as well as between them that distinguishes the cosmopolitan from
some of the other heirs of Enlightenment humanism (p. 624). From this standpoint,
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Appiah (1997) further details patriotic cosmopolitanism, which defends the right of
others to live in democratic states, with rich possibilities of association within and
across their borders; states of which they can be patriotic citizens (p. 624). The need
for a shared political culture is another important point raised, but his assertion that it
need not be important to everyone is problematic and requires defining the political
(Appiah, 1997, p. 634). Can politics be confined to a government and its law, or is
involvement in other organizations within communities like churches political as
well? Rather, isnt politics a term to describe how citizens express their opinions and
views about the organization and beliefs of the state and the world? When citizens
abstain from being political, they are, in a way, still engaging with politics; the
reasons that people do not engage with politics are equally relevant and may have to
do with their oppression or rejection from these politics.
Santos (2006) addresses the oppressed, and he explains how insurgent
cosmopolitanism acknowledges the oppressed, even those who are not seen as part
of the classes within the globalized world because they are not sufficiently useful or
skilled enough to have chains, that is, to be directly exploited by capital (p. 398).
However, although they may not be chained by capital, they are in fact barred by it
and not allowed to escape their localities. Thus, Santos (2006) argues that insurgent
cosmopolitanism aims at uniting social groups on a non-class basis, the victims of
exploitation as well as the victims of social exclusion, of sexual, ethnic, racist and
religious discrimination (p. 398). Although it does not, Santos (2006) implies that
Marxism means uniformity and classlessness, and thus delineates it from insurgent
cosmopolitanism:
Contrary to the Marxist concept, insurgent cosmopolitanism does not imply
uniformity, a general theory of social emancipation and the collapse of
differences, autonomies and local identitiesa global emergence resulting
from the fusion of local, progressive struggles with the aim of maximizing
their emancipatory potential in loco (however defined) through translocal/
local linkages. (p. 398)
Again, attention is drawn to the need for local communities or states with their
diverse views and problems openly connected to the larger global society. This
draws attention to the notion of a global public, and within critical cosmopolitanism.
Delany (2006) refers to the global public as being in all of communication and
public discourse now central to the constitution of the social worldthe relations
of Self and Other that pervade the social world are constituted within the broader
context of the world as represented by the global public (p. 40). However, the
global public is open to interpretation because there are those who would not be
remembered as part of the social world. The selfs represented in the global public
may construct voices and views that empower some and exclude others.
Critical cosmopolitanism focuses on the interplay of self, other and world that
cosmopolitan processes come into playa developmental change in the social
world arising out of competing cultural models (Delanty, 2006, p. 41). Of concern
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here is competing cultural models. If change is due to cultural competition, then who
will be eliminated and to what end? The most powerful and forceful nations would
shape the global public. Delanty (2006) brings up the need for openness in public
discourses, stating that critical cosmopolitanism should be seen as the expression
of new ideas, opening spaces of discourse, identifying possibilities for translation
and the construction of the social world (p. 42). These open spaces for discourses
are critical, but ignoring those that would be privileged based on their linguistic
and cultural capital would be detrimental. This is complicated further by Delantys
(2006) discussion of cosmopolitan practices being an instrument of translations,
adding:
Translation once served the function of communication and was not the basis
of a given culture. It is only becoming fully apparent today what the logic
of translation has extended beyond the simple belief that everything can be
translated to the recognition that every culture can translate itself and others.
(p. 43)
The concept of translating a culture is fraught with the possibility of mistranslation
since every translation is subject to perception and domination. Cultures can work
to understand each other together, but to think that culture can simply be translated
seems to open channels for cultures to be translated and homogenized in the process,
like surnames when individuals immigrated to U.S., ignoring whats lost in the
process. If cosmopolitanism looks to establish world citizens, who will define this
citizenship and the global state?
Education for citizenship can have several motivating factors. Although world
citizenship seems to be the new catchphrase, is it citizens or loyalists who are being
sought? A global public, global perspective, a global citizen, a global mind, yet who
delimits the meaning of global?
For instance, Starkey (2012) notes the need in world citizenship education
to transmit normative principles, particularly commitments to democracy as
the means of providing governance in diverse societies (p. 23). The concept of
transmitting normative principles, especially in terms of democracy, seems to
have strong U.S., or Western, undertones. Although I believe in democracy, my
definition may differ from the normative principle, which would become the
standard for world citizenship. Accordingly, would education not be extended
from national enculturation to global? Anderson-Gold (2001) also stated that the
cosmopolitan citizen is one who views herself as a citizen of a world community
based on common human values (as cited in Starkey, 2012, p. 25). This leads into
a discussion of what are common human values and who defines them? Starkey
(2012) notes how the Council of Europe supports the role of universal human rights
in citizenship education and how citizenship education is a space where normative
expectations can be learnt and the possibilities offered by utopian imagining can be
explored through democratic dialogue (p. 32).
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In addition, in developing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),

the drafters from the United Nations General Assembly set themselves up as the
guardians of the global consciencea collective conscience that extends to the
whole of humanity (Starkey, 2012, p. 26). Starkey (2012) asserts that these universal
human rights offer an alternative to utilitarian philosophy, which ignore those who
are in the minority or enemies of state (p.27). The UDHR outlines these rights, but
who gave them the power to decide, who is actually defining these principles, and
who is above these principles? There are multiple layers here which require further
examination that I do not seek to address now, but the problem with Delantys (2006)
uniting critical cosmopolitanism and translations seems relevant.
Here are universal rights, which are supposed to encompass the world, yet the
UDHR website has the option to translate it into only six languages (see www.
un.org/en/documents/udhr/) compared to the thousands of existing language, and
an audio does not appear to be available for the blind. However, in contrast, Google
offers a translation of the page into over 60 languages. This leads us back to the
question of who is the voice behind these words and their translations. Also, the
UDHR embraces the claim that universal respect for human rights will constitute
the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world (Starkey, 2012, p. 28).
The UDHR prescribes human rights for the world, but do these articles really ensure
freedom, justice, and peace in the world? The UN often seems to be at best a
pacifier in the mouth of a starving baby and at worst a gag, traveling the world
under the banner of world peace and justice, but peace and freedom for whom?
Who becomes invisible under the watchful eyes of the UN and who is exposed?
World peace would mean a world without conflict, but imagining a world without
conflict means the training of minds to be quiet and to accept reality as it is. As John
Steinbeck wrote in The Grapes of Wrath:
Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while bombers live for every
bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. And fear the time when the strikes
stop while great owners live for every little beaten strike is proof that the step
is being taken. And this you can know fear the time when Manself will not
suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself,
and this one quality is man. (p. 206)
If people and cultures do not conflict, then where is the diversity in the world? Peace
can be defined as a state of security or order within a community provided by
law or custom and freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts or emotions
(Merriam-Webster). Who will truly be silenced by peace: justice or injustice,
liberty or oppression? The need to fight for our beliefs and rights is something that
must not be stripped from human existence or else we stand at the abyss of global
totalitarianism.
The idea of training minds for peace filters down to the education proposed by
the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (2007) where
citizenship education aims to train the critical mind (as cited in Garratt and Piper,
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2011, p. 81). The idea of training a critical mind is an oxymoron unless taken
in the same context as training a critical reader, which is a familiar terminology
for many teachers. Education reform currently has translated critical into meaning
the narrowing of the human mind to see what is critical or important for the test.
In UNESCOs case, critical may be translated into the need of their mission for
justice and world peace. The UN promotes the idea of world consensus, but the
UNs assertions should be considered in light of the complicity in the hegemony
of Western ideology in creating an imagined consensus concerning the concept of
humanity (Camicia & Franklin, 2011, p. 314).
Definitions and decisions made about citizenship education and global
consciousness need to be examined in relation to the fact that dominant discourses
create and maintain a kind of gravitational pull on marginal discourses, a pull that
seeks standardisation, assimilation and efficiency (Camicia & Franklin, 2011,
p. 313). Cosmopolitanism and world citizenship are concepts that can hold immense
power, and what needs to be examined is who holds that power. For instance, Todd
(2008) points to the danger of cosmopolitanism in relation to the attempt to forge
global identities on the grounds of a positive, universal idea of humanity and the
aims to mould, encourage, or cultivate in youth a humanity that is already seen as
shared (p. 9). While I do not disagree about the interconnectedness of individuals
through humanity, the danger of dominant discourses crafting the universal idea of
humanity that is already shared seems to be perilous to education. We are connected
to each other not as uniform links in a chain but by our incongruities and indefinability.
In addition, we must acknowledge that culture intertwines with the formation of truths
and realities.
For instance, Parmenter (2011) discusses how there is an imbalance in research
knowledge because so many texts are not translated into English, and, conversely,
so many researchers are English monolinguals; he claims, Monolingual English
researchers need to be aware of and open to the existence of other research paradigms,
other knowledges and ways of knowing, and their own position in being able to
dominate the creation and perpetuation of global discourse (pp. 377378). This
construction of knowledge relates back to the discussion of world/global citizenship
and universal human rights as far as the exclusion of those who these terms describe
but fail to acknowledge and value their own beliefs. This can be particularly seen in
education where politicians and researchers often decide what needs to be done for
the youth without having conversations with youth to understand their views, which
is substantiated by the fact that very little research published on childrens and
young peoples perspectives on global citizenship, especially children in the global
South (Parmenter, 2011, p. 379). The exclusion of voices from these discourses is
further explained by Parmenter (2011):
This is not even a question of power relationships between the researchers and
researched. It is a question of remembering that the vast majority of people in

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the world are never included in either category, even though they may well be
affected by the results of research and policies in education.
Culturally, the current cultural biases in the research need to be recognized,
and a lot more work needs to be done on alternative cultural understandings of
concepts such as human-beingness and transformation. The nagging western
fear of engaging with spiritual aspects in discussions of global citizenship
and citizenship education has to be tackled in some way, because to ignore it
distorts the lived experiences of much of the worlds population. (p. 378)
Parmenter tackles the elephant in the room, which is composed of those forgotten, or
ignored, in discourses concerning global citizenship education, as well as the failure
of researchers and educators to engage with the diversity of spiritual and cultural
knowledges in the world. This can be seen by its absence in research but also through
the curriculum and pedagogy within schools.
CRITICAL EDUCATION OF IMAGINATIONS, SPIRITUALTIES,
ANDEPISTEMOLOGIES

This domination of educational discourse can also be expressed in the way in

which power, technology, and ideology come together to produce knowledge, social
relations, and other concrete cultural forms that indirectly silence people (Giroux,
1988, p. 115). There is not just a physical domination of power in society, which
we often associate with the military and law enforcement, there is also mental
domination through the cultural norms that have been previously expressed in the
language of UNDHR, Common Core, standardized testing the current language of
education in our society. These establish a linguistic framework that silences those
who are not categorized by hegemonic views. These result in an epistemicide where
the epistemological privilege that modern science grants to itself is thus the result
of the destruction of all alternative knowledges that could eventually question such
privilege (Santos, 2007, p. 424). Through epistemicide, knowledges are destroyed
and scientific knowledge is strengthened and amassed.
A bank of knowledge has been created that extends beyond schools, which are
only a portion of a childs education, reaching into the media, families, and laws.
However, the truths that make up this database of knowledge need to be understood
in relation to the powers that have constructed it. This can be seen in Foucaults
(1980) analysis of how truth is
linked in circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain
it, and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it. A regime of
truth. Its not a matter of emancipating truth from every system of power
(which would be a chimera, for truth is already power) but of detaching the
power of truth from the forms of hegemony, social, economic and cultural,
within which it operates at the present time. (p.133)
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This exploration of truth and the power connected to it due to societal structures
is essential for educators to understand when discussing curriculum that consists
of a knowledge that is often packaged as unquestionable truths which teachers are
instructed to train students in. In the era of globalization and technical education,
one feels the despair and hopelessness of reaching beyond standardized knowledge.
It requires a faith in the imagination and the ability to reach for something that does
not exist yet.
As Nussbaum (2010) states, The moral imagination too often becomes numbed
under the sway of technical mastery (p. 21). A realm of possibilities needs to be
developed, but currently the world suffers under a dictatorship of no alternatives.
Although ideas all by themselves are powerless to overthrow this dictatorship,
we cannot overthrow it without ideas (Unger, 2005, p. 1). We need to imagine a
possibility that does not exist yet and to see deeper than what is currently surrounding
us to invent new methods of promoting individuality in the academic setting. It
is important to understand the knowledge and realities that are missing and work
towards
a form of knowledge that aspires to an expanded conception of realism that
includes suppressed, silenced or marginalized realities, as well as emergent
and imagined realities. Once again in a self-reflexive turn, we may ask if the
knowledge that identifies the absences is not the same that legitimated the
conditions that suppressed the possibility of alternative realities now being
identifies as absences. (Santos, 2001, p. 270)
Knowledge is never complete and is full of absences that are identified by frameworks
that hold additional absences and dominions. Santos (2001) adds that there is no
a priori reason to favor one form of knowledge against another. Moreover, none of
them in isolation can guarantee the emergence and flourishing of solidarity. The
objectives will be rather the formation of a constellation of knowledges geared to
create a surplus of solidarity. This we may call a new common sense (p. 270). His
discussion of a new common sense reveals it as a break from scientific knowledge
and rather the knowledge of the people, which may not be explained simply by
science:
The new constellation of knowledges must break with the mystified and
mystifying conservative common sense, not in order to create a separate,
isolated form of super knowledge, but rather to transform itself into a new
emancipatory common sense. Common sense collapses cause and intention;
it rests on a worldview based on action on the principle of individual creativity
and responsibility. (Santos, 2001, p.271)
The discussion of knowledges, epistemologies, and creativity by Santos connects
to spirituality. The spiritual intertwines with emancipatory common sense because
neither is necessarily based on science, although they may relate to it.
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Scientific knowledge is favored in schools while spiritual knowledge is not.

This limits what is possible because, as Rogers and Hills (2002) note, spirituality
refers to a quality of being fully human that enables us to transcend or move beyond
what is known to what we do not yet fully comprehend (as cited in Woolley, 2008,
p. 154). The current system keeps people within the confines of possibility, but
examining spirituality may help us come to understand the trap we are in and how
our presuppositions about the nature of reality limit our perspective and cause us
pain instead of working our liberation (OReilley, 2005, p. 15). Students often feel
that they are trapped within school or imprisoned because no space is left for them
to make their own meanings; they are forced to reject or rebel against dominant
discourses that may be in opposition to their beliefs and experiences. We need
schools where students are not imitating but are going beyond what we perceive to
be reality. For instance, OReilly (2005) talks about the Buddhist concept of first
thoughts:
Since much academic communication is thought about thought, how can we
get ourselves, our disciplines, and our students to retain a hidden freshness?
How can we preserve a space for something more like first thoughts? First
thoughts are dangerous to express because they inevitably challenge control
of the cultural story, a story that people cling to because it serves them very
well. (p. ix)
OReilley (2005) examines the tensions within language, specifically in terms of
the legal, the mystical, and the prophetic, reflecting on these worlds of language
and the kinds of spaces we were able to create in the classroom for certain kinds of
words to be heard (p. 45).
OReilley (2005) describes a year when the common text for freshman was Mark
Dotys Heavens Coast, which was a memoir about losing his partner to AIDs, in
which Doty transverses the space between the unsayable and the text by a process he
calls dreaming into imagesReading Doty, students had to follow their intuitions
and suspend, from time to time, a logical analysis (p. 46). OReilley teaches at
a Catholic university, which may be why the professors soon perceived that the
text was being interpreted as spiritual; there was soon the familiar patterns of
breakdown that precede breakthrough, breakdowns particularly rooted in language:
in how things are named (p. 46). When Doty visited the campus, he offered students
three habits of mind for understanding spirituality:
(1) to pay acute attention; (2) to inhabit paradox; and (3) to resist certainty
to live the questions, as Rilke put it. These are the three habits of mind
that we need to comprehend mystical discourseor to dream in the images.
(OReilley, 2005, p. 47)
However, as OReilley rightly points out, this is not commonly practiced or even
considered in classrooms. These habits of mind are in opposition to the certainty
required for standardized assessments and curriculum.
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The connection to knowledge-as-regulation over knowledge-as-emancipation

proposed by Santos (2001) adds to OReilleys observations how an imbalance in
favor of knowledge-as-regulation (solidarity is recodified as chaos), and, conversely,
ignorance in knowledge-as-emancipation becomes knowing in knowledge-asregulation (colonialism is recodified as order) (p. 254). Our ignorance of spirituality
can be interpreted as intelligence within the current standards-based environment.
Schools promote the acceptance of scientific knowledge and reject spiritual
knowledge. The scientific can be recreated, redistributed, and regulated through and
by students and teachers. There is no art in it, but procedures that will train students
for a global market. Truths and norms are established in this way, but teaching and
learning are not about convergence onto a preexistent truth, but about divergence
about broadening what is knowable, doable, and beable (Davis, Sumara, & Simmt
2003, p. 184).
If education becomes a space for divergence where interactions work towards
something that is not a cycle of success or failure but a plane of possibility, then
schools become spaces for discourses and learning, which will shift our focus from
the repetitious to the not yet repeatable (Unger, 2005, p. 54). As Giroux (1988)
states, Education becomes a form of action that joins the language of critique and
possibility (p. 110).
Without a variety of knowledges and beliefs, education cannot exist. It is only
when confronted with something different that we are challenged to analyze and
learn. Education that does not contain differences is reduced to the training of
students. Educational leaders need to develop a space of emergence (Osberg &
Biesta 2008) which is open to differences, creating a space for world views that
extend beyond the accepted. As Osberg and Biesta (2008) state:
The responsibility of the educator in a space of emergence is not to ensure a
desired end is reached with a minimum of fuss, but rather always to complicate
the scene, to unsettle the doings and understandings of those being educated, in
order to keep the way open.
The space of emergence is therefore not an easy space to be in. It is difficult
and provocative, and often uncomfortable. There is even a certain violence
in this educational space (Biesta 2006: 26). It is violent because all those in
the space of emergence are faced with difficult and disturbing challenges that
bring forth unforeseen (and not always pleasant) changes (Biesta 2006: 29). It is
violent also because those in the space are forced to take a position and thereby
show themselves. By engaging in education, one is therefore placing oneself at
risk (and this applies to both teachers and learners). One does not know, cannot
know, what will happen, only that something will happen. (p.325)
This space of emergence is what schools need to create the spaces for students to
engage with the globalized world. With various cultures intersecting, world peace
would function as a guise for hegemony. Educators and students need to be aware of
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the conflicting forces that are constantly at play even when there appears to be peace.
The emergent classroom may be violent as Biesta and Osberg (2008) describe, but
this violence should be centered on passion, not malice. Anger is culturally defined
as something to avoid, but anger is the product of human emotion. Without that,
students become apathetic recipients, instead of democratic citizens or agents of
change. Anger, fear, despair, love, hate, pain are all rights we have as humans, and
by examining them we understand more deeply who we are, where we are, and what
could be.
The need for dreaming in education is important today, but equally important is
taking some actions towards those dreams. As Freire (1990) said:
You know that you are very far from realizing your dream, but if you dont
do something today, you become an obstacle for hundreds of people not yet
born. Its impossible for me just to think of my dream without thinking about
those who are not yet in the world. I have to have this strange feeling to love
those who have not come yet, in order to prepare. It is a collective practice,
and it means that presence of those who are alive today is important. Those
who come tomorrow will start acting, precisely taking what we as the starting
point. We are now dealing with the present to create the future. We are now
creating the future present for the new generation, from which they will make
history. (Horton & Freire, 1990, pp. 190191)
Although education currently is restricted by societal forces reign beyond the school
walls, educators cannot sit back and wait for the world to change. The mammoth
nature of standardization in education makes us feel as if this is reality, and that
impossible dreams are all we have against such a system, but acts of defiance that
seem impossible may, once practiced, seem inevitable (Unger, 2005, p. 170).
CONCLUSION

Globalization may be making the world smaller for some, but it is also sinking
it from the reach of others. Education is also being drawn into it and connects
to Camicia and Franklins (2011) words that Dominant discourses create and
maintain a kind of gravitational pull on marginal discourses, a pull that seeks
standardization, assimilation and efficiency (p. 313). These dominant discourses
fueled by globalization and inequity act as a loadstone rock to education, which has
perhaps, like Ajibs ship in Arabian Nights, been forced to crash. Education reform
policies centered on standardization are looking to homogenize youth identities for
market purposes. The push for globalization is restructuring not just schools but
commonsense in society. Citizens readily accept leaders claims that these reforms
are for educational excellence, but in reality they are really setting clear parameters
of whose knowledge will be legitimated and whose will be delegitimated. The
capitalist notion of freedom of choice excludes those who are appear invisible but
are living and real, yet exempt from these mythical, meritocratic choices. Swirling
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around students and teachers are the discourses which state that these reforms are the
great equalizers and saviors of public education in the US, but are really motivated
by neoliberal purposes for profitable advancements, not for the welfare of the
child. Individuals identities and spiritualties are being molded and common sense
transformed as society accepts these discourses without analyzing who the speaker is
and what purpose they serve. Knowledge is being created which destroy, dismisses,
or conceals the knowledges that permeate our society and would contribute to a
critical transformative world citizenship. The question remains for us that now in
face of the epistemicide carried out through media and state polices, how do we
rebuild education to create a global agora for the emergence of students voices,
knowledges, and beliefs?
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10.COMMON CORE AND PARCC

The Story Behind Americas Standardized Assessment Movement

INTRODUCTION

Recent changes in standardized testing regulations in the United States are having
a powerful impact on states, school districts, teachers, and students. These changes,
though, are only just beginning as new standardized tests, modeled after the
Common Core State Standards (CCSS), have not even been fully implemented to
date. This chapter attempts to review the history of how the CCSS and its associated
standardized tests gained support in the United States, while critically questioning
who is behind these organizations and identifying their funding sources. Specifically,
the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC)
model is analyzed in order to discern what implications this model will have for
states that have signed on with PARCC. This chapter will also consider the effects
of the widely accepted Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and its associated
standardized testing. Do these documents inevitably imply a national curriculum? If
so, have they promoted a democratic curriculum?
HISTORY

Common Core State Standards

Standardized testing is not new, but it could be said that the frequency and rigor of
standardized testing or high-stakes testing in public schools is new. The Common
Core State Standards were originally released in draft form in 2009 (Sloan, 2010).
This set of standards is intended to help teachers ensure that their students will be
college- and career-ready, the latest buzz-phrase in education. The CCSS are
described this way: These standards define the knowledge and skills students should
have within their K-12 education careers so that they will graduate high school able
to succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing academic college courses and in workforce
training programs (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2012a). This robust
set of standards has now been adopted by 45 states and three U.S. territories. It has
already had an impact on districts and schools as they work to align their district
curriculum with the new standards. The CCSS initiative claims that the CCSS were
collaboratively written to reflect the interests of all states involved. Their website

J. M. Paraskeva & T. LaVallee (Eds.), Transformative Researchers and Educators for Democracy, 145157.
2015 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

H.Zanconato

contains the following message: The common core state standards drafting process
relied on teachers and standards experts from across the country. In addition, there
were many state experts that came together to create the most thoughtful and
transparent process of standard setting. This was only made possible by many states
working together (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2012b).
Critics, however, note that this is not entirely true. Ratvich (2012, May 19)
explains that she originally understood David Coleman to be involved in the creation
of the CCSS. She admits that she later learned that he was not just one of many
hands, rather, he was the architect of the Common Core standards. Despite claims
that Coleman wrote the CCSS himself, the CCSS have been widely adopted by the
states, and assessment systems have been formed to test these new standards. It is
important to note that the CCSS do not necessarily replace a states standards or
frameworks. The CCSS set a minimum, and if a state prefers to set its own higher
standards, it may choose to do so.
Ratvich also calls attention to Colemans other affiliations and positions. For
example, he recently accepted the position as President of the College Board, which
is responsible for Advanced Placement courses in high schools across the country.
In addition, Ratvich writes that Coleman serves as the treasurer of Michelle Rhees
Students First movement. Ratvichs concern stems from the many and competing
ways in which Coleman is influencing American education in both the public
and private sectors. It is difficult to imagine how Coleman can faithfully serve the
purposes of each organization in which he is involved when he has such divided
priorities.
Race to the Top Comprehensive Systems Competition
Soon after the Common Core State Standards were written and in the process of
becoming adopted, the federal government issued a statement about the new Race
to the Top Comprehensive Systems Competition. This statement explained that the
federal government was offering a $350 million grant for a state-led consortium that
could design an assessment system based on the CCSS. The statement follows:
Authorized under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
(ARRA), the Race to the Top Assessment Program provides funding to
consortia of States to develop assessments that are valid, support and inform
instruction, provide accurate information about what students know and can
do, and measure student achievement against standards designed to ensure that
all students gain the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in college and the
workplace. These assessments are intended to play a critical role in educational
systems; provide administrators, educators, parents, and students with the data
and information needed to continuously improve teaching and learning; and
help meet the Presidents goal of restoring, by 2020, the nations position as the
world leader in college graduates. (U.S. Department of Education)
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Common Core and PARCC

The U.S. Department of Education set fairly high standards for prospective
applicants, requiring them to design an efficient assessment system that was
logistically feasible, and that also provided valuable results to many constituents.
Gewertz (2011) writes: In seeking proposals last year, the department outlined the
many uses it wanted the tests to serve, including measuring student achievement
and learning gains, and the effectiveness of teachers, principals, and schools. It also
wanted tests to produce useful feedback for teachers to help them shape instruction
(p. 8).
Specifically, assessments to be considered had to conform to the following
standards by being grounded in four basic principles:
1. Assessments are common across states and aligned to the CCSS.
2. Students take performance-based assessments for accountability.
3. The assessment systems are computer-based for more sophisticated design and
quick, reliable scoring.
4. Transparent reporting systems drive effective decision-making.
These new assessment systems will replace the NCLB-mandated assessments
currently used in participating states. (Tamayo, 2010, pp. 23)
Eight years after the No Child Left Behind Act was instituted, a grant from the
U.S. Department of Education made public that the new assessment system will
replace NCLB assessments. Although many opponents of NCLB likely rejoiced at
this news, it is still an unsettling possibility that a new assessment system will also
not live up to initial expectations.
Ultimately, two proposals were submitted: the SMARTER Balanced Assessment
Consortium and the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and
Careers (PARCC). The first was backed by 31 states and headed by the state of
Washington, while the second, PARCC, was comprised of 26 states and headed
by Florida. PARCCs states, though, represent 60% of U.S. public school students
(Horan, 2010). Noticeably, some states supported both consortia, and in the initial
stages, this was admissible. Tamayo (2010) explains the process that states will
adhere to in order to make a final decision on the consortium they will support and
follow:
States are free to choose the consortium with which they are affiliated and
whether they would like to act as governing or participating/advisory states.
However, to remain or to become a member state of either consortium, a
state must have adopted the CCSS by December 31, 2011, and each state
must decide no later than the 2014-2015 school year which comprehensive
assessment system it will implement, thus restricting states to membership in
only one consortium. (p. 5)
Furthermore, in order to be considered a governing state, a state has to ensure
that it fully implements the assessment system that it has chosen by the 2014-2015
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H.Zanconato

school year. Participating or advisory states are those states that have not yet
fully committed to a single assessment system and remain only partially engaged in
consortium activities (Tamayo, 2010, p. 5).
Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC)
Part of this chapters focus is the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for
College and Careers (PARCC), which was awarded $160 million from the Race to
the Top Comprehensive Systems Competition (Horan, 2010). The PARCC website
provides information about the goal and scope of the assessments. It is important to
note that the PARCC does not assess all subject matter; rather, the dual focus is on
English and Math. The About the PARCC webpage explains in more detail:
The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers
(PARCC) is a consortium of states working together to develop a common set
of K-12 assessments in English and math anchored in what it takes to be ready
for college and careers. These new K-12 assessments will build a pathway
to college and career readiness by the end of high school, mark students
progress toward this goal from 3rd grade up, and provide teachers with timely
information to inform instruction and provide student support. (Partnership for
the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, 2010)
The PARCC assessments are premised on the concept of through-course design,
where students are tested multiple times throughout a school year in order to track
their progress, as well as offer assistance to the teacher regarding their students
progress. Gewertz (2011) describes the purpose of this plan:
PARCCs original proposal featured a through-course design, in which
tests would be given after teachers completed one-quarter, one-half, threequarters, and 90 percent of instruction. Some of those tests were to be in the
form of essays and performance tasks, and others were to be quick-turnaround,
computer-based exams. All four required components were to be combined into
one end-of-year summative score, which states would use for accountability
required by NCLB. (p.8)
Despite the value of such a plan, there are obvious drawbacks. The required cost
and time alone were enough to cause an uproar of disagreement. Ultimately, the 15
states that make up PARCCs governing board reduced the number of components in
the summative score to two in each subject, one computer-based test and one exam
of essays and performance tasks and placed them close to the end of the year
The first two components were made optional and re-envisioned as a way for states
to produce feedback for teachers to help guide instruction (Gewertz, 2011, p. 8).
Further discussion of the implications of such changes will be included later in this
chapter.
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Common Core and PARCC

The PARCC assessments have been, and will continue to be, introduced over the
course of six years. From the initial planning stages to field-testing to determining
cut scores, it is a detailed process that must be rolled out in phases. The following
timeline in Table 1 makes clear the many steps involved in this project:
Table 1. Implementation Timeline for PARCC, adapted from Tamayo (2010, p. 10)
Year

PARCC

2010-2011

CCSS content analysis

Assessment blueprint development
Assessment item development
Performance task development
Draft accommodations manual for English language learners and
students with special needs

2011-2012

Implementation framework development

Pilot testing of select components of the assessment system
Pilot testing to include English language learners and students
with disabilities

2012-2013

Field testing begins in each consortium state

Data and CCSS-alignment review of test items

2013-2014

Field testing continues

Finalize accommodations manual; each state must adopt by
end of year

2014-2015

Implementation of PARCC system at scale in all consortium

states

2015

Standard-setting following first full operational administration

Initial cut scores determined

To date, the states that have signed on to implement the PARCC assessments are
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia,
Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New
Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania,
Rhode Island, and Tennessee.
Achieve
As the PARCC consortium continued to gather resources and prepare standardized
assessments, it established a relationship with the bi-partisan, non-profit education
reform organization Achieve. Achieve has agreed to serve as PARCCs project
management partner (Achieve, 2012a). The Board of Directors for Achieve is
comprised of a unique group of leadership. The group includes CEOs and highranking officials in large corporate organizations, as well as many state governors,
as displayed below in Table 2:
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H.Zanconato

Table 2. Achieve Board of Directors

Name

Title

Affiliation

Craig R. Barrett

Former CEO/Chairman of the

Board

Intel Corporation

Mark B. Grier

Vice Chairman

Prudential Financial, Inc.

Governor Bill Haslam

Board Member

State of Tennessee

Governor Dave Heineman

Board Member

State of Nebraska

Governor Jay Nixon

Board Member

State of Missouri

Governor Deval Patrick

Board Member

State of Massachusetts

Jeff Wadsworth

President & Chief Executive

Officer

Battelle

Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

Former Chairman & Chief

Executive Officer; Chairman
Emeritus

IBM Corporation

Michael Cohen

President

Achieve

Peter Sayre

Controller, Treasurer

Prudential Financial, Inc.

(Achieve, 2012b)

In line with Ratvichs (2012) thoughts about Coleman, it is interesting to note

the political and corporate affiliations embedded in Achieves Board of Directors.
However, political affiliations are fairly equally represented as Haslam and Heineman
are aligned with the Republican Party, while Nixon and Patrick are aligned with the
Democratic Party. Regardless, this Board of Directors includes businessmen (yes,
men), and government leaders (also men). As an education reform organization,
where are the educators and educational leaders? Furthermore, where are the women?
Achieves website explains the organizations roots and its work on the Common
Core State Standards:
At the 1996 National Education Summit a bipartisan group of governors
and corporate leaders decided to create and lead an organization dedicated to
supporting standards-based education reform efforts across the states. To do so,
they formed Achieve as an independent, bi-partisan, non-profit education reform
organization. (Achieve, 2012b)
2009: Work begins on the development of the Common Core State Standards;
Achieve partners with the National Governors Association and Council of
Chief State School Officers on the Initiative and a number of Achieve staff and
consultants serve on the writing and review-teams. (Achieve, 2012c)
As we move forward with teaching the Common Core State Standards and
administering the PARCC assessments, it is crucial to critically reflect on the origins
and underlying purposes for these educational changes. The project management
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Common Core and PARCC

organization for PARCC does not include an educators perspective, and the Common
Core State Standards were penned by a man who has not been a classroom teacher
(Porter-Magee, 2012). Certainly, diverse perspectives are valuable in situations like
these, especially from those outside of the education field. However, a balance must
be struck, and both veteran and emerging educators and educational leaders should
have a vocal part in the conversation.
CONCERNS

A fair number of perspectives have already been introduced; however, this section
will touch on some concerns and commentaries surrounding this new round of
standards and standardized testing. Dessoff (2012) points out a noticeable difference
between the CCSS and typical state standards: The Common Core assessments will
probe more deeply than assessments do now into what students are learning in math
and how they are learning it (p. 54). Teachers have already begun preparing to teach
the curriculum more deeply, knowing that the new assessments will require their
students to question reasoning and make connections that are not readily apparent.
As Dessoff continues, he stresses the challenges that await states and districts as
they near full-implementation of their chosen assessment. He writes, Finding
adequate resources, principally funding, to support all the activities necessary to
implement the standards was considered a major challenge by 21 states. Many states
also cited teacher-related challenges, including providing professional development
in sufficient quality and quantity, and aligning the content of teacher preparation
programs with the CCSS (p. 58).
As the educational world buzzes with excitement and interest regarding so many
simultaneous changes, onlookers often overlook the work that must be accomplished
before the assessments can even take place. For example, many districts have been
working to align their own curriculum with the new CCSS. As Dessoff mentions
above, teacher preparation programs also have to adjust their curricula in order to
best prepare teachers for the responsibilities they will face in the classroom. These
alignments must take place before teachers can even begin to teach the CCSS, and
thus prepare students effectively for the assessments. Many schools and districts
are well on their way, but only after contributing countless hours of personal and
professional planning time.
Hursh (2007) is critical of standardized testing because of its impact on the
students who are in most need of assistance. He writes, Such educational triage
exacerbates educational inequality as the students who either pass or are close to
passing the test become valued commodities and those students who need the most
help are left to fend for themselves (p. 507). Hursh accurately makes note of a
practice that is common, but that teachers are careful to avoid acknowledging; as
much as educators may say that they do not provide an extra push for students on the
cusp, they oftentimes do, and it is usually at the expense of other students. Hursh
goes on to argue that standardized test scores lack value anyways because they do
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H.Zanconato

not provide true indications of what we expect them to provide: Because test scores
strongly correlate with a students family income, a schools score is more likely to
reflect its students average family income than teaching or the curriculum (p. 506).
Finally, Dietel (2011) finds fault in multiple-choice tests, saying that they only
lead to teachers teaching-to-the-test:
Both PARCC and SBAC [SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium] have
said their forthcoming assessments would include performance assessments
Performance assessments were popular in the late 1980s and 1990s largely
because both policy makers and educators were disenchanted with multiplechoice tests for many of the same reasons that theyre unhappy with them
today. Multiple-choice tests narrow the curriculum. They encourage teaching
to the test, which, in turn, leads to artificially higher scores. (p. 32)
It is encouraging to hope that the PARCC assessments will be more performancebased in nature, and thus discourage teaching-to-the-test. Ultimately, though,
teachers are even more likely to teach to the test in order to gain impressive scores
for their students, class, and school, especially with the potential for teacher tenure
to become tied to student performance. Proponents of standardized testing may
claim that teaching-to-the-test is not a negative practice if it simply translates to
teaching-to-the-standards. This is commendable, so long as teachers are proponents
of the standards.
IMPLICATIONS

The implications of implementing the Common Core State Standards and the
PARCC assessments are many and varied. An initial concern that may seem
superficially minor, but that will impact many teachers, is simply understanding
the role that they, as teachers, will play in this transition to the CCSS and the
PARCC assessments. What are teachers expected to do today, next month, and next
year? Communication is key in this turbulent time. Dessoff (2012) writes: While
they are aware that the assessments are being developed, educators generally do
not understand what that means to them, according to Doug Sovde, senior advisor
to the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC)
(p. 53).
Many educators and school leaders have cited increased technology costs as a
serious concern. The PARCC assessments rely on computer-based testing, and for
many states and districts, this will be a monumental change in the ways schools must
prepare. First, there are simple hardware concerns. Does the school have enough
computers to enable enough students to take their required exams simultaneously?
Second, does the school have the networking capability to support many computers
simultaneously accessing the same website portals? Third, does the school district
have enough trained personnel on stand-by to address technology glitches, while
maintaining the validity of the test results?
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Common Core and PARCC

Dessoff (2012) conveys an interviewees concerns: But cost is a huge issue in

this economy, says Carranza [deputy superintendent of the San Francisco, California
Unified School District], and while online delivery is predicated on a wonderful
idea, its an unfunded mandate and creates another level of requirements that at least
our district isnt prepared to assume at this point (p. 60). It is worth remembering
that although initial grant funding is intended to support the launch of the new
assessment, grant money is not allocated for school district technology resources.
Districts are responsible for providing the technology necessary to administer the
assessments. The officials from PARCC, however, feel that technology concerns
will be alleviated as we approach the full implementation deadline, based on the
rate at which technology is improving. Sparks (2011) quotes Slover, the senior vice
president of PARCC: Innovation in technology happens at lightning speed, so we are
betting heavily on the fact that in four years there will be a new way of doing things,
that iPads will be easily accessible or that handheld devices will be very affordable
and will change the way we do testing in our schools (p. 11). Terms like easily
accessible and very affordable are relative, though, and although many wealthy
and middle-class area school districts may be able to provide these improvements to
their students, it is unlikely that schools in predominantly low-income areas will be
able to fill the technology gap in time to meet full implementation. Furthermore, it is
easy to overlook the effects of todays digital divide, whereas some students may not
possess adequate technology skills to demonstrate their learning on computer-based
standardized tests.
Sparkss (2011) research supports these concerns. She writes, Even among
classrooms with computer and Internet access, state officials agreed there are few
brick-and-mortar schools that fully integrate technology into instruction, which may
make it harder for students to adapt to taking tests via computer (p. 11). It is a relief
to note, however, that although students in grades 3 through 11 will be taking PARCC
assessments, they will not all be taking them on a computer. Dessoff (2012) explains,
[S]tudents in grades 6 to 11 will take tests by computer, while children in grades 3
to 5 will use pencil and paper, because they might not yet know how to use computer
keyboards (p. 54). Someday, schools may move to computer-based standardized
testing for all grades as students gain technology skills earlier and earlier in their
lives. Despite common assumptions today about teenagers and technology, some
students in grades 6 through 11 are not quite on par with their peers with regard to
technology skills.
Another concern with the way the PARCC assessment has been revised is the
likelihood of creating an additional economic divide between rich districts
and poor districts. As the consortium of states that governs PARCC reviewed
recommendations for changes, they eliminated some of the through-course
design. Specifically, they established the first two assessments (closer to the
beginning of each school year) as optional to accommodate districts that could not
afford the added monetary expense or reduced classroom time. This decision makes
implementing PARCC assessments (or most of them) more feasible, but it partly
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H.Zanconato

defeats the purpose of the through-course design. Additionally, it sets schools up

to either participate in the now extra assessments for practice and feedback, or to
not participate and to miss out on practice and feedback. Tamayo (2010) writes,
additional, optional elements not for accountability will be implemented only in
states and districts with the resources to do so (p. 9). Gewertz (2011) adds to the
discussion with her interview with Tom Loveless, a senior fellow at a Washington
think tank: Components one and two could end up serving as practice tests for
[components] three and four and influencing test results, [Tom Loveless] said. Its
essentially a sneak peek, and it calls comparability into question (p. 8). Ultimately,
an ingenious idea has led to increased disparity between the haves and have-nots
of school districts.
The sources of funding are a source of concern with regard to a standardized
test movement promulgated by the U.S. Department of Education. Gewertz (2011)
reports, Some have argued that curricula would be unduly influenced by the federal
government because it is funding the work of the assessment consortia, which
includes not only tests but a range of instructional resources (p. 8). This raises an
important set of questions. If the development of these assessments is being funded
by a grant from the U.S. government, and the assessments are being created by
leaders of a consortium of states, does this mean that we are creating a nationallyrecognized, nationally-sponsored curriculum? Surely the critics will not equate the
PARCC or even the CCSS with the word curriculum, but it is also true that very
few schools will stray from the path paved by the CCSS. School- and district-based
curricula are being modeled on the CCSS, the same standards that 45 states and three
U.S. territories have adopted. If we are all working with the same documents, basing
our lessons on the same documents, and taking the same assessments, have we not
essentially established a national curriculum? And if critics can make a leap of faith
and give this argument the benefit of the doubt, it is worth questioning whether this
national curriculum, created for a democratic nation, by a democratic nation, is
democratic in nature.
As we ponder questions like these, as unnerving as they may appear, it is valuable
to consider how education leaders in the United States came to value standardized
testing. Rather than taking the lengthy historical overview, this chapter only looks
back at the recent decades. Dietel (2011) presents an interesting look at the impact
of standardized testing in California:
In 1994, Stanford researcher Lee Cronbach led a study of the California
Learning Assessment System (CLAS), concluding that the CLAS performance
assessment results should not be broadly used to produce individual student
scores until serious validity problems were fixed (Cronbach, Bradburn, and
Horvitz 1995). Cronbach also noted that several of the CLAS test questions had
drawn public ire due to their perceived intrusive nature. Enough parents refused
to let their children take the test that it produced another validity problem
By the beginning of NCLB in 2002, few statewide performance assessments
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Common Core and PARCC

remained. The heavy NCLB testing requirements further contributed to the

demise of all but the simplest performance assessments. Multiple-choice tests
returned stronger than ever. (p. 32)
Throughout the years, standardized test creators have tried to move their tests
beyond just multiple-choice, as Dietel explains. With each wave of trials and
errors, it becomes easy to point out flaws and condemn the entire process. While
personalization was an attempt to individualize the test, parents evidently felt that
impersonal, possibly less accurate tests, were preferable. It will prove fascinating to
track the publics reaction with the latest wave of standardized assessments.
It is clear that between educational leaders and the federal government, one party
is always promoting standardized assessments. However, there may be another
reason for this that has yet to be explored in this chapter. Hursh (2007) makes a
strong claim that government leaders do not advocate for standardized assessments
in order to help students improve their skills; rather, they advocate for the score
results so that parents can be sufficiently informed in order to make the best choice
regarding their childs place of schooling. Hursh writes:
Increased efficiency can only be attained, argue neoliberals, if individuals are
able to make choices within a market system in which schools compete rather
than the current system in which individuals are captive to educational decisions
made by educators and government officials. Furthermore, if individuals are
to make decisions, they must have access to quantitative information, such as
standardized test scores, that presumably indicate the quality of the education
provided. Neoliberals believe competition leads to better schools, and hence
better education for all students, closing the achievement gap between students
of color and White students. (p. 498)
Hurshs pointed argument goes on to claim that the true purpose of testing and
assessments is to make the case that public schools are failing and are essentially
a lost cause. For those who acknowledge this, a possible next step is to transfer
support to private educational institutions. Hursh (2007) writes, [W]hether NCLB
and similar reforms emphasizing high-stakes exams and accountability were
actually designed to increase fairness and equality can be questioned. First, some
neoliberal and neoconservative organizations have stated that their real goal is to
use testing and accountability to portray public schools as failing and to push for
privatizing education provided through competitive markets (p. 501). He concludes
by saying, the aim of NCLB and other high-stakes testing reforms therefore may
be less about improving student learning and closing the achievement gap than it is
about undermining public education to introduce a market-based system (p. 504).
This author believes that it is an unlikely scenario that the federal government
would sponsor a $350 million grant and allow states to devote considerable time
and effort to developing sophisticated assessment systems, only to conclude that
our public schools are failing. It is, in effect, possible to conclude that without $350
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H.Zanconato

million worth of extra data. This author is willing to concede that such neoliberal
and neoconservative organizations to which Hursh refers are seriously questioning
the sustainability of our public school systems and are skeptical, though hopeful
Race to the Top funds will help to spark a positive change.
Finally, there are other implications for the implementation of the PARCC
assessments. As valuable as inter-state collaboration is, there are also drawbacks to
states working collectively. Sparks (2011) explains, while jointly developing tests
was intended to save states money, the grants do not include money for administering
the new assessments long-term, and it will be harder to make adjustments to the tests
once they are completed, because so many states will need to sign off on changes
(p. 11). Hopefully, the six-year implementation period for the PARCC assessments
will allow states to foresee potential problems and make appropriate alterations and
adjustments while funding is still available.
CONCLUSION

This chapter has chronicled the development of the Common Core State Standards,
as well as one of the Race to the Top Comprehensive Assessment Systems Competition
winners, the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers
(PARCC). The boards of directors and states involved in these programs and
consortia have been identified to assist readers in understanding and drawing
connections between stakeholders and their respective affiliations. Literature and
commentary on these momentous changes in education have been discussed, and
crucial implications for states, districts, schools, leaders, and teachers have been
outlined. Possible motivations for an educational standardized assessment reform
of this magnitude are suggested. It is this authors hope that readers are now better
informed of the assessment changes that will continue to have an increasing impact
on the educational landscape in America.
REFERENCES
Achieve. (2012a). Achieve & the American diploma project network. Retrieved from
http://www.achieve.org/about-us American diploma project American diploma project
Achieve. (2012b). Board of directors. Retrieved from http://www.achieve.org/our-board-directors
directors
Achieve. (2012c). Our history. Retrieved from http://www.achieve.org/history-achieve
Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2012a). About the standards. Retrieved from
http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards
Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2012b). Myths vs. facts. Retrieved from
http://www.corestandards.org/resources/myths-vs-facts
Dessoff, A. (2012). Are you ready for common core math? 2014 will be here sooner than you think.
District Administration, 48(3), 5360. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id= GALE%7
CA282741155&v=2.1&u=mlin_s_umass&it=r&p=PROF&sw=w
Dietel, R. (2011). Testing to the top everything but the kitchen sink? Many questions remain unanswered
as the United States forges ahead into greater uses of performance assessments-potentially even
linking them to teacher and principal evaluations. Phi Delta Kappan, 92(8), 32. Retrieved from

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http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA282444120&v=2.1&u=mlin_s_umass&it=r&p=PROF&sw=w
Gewertz, C. (2011). State consortium scales back common-assessment design; PARCC replaces
required language arts and math tests with optional ones. Education Week, 30(36), 8. Retrieved from
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA262381055&v=2.1&u=mlin_s_umass&it=r&p=
PROF&sw=w
Horan, K. (2010, Sept. 1). Two consortia of states win race to the top funds. District Administration.
Retrieved from http://www.districtadministration.com/article/two-consortia-states-win-race-topfunds
Hursh, D. (2007). Assessing no child left behind and the rise of neoliberal education policies. American
Educational Research Journal, 44(3), 493518. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/30069426
Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. (2011a). PARCC model content
frameworks: English language arts/literacy-grades 3-11. Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness
for College and Careers, 196. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA281
415880&v=2.1&u=mlin_s_umass&it=r&p=PROF&sw=w
Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. (2011b). PARCC model content
frameworks: mathematics-grades 3-11. Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and
Careers. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA281415879&v=2.1&u=ml
in_s_umass&it=r&p=PROF&sw=w
Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. (2011c). Revisions to the
PARCC model content frameworks for mathematics and ELA/literacy based on public feedback.
Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, 18. Retrieved from
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PROF&sw=w
Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). (2010). Application for
the race to the top comprehensive assessment systems competition. Partnership for the Assessment of
Readiness for College and Careers, 1276. Retrieved from http://www.parcconline.org/about-parcc
Porter-Magee, K. (2012, Mar. 14). What do you know? You never taught! and other ways we slow
down educational progress. Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham institute: Advancing educational
excellence. Retrieved from http://www.edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/
common-core-watch/2012/what-do-you-know-you-never-taught.html
Ratvich, D. (2012, May 19). Who is David Coleman? [Web log comment]. Retrieved from
http://dianeravitch.net/2012/05/19/who-is-david-coleman/
Simon, S. (2012, June 12). Parents protest surge in standardized testing. Newyork, NY:Thomson
Reuters. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/12/us-usa-education-testingidUSBRE85B0EO20120612
Sloan, W. (2010). Coming to terms with common core standards. Info Brief, 16(4). Retrieved from
http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/policy-priorities/vol16/issue4/full/Coming-to-Termswith-Common-Core-Standards.aspx
Sparks, S. D. (2011). Experts envision hurdles to come for common-core tests; projects facing tight
deadlines, budget and technology constraints. Education Week, 30(28), 11. Retrieved from
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Tamayo, J. R., Jr. (2010). Assessment 2.0: Next-generation comprehensive assessment systems.
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U.S. Department of Education. (2012, May 25). Race to the top assessment program. Retrieved from
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11.INTERDISCIPLINARY AND INTEGRATIVE

EDUCATION IN 21ST CENTURY AMERICA

There are some events that change the way we look at our world, some people
who change the way we view ourselves, and some books that change the way we
examine our craft. While there are many events and people that I can credit for
shaping the person that I have become today, there is one book that truly changed
my educational and professional practice. Apple and Beanes Democratic Schools:
Lessons in Powerful Education (2007) clarified and solidified many of the ideas,
theories, and arguments that I have toyed with in the past. As an English teacher, I
have always believed in the need to situate a text. I have explained to many students
the need to study society and the times. I have discussed the importance of the writer
as the watchdog of society and often spent many hours investigating how the theme
is socially relevant. For me, history and English simply mixed. A competent teacher
could not teach one without covering the other.
While I held this belief at my core and practiced it daily, I did not have the
words, theories, or examples needed to support my educational claims. Apple and
Beane (2007) changed this for me. In their book Democratic Schools: Lessons in
Powerful Education, Apple and Beane (2007) examine collaborative education.
They viewed, analyzed, and discussed several programs and revealed the benefits
associated with each. For me, one particular case stood out from the rest. In their
text, Apple and Beane (2007) devoted one section to the Rindge School of Technical
Arts in Cambridge, MA. This vocational school caught my attention because of
its status. While I had always worked in comprehensive schools, only five years
ago, I moved into a vocational setting. Prior to my transfer, I admit that I did not
understand vocational education. I bought into many of the beliefs and stereotypes
that surround this potentially collaborative process, and it wasnt until I experienced
the benefits that vocational education has to offer that I was able to defend this
alternative system.
While I still today support the motives and progress that vocational education
presents, Apple and Beane (2007) revealed to me another potential for vocational
education. Through their study, they exposed the workings of the Rindge School
of Technical Arts. Within this Massachusetts based school, students find a purpose
in education during their freshman year. As participants in Rindges City Works
Program, freshman experience a true collaborative education experience. Their work
is project-based and blurs the lines between disciplines. In truth, within the structure
J. M. Paraskeva & T. LaVallee (Eds.), Transformative Researchers and Educators for Democracy, 159178.
2015 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

K. A.Warren

of City Works, students address real problems in a manner that they would in the real
world. They approach questions and projects with all-encompassing critical eyes
rather than from the perspective of fragmented disciplines. Additionally, according
to Apple and Beane, these first year students work collaboratively not only with
their peers but also with instructors. In essence, instructors at Rindge participate in
collaboration throughout their days. They work side by side with other instructors,
as well as students. Quintessentially, Rindge academic and vocational educators are
required to work together with students to create, facilitate, and guide meaningful
educational experiences (2007).
Upon reading about the successes that the Rindge School of Technical Arts
experienced, I came to believe that the same concept should be applied to vocational
education throughout the United States, and it is precisely that concept that will be
explained and argued within the context of this chapter. As an educational researcher,
the chapter that follows will investigate Beanes curriculum integration, Deweys
participatory education, and current practices within vocational education. As a
result of this investigation, recommendations will be made concerning the future
track of vocational education. Additionally, limitations concerning this vision will
be addressed.
DEMOCRACY IN VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

The cause of democracy is the moral cause of the dignity and the worth of the
individual. (John Dewey, 1946)
Democracy in vocational education is not a new concept. In fact, as early as 1906,
John Dewey defended democracy for vocational students (Apple & Beane, 2007,
pp. 108109), and in 1986, Chester Finn sustained this Deweyan conviction. Like
Dewey, Finn insisted that all children should have the same opportunity to become
well-informed voters and responsible parents and citizens, adequately prepared to
participate in our society (as cited in Lewis, 1998, p. 284), and in effect, this belief
system is the cornerstone of a democratic vocational education.
Accordingly, Hyslop-Margison and Graham further define a democratic career
education in 2001. They write (as cited in Benjamin, Hysop-Margison, & Taylor,
2010):
Democratic career education respects student rationality by encouraging student
critique of course material;
Democratic career education includes alternative perspectives on vocationally
related issues such as labor market structure, environmental impact and
sustainable development, the labor movement and labor history, acceptable
working conditions and economic globalization;

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Democratic career education emphasizes that economic, labor market and working
conditions are constructed through human agency and can be reconstructed
through democratic participation (p. 121).
Quintessentially, as Benjamin, Hysop-Margison, & Taylor (2010) explain, a
democratic vocational education views humans and society as unfinished and,
therefore, subject to evaluation and transformation (p. 121).
While the struggle between old vocationalism, or industry-specific skills training,
and new vocationalism continued, both the Carl Perkins Act of 1990 and the Schoolto-Work Opportunities Act of 1994 has helped to further democratic vocational
education. The former of these acts aids the democratic struggle by demanding
schools integrate subjects within vocational education and makes such integration
a funding priority. The latter of the two acts also encourages democracy, though
in a different manner. For all intents and purposes, the 1994 School-to-Work
Opportunities Act provides funds for state and local initiatives geared to forging
links between schools and workplaces (Lewis, 1998, p. 287).
Additional support for integration of the vocational and academic disciplines
came from the 1994 National Assessment of Vocational Education (NAVE) Advisory
Panel. This group found that the students who took predominantly vocational
courses in high school were not preparing for college. And in keeping with an ageold stereotype, the poorer the scholastic averages of the students, the more likely
they were to enroll in vocational courses (as cited in Lewis, 1998, p. 286).
Furthermore, Lewis (1998) argues the need for job flexibility. Teens today will rarely
enter into a post-high school position and remain in that position until retirement. Indeed,
instead of being trained for particular jobs, workers now need to be educated for job
flexibility (p. 286). In effect, in order to best meet the needs of the new vocational
student, educators must begin to adapt to a democratic vocational education.
One such example of new American vocationalism can be seen in the Southern
Regional Education Boards (SREB) state consortium of pilot schools, known as
high schools that work (p. 290). Gene Bottoms (1992), HSTWs primary founder,
explains that schools in this group adopt new curricular reform strategies, such as
revising vocational programs to reinforce higher order concepts in communication,
math, and science, and revising academic courses to teach essential concepts
from the college preparatory curriculum through an applied process (as cited in
Lewis, 1998, p. 290). In sum, and as detailed by Lewis (1998), Bottoms laments the
practice of poor and minority children being labeled and placed in vocational tracks
and taught a watered-down academic curriculum (p. 290).
While many Americans today envision a Deweyan utopia within the vocational
system, this belief was not always supported. A brief study of the history of manual
labor training and old vocationalism reveals the need for a new and malleable
democratic curriculum.

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AMERICAN VOCATIONAL EDUCATION: A HISTORY

The times are out of joint. America is sick. (David Snedden, 1935)
At the dawn of the 20th century, American expansion, industrial growth, agricultural
increase, and population escalation collided. This crash and explosion created a need
for a new American educational system. Due to American transformation, education
of the past no longer suited the developing nations needs, and in response to these
successive changes, which were occurring at an alarming rate, and awareness of
the need for a national movement to train manual laborers began to consolidate
(Paraskeva, 2011, p. 43). This need, however, for a new industry-based education
was not Americas only problem. In addition to altering college bound teaching, the
American education system also sought a cure for delinquent children, children of
the poorer class, immigrants and racial minorities, andthe socially correct answer
for how to integrate the American Indians and African-Americans who continued to
work for the actualization of the freedom they had nominally won in 1865 (p. 43).
Truly, as stated by Good (1956), society demand[ed] much more of the schools than
ever before (as cited in Paraskeva, 2011, p. 43).
As always, the educational system responded to societys demands. In 1906, the
Commission on Industrial and Technical Education, also known as the Douglas
Commission, investigated American education at various levels. This investigation
yielded two major conclusions: first, the American educational system was not
meeting the needs of either modern society or the industrial world; second, the
academics that were being taught were only meeting the needs of a small percentage
of students. In essence, traditional education had to change, and federal financial
support was a necessity (Paraskeva, 2011, p. 46).
While manual training was a practice in place, in 1912, Charles Prosser, Deputy
Commissioner of Education in Massachusetts, argued that this type of education did
not meet the needs of industrial education. In fact, faced by constantly changing
social demands, manual training evolved, step-by-step, into vocational education
(as cited in Paraskeva, 2011, p. 43). This progression altered the hands-on educational
platform from one focused upon the individual pre-industrial American artesian to
one that stressed the economic benefits realized not only by the individual but also
by the nation (Paraskeva, 2011, p.43).
Prosser, however, was not alone in his belief that manual training needed to evolve.
In addition to his efforts, the National Society for Promotion of Industrial Education
created a coalition that incorporated the interests of the National Association of
Manufacturers, the American Federation of Labor, the American Bankers Association,
the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Metal Trade Association,
and even local unions (as cited in Paraskeva, 2011, p.46) to push forward the
advancement of vocational education. As a result, the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917
was passed. This act, Herbert Kliebard explained, guaranteed economic federal
support for vocational agriculture as well as trade and industrial education and home
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economics (as cited in Paraskeva, 2011, p.46). Fundamentally, the Smith-Hughes

Act provided vocational education with the money it needed in order to expand and
evolve. It allowed for the type of educational development that Prosser proposed.
Still, this education was not enough. In 1940, the Special Committee on Secondary
Schools published a report titled What Schools Ought to Teach. In this report,
Prosser and other committee members, despite recognizing that the creation of the
Board for Vocational Education in 1917 represented a major advance in confirming
the social function of the schoolcriticized the tendency of vocational education
to cultivate highly specialized skills (Paraskeva, 2011, p. 78). Essentially, the
committee believed that the teaching of industry-related specialized skills resembled
vocational past practices and failed to educate the whole student. Paraskeva (2011)
continues:
Vocational education was, furthermore, intimately linked to segregation, in
that the majority of students steered toward it were already marginalized,
leaving them with a curriculum that was inadequate in preparing them to
take their place in adult society. The criticism even stretched to the so-called
conventional subjects, although the document was preoccupied to a great
extent with the need to prepare students for their future involvement in society.
(p. 78)
Additionally, the 1945 publication General Education in a Free Society argued that
the function of education should be to prepare an individual to become an expert
both in some particular vocation or art and in the general art of the free man and
citizen (as cited in Paraskeva, 2011, p. 78).
Shortly after the publication of these reports, history impacted education. On
October 4, 1957, Russia launched Sputnik I and beat America into space. According
to Paraskeva, for the people of the United States, being beaten in the space race
by the Russians was more than a mere preoccupation, it was a humiliation (2011,
p. 84). Such embarrassment could not be tolerated. Thus, education was expected
to change. Robert Reynolds (2004) writes, after Sputnik the school system went
through a tremendous reform as a result of the National Defense Education Act of
1958 (p. 6). Reynolds (2004) elaborates:
Math and science were the focal point of education due to the NDEA (1958).
Money was taken away from other areas of schooling and concentrated in the
math and sciences. Teachers were invited to attend seminars to improve their
ability to teach math and science and paid a stipend for attending. The general
belief was that the United States had to catch up with the Russians and the
way to do that was to improve our educational system. To improve the present
system it was thought that math and science needed to the focal point and all
other areas were secondary. (p.7)
To further exasperate the issue, in April 1983, the National Commission on Excellence
in Education published A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform.
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This report placed vocational education secondary to academics by suggesting

that all students should be required to follow a basic academic curriculum. This
curriculum did not focus upon vocational skills. Rather, it advised schools to insist
that all students seeking a diploma must take four years of English, three years of
math, three years of science, three years of social studies, and a half year of computer
science (p. 7). Accordingly, alterations in vocational education commenced.
DEMOCRATIC VOCATIONAL EDUCATION: A SAMPLE OF PRACTICES

If our youth is and continues to be educated correctly, all of our affairs will
take a happy course, if it is notthe rest is better left unsaid. (Platon)
Vocational education has once again reached a juncture. In fact, 1998 anecdotal
and research evidence collected by the New Urban High School Project found that
students in well-structured school-to-work programs are not going directly into the
workforce, but instead are entering post-secondary institutions at a rate of about
80 percent as opposed to a rate of 62 percent for high school graduates overall
(Goldhammer et al., 1998, p. 1). Massachusetts Department of Education statistics
also have demonstrated similar college attendance rates. In fact, the Massachusetts
DOE reports that in 2008, of the 65,197 Massachusetts high school graduates, 82%
of students planned to attend a two-year college, a four-year university, or some
other type of post-secondary education, and an additional 9.3% of graduates hoped
to enter the workforce. Massachusetts vocational students, however, had different
goals. Of the 5,923 vocational education high school graduates in 2008, 58%
planned to attend a two-year college, a four-year university, or some other type of
post-secondary education, while 34.4% planned to enter the workforce (Plans of
High, 2009).
Though these numbers indicate that many vocational students still plan to apply
their trade-specific skills soon after high school, they also signify a change in the
vocational student. Traditionally, vocational education was created to provide
industry with skilled workers. However, in 2008, 23.6% more Massachusetts
vocational graduates planned on furthering their education rather than immediately
entering the workforce. These numbers cannot be ignored.
Given that such a large number of vocational students aspire to earn some form
of post-secondary degree or certification, schools must begin to tailor vocational
education to meet this new need. Vocational leaders and educators must consider
their new audiences and investigate vocational education best practices. Now is
the time to engage democracy in vocational education. Now is the time to examine
vocational education as a craft. Consider the following schools.
1. Rindge School of Technical Arts Cambridge, MA
The Rindge School of Technical Arts (RSTA) first opened in 1888 as the first
public vocational high school in Massachusetts, and the second in the United States
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(Apple & Beane, 2007, p. 108). Today, despite being located within a wing of a
comprehensive high school, RSTA operates in a manner that puts the rhetoric of
Perkins and the progressivism of Dewey into daily practice (p. 110).
Within the vocational realm of this Cambridge school, CityWorks is the
centerpiece of the Rindge freshman experience. CityWorks, a program designed
to engage students in community activities and foster future involvement, exists
in a studio-style space that encourages vocational students to work collaboratively
not only with their peers but also with instructors. In addition to joining forces
with teachers, CityWorks demands that both academic and vocational disciplines
collaborate in order to offer Rindge students a democratic education.
Students who enroll in the Rindge CityWorks program are expected to become
involved and invested in their community. They are required to investigate the
neighborhoods, the systems, the people, and the needs of their urban society, and
based upon these experiences, CityWorks students then develop and implement both
group and individual projects that serve not only as artifacts (maps, photographs,
etc.) for their city but also help to improve the community (pp. 111113).
At RSTA, community members create a context for student projects. For example:
At a recent exhibition of students work, several teams of students displayed
drawings and scale models of a heritage museum they had designed for
Cambridge. Each group had a different conception of where the museum might
be located and how it should be designed. The museum builders sat with their
models to explain their ideas as parents, city officials, and local businesspeople
filtered through the exhibit.
In making the models, the museum builders were responding to a request
from the citys tourist agency, which is in the process of raising funds for a
museum. Six weeks before the exhibit, the agency director had come to speak
to CityWorks students and ask for their help in this effort. With thousands of
people visiting the city each year, it was important for students to understand
the tourism industry and to help plan its development in a way that would take
the needs of the residents into account. (Apple & Beane, 2007, p. 112)
Based upon John Deweys philosophy that all students can learn and therefore should
avoid educational tracks, CityWorks is truly a vocational program that combines
key vocational practices, such as project-based learning and apprenticeships, with
vital academic skills through the use of community-centered initiatives. CityWorks
helps students become active citizens within their community and understand
the community that surrounds them. Fundamentally, as Apple and Beane (2007)
describe:
The goal of CityWorks projects is to help students understand their community
and its needs, and to ultimately see themselves as people who can affect that
community and create new opportunities for themselves and others who live
or work there. Through the lens of community development, students arrive at
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a very different and more positive vision of what it means to be a vocational

student. The point is not just to make things, learn some skills, and get a job,
but rather to become thinkers and solvers of problems who work well together
in teams and communicate well with various audiences. (p. 113)
2. Chicago Vocational Career Academy Chicago, IL
The restructuring of Chicago Vocational Career Academy (CVCA) began in 1991
under the direction of Betty Despenza-Green, principal of Chicago Vocational High
School. Despenza-Green saw the benefit of small schools and set out to bring this
personalized educational practice to her building. At Despenza-Greens direction,
CVCA transformed its 750,000 square feet of disconnected classrooms and
vocational shops into a more coherent, personalized learning environment. They
did this by integrating the vocational classes with English, social studies, math, and
science classes and placing them under career-based academies, or mini-schools
(Goldhammer et al., 1998, pp. 1516). Essentially, CVCA organized itself into ten
academies that included the Junior Academy to serve students in grades nine and
ten, the School of Business and Finance, the school of Heath/Human Services, the
School of Manufacturing, the School of Communication, the School of Horticulture,
the School of Transportation, the School of Hospitality/Food Services, the School of
Construction, and the School of Cosmetology. As the result of this reconfiguration,
CVCA reduced tardiness between classes, and teachers welcomed the opportunity to
work with the same students (p. 16).
Additionally, CVCA thrived in other ways. Now at CVCA:
Each academy has a school-based enterprise to help teach students all the
aspects of their industry, entrepreneurial skills, and applied academics. One of
the most successful of these is a school-based beauty salon that stays open after
school and on Saturdays and already turns a profit. Most of our cosmetology
teachers own their own shops. They not only teach their students how to do
hair, but how to apply for loans, develop a business plan, and negotiate a lease.
Their experience as real entrepreneurs has made a difference for our students.
When it comes to learning to write business letters or do higher level financial
analysis, the other teachers in the academy drive that, remarks DespenzaGreen. (Goldhammer et al., 1998, p. 17)
Furthermore, planning for educational success is not only delegated to instructors at
CVCA. Students, in fact, must work to set and obtain educational goals. According
to the New Urban High School Project, At the beginning of each year, each student
meets with his or her teachers, counselor, and parent(s) to establish individual
learning objectives. And just as students develop objectives, teachers must design
and make public their teaching activities and goals for the week (Ibid, p.19). Such
practice forces students to constantly reexamine their learning goals and verifies
that all goals match up, and, thus, continuously creates an individualized learning
environment.
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3. St. Louis Career Academy St. Louis, MO

St. Louis Career Academy, which opened in 1996, offers students a unique
educational experience. Based upon a computer-led model, St. Louis Academy
presents students with over 300 computers and one of the largest computer networks
in the country. To that end, the computer-based instruction is intended to assist
students in improving their basic skills in math and reading as a foundation for more
intensive course and project work (Ibid, p. 33) and helps to achieve the Academys
mission of creating a personalized learning environment which promotes selfdirected learning using technology and real-life experiences (Ibid).
Similar to CVCA, St. Louis Career Academy operates under a small school model.
Within this structure, the Academy runs three houses, each consisting of about 115
students. Each house then is assigned a faculty team comprised of five teachers,
one administrator, and one instructional facilitator. To further bolster the nurturing
environment maintained by small schools, Academy students cycle with the same
team of teachers for at least two years (Ibid). The strong relationships created by this
design have, in fact, bettered St. Louis Career Academy. The Academy now touts a
93% attendance rate and a 0.7% drop-out rate (Ibid, p. 37).
During a typical day, Academy students work on individualized learning
objectives. These objectives are developed and reviewed once a day during a student/
teacher advisory. In addition to attending advisory, Academy students focus upon a
mix of computer-based study, course seminars, and project-based learning activities.
To further student individualization, the computer software that students at the
Academy utilize is personalized and tailored to meet the needs of each students
needs and skills.
Though computer-based learning is a significant component of the St. Louis Career
Academy education, teacher facilitation and support is still vital. In fact, teachers at
the Academy check student progress, support student learning, provide supplemental
learning activities and experiences, and also offer tutoring (Ibid, 35-36).
Finally, at the Academy, as at other vocational schools, students learn through onsite training. During the junior and senior years at St. Louis Career Academy, students
participate in a ten-hour-per-week internship that extends throughout the school year.
Moreover, St. Louis Career Academy also boasts post-secondary links with two
schools: Washington University Total Quality School and Tech Prep Consortium with
St. Louis Community College system (Goldhammer et al., 1998, p. 37).
4. William H. Turner Technical Arts High School Miami, FL
William H. Turner Technical Arts High School, in Miami, FL, first opened its doors
in 1993 and has since offered a rigorous and relevant education for economically
disadvantaged students. Indeed, Turner Tech has much to be proud of. In addition to
maintaining a 95% attendance rate, Turner Tech is able to uphold a safe environment
without the use of metal detectors. Moreover, the security guard at Turner Tech does
not spend much of his day disciplining Turner Tech students. Rather, he spends
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most of his time escorting young visitors from neighborhood schools out of the
building and coordinating social activities for the school community (Ibid, p. 41).
Safety, however, is not all that Turner Tech provides. In addition to offering
students a comfortable place to learn, Turner Tech offers a challenging curriculum.
The New Urban High School Project reports the following:
On the academic side, Turner Tech has raised the bar for its students who
come from Miamis most economically disadvantaged areas by raising the
minimum passing GPA to a 2.0. All students must take a math and science
course beyond the district requirements in order to graduate. About 20 percent
more Turner students pass the statewide high school competency test than in
comparable schools in the district. And of the 1997 graduating class, 78 percent
enrolled in two- and four- year colleges and technical schools. While there are
no advanced placement classes, many students still take the AP exams. For
example, students in Agriscience Academy calculus class come to school on
Saturday mornings, where amidst the sounds of livestock and the fragrances of
gardenias, they study together for the AP calculus exam. (Ibid, p.41)
Explanations for Turners success can be attributed to the schools membership
in the Coalition of Essential Schools, the two for one diploma (high school
diploma and industry certification), career academies, school uniforms, integrated
curriculum, and school-based enterprisesBut as a visit to the school confirms, the
whole is greater than the sum of the parts (Ibid).
Another reason for Turners success is faculty buy-in and commitment to the
schools Deweyan philosophy. Like Dewey, they believed that practical and
intellectual training for employment should go hand-in-hand. Moreover, all agreed
that watered-down academics and narrow vocational training served no student
population well, least of all their own (Ibid). In an effort to provide a democratic
education for all Turner Tech students, both academic and vocational teachers
work together to create an integrated curriculum. Turner Tech teachers must work
together to develop integrated curriculum units (ICUs) linking technical and
academic competenciesBecause teachers stay within an assigned academy, they
are able to work on ICUs in cohesive teams over the long term (Ibid, p. 46). This
allows Turner teams to create a cohesive education for all students, regardless of
grade level or discipline.
Additionally, Turner utilizes advisory committees and block scheduling to
support this integrated learning. In order to allow for democratic learning, faculty
at Turner Tech had to alter traditional views of teaching and learning. Rather than
accept the isolation of subjects, they see the value of academics in industry and use
the workplace as a context for deeper learning (Ibid, p. 42).
While at Turner Tech, students are expected to maintain a rigorous academic
schedule connected to their vocational pursuits. Goldhammer et al. (1998) explains:

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Additional funding for adult education courses at Turner has helped equip all
vocational areas with the latest technology and course content. Each academy
works directly with an advisory committee of local business and industry
representatives who advise the staff on how to rid the curriculum of narrow
vocationalism, and on the skills students need to succeed in the world of
work. These advisors also accept students in their workplaces as interns,
exposing them to real-world contexts and applications. Over 50 percent of
Turner juniors and seniors engage in internships, school-based enterprises, or
other work-based learning. (Ibid, p. 45)
In essence, Turner Tech is a vocational school that has mastered the linking of a
hands-on vocational curriculum with the rigors of an academic education. In order
to do so, the faculty at Turner Tech eradicated the isolationist views of a traditional
academic/vocational education by ensuring that all students are exposed to cuttingedge tools and technology, and by exposing students to a broad industry. In fact,
linking hands-on learning with strong academics has led previously disengaged
students to become active and excited learners who see their major not as an end
point but as a stepping-stone to further education and careers (Ibid, p. 47).
5. High Tech High San Diego, CA
The promising result of a partnership between San Diego businesspeople and
educators, High Tech High, a public charter school system in San Diego, first opened
its doors in 2000. The educational philosophy at HTH, however, was no coincidence.
In fact, the major premises found at High Tech High were carried over by founder
Larry Rosenstock from the Rindge School of Technical Arts in Massachusetts. Built
upon the successes at CityWorks, Rosenstock and others crafted an educational
system that assumes that the first challenge is to engage students in work worth
doing, and then to reverse engineer that work back into state standards, SAT
requirements, and those elements expected by the world outside of school (Apple
& Beane, 2007, p. 125).
Housed in a converted U.S. Navy Training Center, High Tech High focuses
upon providing all faculty, staff, and students with a teaching culture that promotes
constant collaboration in self-improvement. Apple and Beane (2007) make clear:
As in CityWorks, many of these schools use methods such as experimental
and contextual learning, team teaching, service learning, and performance
assessments, with public exhibitions. Schedules are designed to incorporate
common planning time for teachers often not enough time, but nevertheless,
an attempt is made to carve out hours during the week for teachers to collaborate
on curriculum design and to talk about what is working and not working in
their own practice. (Ibid, p. 126)
Furthermore, High Tech High expects students to work on technology-based projects
that have a real-world impact. HTH teens engage in projects such as creation of
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a human-powered submarine, a hovercraft, a glove that replaces a keyboard, and

documentary films about ancient cities that are contemporary cities (Ibid, p. 125).
Essentially, a High Tech High education is centered upon interdisciplinary projectbased learning techniques. Grace Rubenstein (2008) provides further examples:
In some classes, like Jay Vavras junior biology course on conservation
forensics using DNA barcoding, a full five-week period consists of a single
project. In many cases, community members participate as experts, clients,
or final judges. Teachers try to design the projects to mesh multiple subject
areas, allow students the flexibility to choose their own focus and approach
and, ideally, serve a useful purpose beyond schoolwork.
In Vavras class this fall, pairs of students were making observations about
meat samples in test tubes and preparing to isolate the DNA to identify which
meat was which. (Construction of Vavras lab was underwritten by Biocom, a
consortium of southern California life sciences companies.) Once these teens
learned the procedure called crude cell extraction, says Vavra, who holds
a PhD in marine biology, their project would be to find ways to do it more
cheaply and efficiently. Ultimately, conservationists will use the improved
procedure in African street markets to identify meat from illegally poached
animal. (paragraphs 9 & 10)
Truly, this textbook-free, personalized schooling has worked for many students.
In fact, HTH now serves over 2,500 students in grades K-12 (Rubenstein, 2008),
and, while nearly 40 percent of the students come from low-income families99
percent of graduates go on to college (Rubenstein, 2011). Moreover, High Tech
High exists as a nonprofit educational system, all the while working within the
means of its $6900-per-pupil expenditure (Rubenstein, 2008). In all, High Tech
Highs success can be understood through a 1916 Deweyan belief (as cited in Apple
& Beane, 2007):
There is no such thing as genuine knowledge and fruitful understanding except
the offspring of doing. People have to do something to the things they wish to
find out about: they have to alter conditions. This is the lesson of the laboratory
method, and this is the lesson which all education has to learn (pp. 127128).
AN ANALYSIS OF EDUCATIONAL OPTIONS

As reformers seek bits and pieces of the spotlight and politicians hope to edge
their way into the show, more often than not, the understanding of concepts gets
muffled. One such example can be seen with the misuse and misunderstanding
of the concepts of integrated learning and interdisciplinary learning. While these
terms are often used interchangeably, they actually exist as separate concepts and
within a larger scale. As noted in Applebee, Adler, and Flihans Interdisciplinary
Curricula in Middle and High School Classrooms: Case Studies of Approaches to
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Curriculum and Instruction, this larger-scaled interdisciplinary continuum actually

begins with predisciplinary learning, extends through three other models, and ends
with reconstructed education (2007). To truly understand these concepts, and in an
effort to establish baseline terms for further discussion, an identification and analysis
of Applebee, Adler, and Flihans learning approaches and key concepts is examined
below.
When students first enter elementary school, they bring with them a wealth
of information, beliefs, and schemata. In order to best facilitate learning, most
elementary teachers work with this understanding. Rather than force fragmented
subjects upon their students, they build upon existing knowledge through the teaching
of predisciplinary curricula. This approach is often seen as thematic or integrated,
and as Gardner and Boix-Mansilla (1994) have noted, the defining characteristic of
such curricula is that they begin with students common-sense or everyday knowledge
and seek to enrich the web of associations within which knowledge is based, rather
than being situated within a strong disciplinary frame (as cited in Applebee, Adler,
and Flihan, 2007). This approach, however encouraging, cannot last in the American
educational system. As Beane (1997) explained in Curriculum Integration:
Designing the Core of Democratic Education, separate subject curriculum promotes
the western hegemonic block and suggests that the good life can only be achieved
through in-depth and isolated education. Thus, the ideas surrounding predisciplinary
learning are abandoned and often give way to other slots on the Applebee, Adler, and
Flihans continuum.
Once they leave elementary school, many learners enter into a disciplinary
curriculum. As Applebee, Adler, and Flihan (2007) have noted, this educational
approach is fragmented and subject-based. Within this traditional method, students
focus upon discipline-specific concepts, and, as discussed in Hursh, Haas, and
Moores (1983) An Interdisciplinary Model to Implement General Education,
with this approach students are left on their own to see connections, recognize
commonalities, and evaluate disparities in methods, assumptions, and values
(Ibid, p. 42). Beane further explains:
For most young people, including those who are privileged, the separate-subject
approach offers little more than a disconnected and incoherent assortment of
facts and skills. There is no unity, no real sense to it at all. It is as if in real life,
when faced with problems or puzzling situations, we stop to ask which part
is science, which part mathematics, which part art, and so on. We are taken
aback when young people ask, Why are we doing this? And our responses
because it will be on the test or Because you will need it next year are
hardly sufficient answers to that question, let alone justification for placing
anything in the curriculum. (Ibid, p. 42)
While this isolated and disjointed model of education exists in most secondary
schools, it is not the only approach to teaching and learning. Further along
Applebees, Adlers, and Flihans (2007) interdisciplinary scale, various forms of
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common learning approaches appear. It is within these remaining three approaches

that most confusion occurs. This may be due in part to the multitude of terms devoted
to each concept. First, for example, also known as multidisciplinary, complimentary,
juxtaposed, parallel, sequenced, thematic, or webbed learning, correlated learning
is an educational style in which disciplined-based concepts relate to common topics
across disciplines (2007). Within the context of correlated learning, lesson planning
begins with the recognition of the identities of various subjects as well as important
content and skills that are to be mastered within them. A theme is then identified
(often from within one or another subject) and then approached through the question,
What can each subject contribute to the theme? (Beane, 1997). While this style
of teaching and learning helps students connect ideas in a more meaningful way
than otherwise encountered in the isolated and disconnected classroom, it still relies
heavily upon the importance of subject-specific skills and places problem posing
and the theme second to the academic discipline.
Shared learning, the next stop on Applebees, Adlers, and Flihans (2007)
continuum, is characterized by concepts that overlap across disciplines. Within
this modelalso termed thematic, interdisciplinary, integrated, or broad field
disciplines are seen as mutually supportive and important concepts are sometimes
overtly shared across disciplinary fields, although discussions continue to be
located within one or another of the independent disciplines (p. 1006). Applebee,
Adler, and Flihan (2007) explain that this concept differs from correlated learning
because within the correlated realm, students study different aspects of the same
superstructure for example history and literature of the 1990s while within the
shared realm, one concept becomes the main focus consider justice within history
and literature.
While integrated is one term Applebee, Adler, and Flihan used to describe
shared learning, it is truly within the last domain on the Interdisciplinary Continuum
that Beane finds comfort with the term curriculum integration. Applebee, Adler, and
Flihan describe the last type of curriculum:
At the far end of the continuum are reconstructed curricular domains that
merge concepts and understandings across disciplines in order to create
curricular conversations that go beyond disciplinary boundaries (as in the New
Historicism, which merges the discourse of history and literature in a way
that moves beyond the meanings typically constructed in either field). (2007,
p. 1006)
This teaching and learning realm also called synthesized, blended, fused, core
curriculum, problem centered, integrated, or integrative (Applebee, Adler, and
Flihan, 2007) is a method or system in which Beane finds the most meaning. In
Curriculum Integration: Designing the Core of Democratic Education, he further
describes true curriculum integration:

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Interdisciplinary and Integrative Education in 21stCentury America

First, the curriculum is organized around problems and issues that are of
personal and social significance in the real world. Second, learning experiences
in relation to the organizing center are planned so as to integrate pertinent
knowledge in the context of the organizing centers. Third, knowledge is
developed and used to address the organizing center currently under study
rather than to prepare for some later test or grade level. Finally, emphasis is
placed on substantive projects and other activities that involve real application
of knowledge, thus increasing the possibility for young people to integrate
curriculum experiences into their schemes of meaning and to experience the
democratic process of problem solving. (1997, p. 9)
Thus, according to Beane, true integration is teaching and learning in which content
is not divided but fused in a real-life manner. It is a curriculum style that approaches
teaching and learning with an eye for issues that matter to students and topics that
concern them. For this reason, true integration offers students a curriculum that
matters and, as a result, motivates students to become active and eager participants
in their own learning processes.
For Beane, though many people confuse the terms interdisciplinary and integration,
the distinction is clear and starts with the basic word structures. He explains:
As discussions about curriculum organization develop and labels multiply,
a pretty reliable way to figure which is which is to check for the root word
discipline, which refers to the differentiated categories of knowledge
that subjects represent. Where that root word is used multidisciplinary,
interdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary, and so on something other than
curriculum integration, usually a realignment of the existing subjects, is almost
always intended. (1997, p. 12)
Integration, however, has a different meaning for Beane. It goes beyond a basic
curricular rearrangement. Though he explains the positives associated with
interdisciplinary learning, simply put, integration is different for Beane. Rather
than delivering knowledge for accumulation, Beane sees education and integrative
learning as a process that involves experiences that literally become part of us
(1997, p. 4).
INTERDISCIPLINARY AND INTEGRATIVE EDUCATION:
A COST AND BENEFITS ANALYSIS

While admittedly there are some benefits to discipline-specific education it is

easier to plan and schedule, while also offering complete instructor control when
considering the purpose of education, interdisciplinary and integrative teaching
present far more advantages to both the educator and the learner. As identified by
John Dewey:

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K. A.Warren

The aim of education is growth or development both intellectual and moral

Only knowledge of the order and connection of stages in psychological
development can insure the maturing of psychic powers. Education is the work
of supplying the conditions which will enable the psychological functions to
mature and pass into higher functions in the freest and fullest manner. (as cited
in Ladenburg, 1977)
In essence, the purpose of education is to aid in the development of the learner. It is
to foster, develop, strengthen and enhance habits of mind conducive to the thought
processes of a critical thinker, and ultimately, to help the student best move from one
cognitive stage to the next. Moreover, An Interdisciplinary Model to Implement
General Education explains that this movement from one cognitive stage to the next
can only take place by inducing a state of disequilibrium, otherwise known as an
uncomfortable psychological condition that stimulates efforts to regain equilibrium
(Hursh, Haas, and Moore, 1983, p. 49).
It is because of this cognitive and psychological understanding of education that
Hursh, Haas, and Moore (1983) believe that fragmented learning must be abandoned
and interdisciplinary learning must be applied. They argue:
If we wish to pursue general education, we need to loosen, although not discard,
the shackles of the disciplines. We must recognize that general education
is intended to liberate, that is, to develop a capacity for discovery and
exploration of various modes of thinking, inquiring, and searching for patterns
of meaning that are embedded in the disciplines. As problems are identified,
we need to understand the limits of unidisciplinary thought and expand our
horizons by a coordinated examination of alternative modes of description,
conceptualization, and evaluation. (1983, p. 43)
Despite the beliefs that Hursh, Haas, and Moore hold in regards to interdisciplinary
teaching and learning, the qualities and constructs associated with integrated learning
also provide a structure that enables and Beane might argue better prepares
students to move from one cognitive level to the next. While disequilibrium has
the potential to exist within each structure, the question, however, when preparing
curricular arrangements becomes, which style fits best within my school? To best
answer this question, a cost and benefits analysis looks at the various pros and cons
for each style of teaching and learning.
The first level of consideration for teaching and learning styles revolves around
the teacher. As the main source of curriculum planning and execution, the teachers
comfort level must be considered whenever introducing or implementing a new
concept. In this way, interdisciplinary learning offers teacher benefits. As addressed
in Creating a Family-Like Ninth-Grade Environment Through Interdisciplinary
Teaming, working closely with other teachers eases the isolation that many
teachers feel when working on an isolated and fragmented curriculum. According
to Ellerbrock (2011), interdisciplinary teaming has the potential to create a more
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personal, supportive learning environment for students and teachers (p. 36). Thus,
while many teachers in a discipline-specific school feel detached from other building
or subject teachers, teachers in an interdisciplinary school must rely upon each other
for curriculum, student, and overall professional support. This creates a comfort
level different from most other buildings.
Moreover, when teachers are required to work together, they become better
equipped to meet student needs. Teachers who collaborate to aid in the education
of one core group of students become familiar with that group of students and are
able to conference when students are struggling. Because they work with the same
cohort of students, interdisciplinary teachers are able to share and discuss student
behavior in various environments as well as educational practices that work for their
particular learners, and work together to cultivate an environment filled with high
expectations (Ellerbrock 1997). In this sense, even Beane (1997) cannot discredit
interdisciplinary education. He writes:
I do not want to demean the multidisciplinary approach to curriculum here.
In fact, its use has brought dramatic progress in many schools. As teachers
have carried out multidisciplinary units, they have become more likely to
use culminating activities that are project-centered and that call for the use of
knowledge from all subject areas involved. In planning such units, teachers
of different subjects frequently discover that they cover common skills and
concepts. This often leads to simultaneous teaching of those skills and concepts
in the subjects involved and the use of common assignments to show student
connections between subjects. Since any such connections are likely to help
students to some extent, multidisciplinary discussions across different subjects
are very important. (p. 12)
Another benefit to interdisciplinary education focuses upon the learner. Much
like Beane, Ellerbrock explains that for the student, a deep sense of community is
needed. She argues that team teaching, or interdisciplinary education, cultivates an
environment in which students become familiar and comfortable both with their
peers and their instructors. For Ellerbrock, the strength in this arrangement comes
with the risks. She explains that this protected environment creates a learning space
in which students feel comfortable taking intellectual risks (2011, p. 36). Given the
understanding of cognition presented above, it is through these risks and thus due
to the comfort created by the teamed family structure that students are able to
progress to the next cognitive stage.
While this supportive environment is beneficial for the teachers involved, Beane
argues that there are challenges with such a construct. He writes:
It is worth noting that subject-loyal teachers frequently rebel more over
contrived use of their areas in multidisciplinary arrangements than over the
prospect of real integration of knowledge. This is probably due to the fact that
multidisciplinary arrangements retain the identities of subjects and, therefore,
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K. A.Warren

imply no changes in content coverage or sequence. In moving away from

subject identities, the idea of really integrating knowledge reduces the need for
contrived arrangements. (1997, p.13)
Therefore, in Beanes context, while interdisciplinary teaching and learning may
offer a sense of security, they also involve drawbacks such as the aforementioned
teacher resistance. Conversely, integrative education allows for all of the positives
of interdisciplinary education while avoiding many of the flaws.
Still, the drawbacks of interdisciplinary education do not dissuade Beane from his
support of teachers working together. He writes that this collaboration often leads
to positive practices. This information, however, does not alter Beanes standpoint.
Though supportive of any type of education that leads to project-based learning,
Beanes true devotion belongs with integrative education. Truly, it is in this realm that
Beane finds the best educational alternative. In addition, his teaching and learning
views are further investigated by Helle, Tynjala, and Olkinuora. In their article
Project-Based Learning in Post-Secondary Education: Theory, Practice and Rubber
Sling Shots, Helle, Tynjala, and Olkinuora find that getting students to solve real
life problems during their studies, and to reflect in action and on action, presumably
promotes the important process of knowledge restructuring for the development
of expertise (2006, p. 291). Therefore, by working to solve and resolve real-life
dilemmas, students are best preparing themselves to enter the workforce in which
they will continuously rethink and redefine their tasks at new and more complex
levels and go beyond their previous understanding (Helle, Tynjala, and Olkinuora,
2006, p. 291).
Furthermore, integrative and project-based learning require that students take
control of their educational processes. It is through this control that students are
allowed to pace their lessons according to their own abilities and understanding while
also utilizing appropriate prior knowledge and skills bases. Truly, an old maxim
of cognitive psychology is that the activation of relevant prior knowledge before
the processing of new information is critical to learning and subsequent retrieval
(Helle, Tynjala, and Olkinuora, 2006, p. 292). In essence, cognitive psychologists
have explained the learners need to connect new information to prior schemata.
This connection of new information to old knowledge is just one of the benefits
integrative education offers.
Beane (1997) explores another advantage in Curriculum Integration: Designing
the Core of Democratic Education. He (1997) writes:
Imagine for a moment that we are confronted with some problem or puzzling
situation in our lives. How do we approach the situation? Do we stop and ask
ourselves which part of the situation is language arts, or music, or mathematics,
or history, or art? I dont think so. Instead we take on the problem or situation
using whatever knowledge is appropriate or pertinent without regard for
subject-area lines. And if the problem or situation is significant enough to
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us, we are willing and anxious to seek out needed knowledge that we do not
already have. (p. 7)
In this way, integrative education offers a realm that interdisciplinary education
cannot provide. While interdisciplinary projects still assume the boundaries of
subject-specific education, integrative education exposes real-life situations; by
erasing the lines that disciplines provide, integrative education asks students to
decide which knowledge is most appropriate to a specific problem and encourages
students to further their skills base when needed, thus increasing the likelihood of
transference from one cognitive stage to the next.
Additionally, integrative education supersedes other forms of curriculum styles
because of the material that it teaches. While disciplines require students to engage
in the educational wishes and practices of high society, integrative education offers
the opportunity for students to focus upon more culturally relevant and responsive
material. It helps students find their niches in society and better understand their
surroundings and the world at large. Beane (1997) further clarifies: the addition of
everyday and popular knowledge not only brings new meanings to the curriculum
but also fresh viewpoints, since it frequently reflects interests and understandings
of a broader spectrum of the society than do the school subjects (p. 8). In truth,
traditional educational practices ask students to leave behind their day-to-day lives
in order to solve the problems of high society. Integrative education, however,
encourages students to be proactive with their education, and consequently, requires
students to examine their current societies and dilemmas. In essence, integrative
education works to prepare students for a world beyond formal studies.
CONCLUSION

The solution to the messiness of democracy is more of it and more time set
aside to make it work. (Deborah Meier, 2004)
In years gone by, both manual labor training and old vocationalism had their places
in the American education system. At the dawn of the 20th century there was a need
for schools to train students to enter the workforce after high school. At the time,
such career options allowed for a comfortable lifestyle. Today, such a world no
longer exists.
In fact, teens in 21st century America will most likely change careers several
times over. For this reason, job flexibility is necessary. Rather than focusing solely
upon industry-specific skills, vocational students need to learn how to adapt to a
new environment. They need to be able to critique their surroundings and question
vocationally-related issues such as labor market structure, environmental impact
and sustainable development, the labor movement and labor history, acceptable
working conditions and economic globalization. This sort of analysis, adaptability,

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and critical thinking is imperative for vocational students and should be fostered
through a democratic vocational education.
In addition to career changes, most 21st century vocational students no longer plan
on entering the workforce after high school. Indeed, 58% of 2008 Massachusetts
vocational graduates planned to attend a two-year college, a four-year university,
or some other type of post-secondary education. In order to best meet the needs
of these students, vocational education must accept this juncture and adjust to fit
student needs.
Now is the time for vocational educators to personalize the student experience
via small schools and integrated instruction. To best serve vocational students,
instructors must allow student immersion into the adult world through internships
and then analyze such interactions by way of advisory meetings and seminars. In
collaboration with community members, 21st century educators must design lessons
that challenge student thinking and allow for student voices. In sum, now is the time
for vocational education to become democratic.
REFERENCES
Apple, M. W., & Beane, J. A. (2007). Democratic schools: Lessons in powerful education. Portsmouth,
NH:Heinemann.
Applebee, A., Adler, M., & Flihan, S. (2007). Interdisciplinary curricula in middle and high school
classrooms: Case studies of approaches to curriculum and instruction. American Educational
Research Journal, 44(4), 10021039.
Beane, J. A. (1997). Curriculum integration: Designing the core of democratic education. New York, NY:
Teachers College Press.
Benjamin, A., Hyslop-Margison, E., & Taylor, J. (2010). Democratic learning in U.S. career education.
Journal of Career and Technical Education, 25(2), 120132.
Ellerbrock, C. (2011). Creating a family-like ninth-grade environment through interdisciplinary teaming.
Urban Education, 47(1), 3264.
Goldhammer, H. et al.(1998). The new urban high school: A practitioners guide. Providence, RI: The
Big Picture.
Helle, L., Tynjala, P., & Olkinuora, E. (2006). Project-based learning in post-secondary education:
Theory, practice and rubber sling shots. Higher Education, 51(2), 287314.
Hursh, B., Haas, P., & Moore, M. (1983). An interdisciplinary model to implement general education. The
Journal of Higher Education, 54(1), 4259.
Ladenburg, T. (1977). Cognitive development and moral reasoning in the teaching of history. The History
Teacher, 10(2), 183198.
Lewis, T. (1998). Vocational education as general education. Curriculum Inquiry, 28(3), 283309.
Paraskeva, J. (2011). Conflicts in curriculum theory: Challenging hegemonic epistemologies. New York,
NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Plans of high school graduates: Class of 2008. (2009, November 19). Retrieved from
http://www.doe.mass.edu/infoservices/reports/hsg/data.html?yr = 08
Reynolds, R. M. (2004). Vocational education and the great divide: Have student needs been overlooked?
Journal of Educational Research & Policy Studies, 4(11), 114.
Rubenstein, G. (2008). Real world, San Diego: Hands-on learning at high tech high. Retrieved from
http://www.edutopia.org
Rubenstein, G. (2011). Replicating success: Project-based learning. Retrieved from
http://www.edweek.org

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12.CASE STUDY IN TRANSFORMING LIVES,

CHANGING COMMUNITIES
From Philadelphia Mural Arts Programs Community-Based Art Education
and Social Function to Community Action

INTRODUCTION

How do words, movements and artistic expressions transform people, places and
events in ways that bring about social change? How do artists express themselves
in ways that impact and empower local community arts, cultural and education
programs? Let me start with a few comments. Almost any act of creation is a
combination of history, a vision of the future, and a combination of the virtues of
self, community, risk, and deliberation. These combinations of experiencing life
events and exposing ourselves to mistakes can bring trepidation. After all, our basic
nature can make us content with what we have and, therefore, afraid of risk-taking.
It is difficult to create without risking. It is not absolutely impossible to take the leap
to experiment, but it takes time to begin the act of risk-taking.
In my own experience of teaching, I can feel comfortable teaching in a safe
environment within a regular established school system. After all, my upbringing
was within traditional education in Taiwan and had less interaction between students
and environments outside the classroom walls. Yet, even in the United States,
while experiencing education in teaching the discipline of art at Washington Irving
High School in New York City, all of the learning took place within the classroom.
Everything happened within four walls between the students and the teachers. As
education researcher Paul Cobb (2001) points out,
The motive of school instruction might, for example, be competent performance
on a relatively limited range of tasks as assessed by teacher-made, textbook,
and state-mandated test of skills. For example, the overall motive of the
forms of instruction nurtured in the professional teaching community might
be mathematical understanding as assessed by the teachers observation and
documentation of the students reasoning. (p. 469)
The extent that formal education is being related to textbook knowledge as mandated
by state accreditation can leave out personal creativity and life experiences so that
learning becomes mundane. Thus, as Cobb points out, state mandated tests of
skills may be necessary, but creativity within formal education is also a necessity.
J. M. Paraskeva & T. LaVallee (Eds.), Transformative Researchers and Educators for Democracy, 179195.
2015 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

K.-P.Lin

BACKGROUND: PHILADELPHIA MURAL ARTS PROGRAM

The Philadelphia Mural Arts Program was conceived in June of 1984 by Jane Golden,
a muralist, educator, and community activist. Golden (2002) recalls the essence of
her activism:
Taking a closer look at the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program as a source
because this community based organization is local, dynamic in its relationship
to the surrounding community, and rich in multidisciplinary content that can be
translated into integrated curriculum. (p. 11)
The narrative is intended to illustrate the conceptual foundation of mural art in
the community, its life based possibilities, and potential sources for building on
the centers integrated curriculum. An arts curriculum must be open to allow each
adolescent or young student the opportunity to investigate, explore, and discover.
This can occur through technical training, through the study of art history, or through
personal experience with the arts. In the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program there is
a community base with an anchor, beginning with ideas on how to design mural
art. With the introduction of a public art project in the community, students are
encouraged to look at themselves, the living environment and communitys culture
around them. A connection to nurture their own personal identification within the
local community forms a better understanding and exploration of local traditions,
both physically and culturally.
By chance circumstances, my first introduction to Jane Golden, the founder and
the director of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program (PMA), at a national conference in
Philadelphia, was a revolution to my way of visioning teaching; this woman and her
after-school programs demonstrate that her learning participants (the students) also
learned and worked with the community at large. Jane Golden germinated the seed of
a distinctive vision, namely of joining education with community events. She invited
me to participate in this unique art programI took the risk. While teaching and
working with youth, many of whom were experiencing life problems and struggles
with the formal school environment in New York City, I also became involved with
kids from the Philadelphia area who were not only dealing with general problems
but also with escalating delinquency: from truancy to budding criminal backgrounds.
The latter experience takes place outside of the four walls. Presenting quite a few
new challenges, the different educational setting that presented itself in Goldens
program was an extension of the classroom. Right before me was a new concept of
teaching by creating. Making the city of Philadelphia an art gallery became a unique
fascination.
RATIONALE

My qualitative research and participatory interests focus on how community-based

art projects contribute to the social and artistic development of adolescents in crisis
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or at risk, and how their work is received by the wider community in which they
are embedded. My projected audience is multiple. My initial thoughts are that this
would be a great opportunity for educators in the area of the arts to develop and
initiate new formal curriculum within structured, school-based education.
There have been several high-quality studies that offer evidence of the positive
impacts of community-based programs that integrate arts education and youth
development. Federal and State Arts agencies, such as the U.S. Department of
Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Prevention, Americans for the Arts (1998),
and the National Endowment for the Arts and National Governors Association
Center for Best Practices (2002), have recognized the importance of the fusion of
arts learning and positive youth development, and there have been many articles
written in art education and after-school education periodicals about the success of
such program designs. Even with this research, I have found that there are many
community-based youth programs where there is still a lack of understanding and
resources to support such high-quality learning. This emerging field is one that
merits further examination.
Therefore, I feel there is a need to shed light on the scope of the practice and
methods of community arts learning (in the variety of arts genres) and youth
development. By painting the big picture of the philosophies and methods, we
can then zoom in and situate a study of particular community-based programs and
services and their impact on the individual youth participants. Then, we can zoom
out again to assess how those findings can impact the field.
COMMUNITY EDUCATION AND AWARENESS: MURAL MAKING
AS A TOOL FOR YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

Meeting Melanie Snyder1 was a great experience, as during an interview she shared
points about her mission for the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. She stressed how
the mural art education program was designed for young students and the need to
be sensitive to a population that would be distributed across the development with
an individual engaged in various stages of struggling with his or her own identity.
Snyder explained how the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program was basically there
to function within the community as an after-school activity. She expressed from
the results of the program that interaction between the community and the program
helped make both more aware of mural art and the cultures surrounding it. She
described how the Mural Arts Program is an example of how this particular art form
can and should affect cities within America. Snyder also had expectations that this
could become a global movement dealing with very real life situations, ranging from
art forms to working on a constructive, positive orientation with other individuals
and connecting communities together on a daily basis.
When I started to work on this conference paper, I planned another interview
with Director Kathleen Olgivie2. We met in March 2013 and focused on the specific
curriculum of the program. Olgivie viewed the entire subject as one that would
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K.-P.Lin

be a great introduction to develop a personal aesthetic experience while gaining

knowledge about life. Olgivie had no doubts that the mural program could be
integrated as part of a schools curriculum and educational process. The direction
of a program with this design would lead children away from negative aspects of
street life and develop the positive, both in thinking and doing. While attending the
National Conference on Mural Arts in Philadelphia 2005, Jane Golden stated,
They (mural artists) engage you, stir questions, make you see things in a
new wayMurals work on a symbolic level, providing opportunities for
communities to express important concerns, values, and aspirations: their
yearning to be free of violence and fearThe murals images and themes
reflect aspects of ourselvesThey are our dreams manifest.3
I came to a realization and belief that there was no reason that mural art could not
be considered both an after-school activity and a formal academic subject, not
only in Philadelphia but across the country and the world. Fusing school time and
after-school time, academic and creativity certainly demonstrates the purpose of
what a formal educations purpose is about: transformation of what a person can
contribute to society. The views of Dewey, Olgivie, Snyder, and Golden all join
together to express an avant-garde awareness of where education can be expressed
by the artistic experience combined with fulfillment of the reality of expression in
an end product. The artist and audience are unified by experience and the fruition
of holistic satisfaction evidenced by reciprocal appreciation. Philip Jackson (1998),
distinguished professor of education and psychology at the University of Chicago
and past president of the John Dewey Society, reflects:
The arts expand our horizons. They contribute meaning and value to future
experience. They modify our ways of perceiving the world, thus leaving us and
the world itself irrevocably changed. (p. 3)
Drawing from a pedagogical approach used in the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program,
as well as interviews between mural artists, the Director of Art Education in the
Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, Kathleen Olgivie, former Assistant Director,
Melanie Snyder, and myself, I have presented a methodology study in order to
understand children and adolescents and their individual capacity for rebuilding
community. The Mural Arts Project helps them to reveal their own identity, precisely
because of the consequences of what students do through participation in out-ofschool projects, which influences their creative growth and ultimately their activity
in the classroom.
Art Director/Curator, Shirley Brice Heaths article, Imaginative Actuality,
Learning in the Arts during the Non-school hours, (1998) coincides with this
philosophy:
Traditional institutions of school, family, and church, assume to take
responsibility for the positive development of young people, can no longer
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Case Study in Transforming Lives, Changing Communities

meet the ages of 8 and 18. An institutional gap exists, and it affects our
youth. Creative youth based non-school organizations and enterprises that
have sprung up in response to this institutional gap engage young people in
productive activities during non-school hours. (p. 20)
As already mentioned, Olgivie brings up the point that multiple fields can be used
to investigate interpersonal relationships. Both Olgivie and Heaths ideas help me to
explain how these relationships fit into curriculum development: we must emphasize
integration of a concept with the students personal experience so that both situations
of formal academic training and the freedom of the arts are combined to connect
relevant and interesting levels to the student. Both Snyder and Olgivie support these
connections as an introduction of personal aesthetics with knowledge about life.
Students have alternative learning environments. In addition to methods analysis,
they can eventually enter a program, such as the Mural Arts Program, and develop
a more practical method of art and execution while thinking about ideas of art.
Mural art helps students to become aware of new ideas. This is accomplished by not
only having the student involved in the mathematical equations on how the mural
will fit on a particular wall, but the students must also research the history of the
neighborhood and the people so that the design of the mural will be appropriated for
that particular area and have meaning for the residents. This accounts for the focus
of the students while they are actively engaged in art mural painting. Awareness of
the new is an underlying goal of the program.
The wealth of information that I have found not only on mural art-making but on
the subject of education and how educators think, feel, and act has greatly influenced
my development of many ideas and concrete interpretations of how an educational
program can become involvedliterallyoutside of its walls. When I questioned
Olgivie on problem-solving during youth participation, she replied:
I think the most concrete involvement is the actual mural process. Most
students are used to thinking, If I create this, it is mine. So, at first, we work
on smaller projects for them to get used to the idea that everyone is part of the
design and process, including the community that is going to be looking at the
mural. We instill that the artists creating the mural should be the voice of the
community, so it is a larger process than just the students ideas. Getting them
out into the community to be a part of community meetings, or inviting people
in to the center is a way of having discussions with people who are actually
going to see and live with the end product.4
Another remarkable aspect of the project is community service. Snyder stated:
Art Works is for the truant student that has done something wrongful with the
law. They are sentenced to community programs to work off their sentence.
We have 16 different locations for Art Works. Now it is our largest program.
It was founded through the department of human services as well as the Mural
Artscape Program. Art Works is for students that have been sentenced by the
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Youth Aid Panels to work off community service hours. They come to our
program and work off their hours and then their records are cleared. The
program is again making teamwork happen in a positive way. Reinforcing
creativity of an individual certainly will invite one to become more involved.
This positive reinforcement of creative self-expression help make the adolescent
see how contributing in a positive way, with their personal presence, works off
their energy in a positive way, and is certainly a community service to the
adolescent and the city.5
This reality is shown by a conversation I had with an adolescent girl in the
program as to what her experience was as a result of the program:
Kuo-Pin Lin: You have been in this class for how long?
Mary6: Like three weeks.
Kuo-Pin Lin: Three weeks? Why did you get in this class?
Mary: Because I got into a fight with the cops at my school.
Kuo-Pin Lin: So, now youre fulfilling community service hours in the program.
What do you think the project is doing?
Mary: Going to help us.
Kuo-Pin Lin: Help you, how?
Mary: It keeps us off the streets.
Kuo-Pin Lin: Yeah. It gives you other options that you have other than running
the streets. What kinds of things have you been experienced to so far?
Mary: Nothing.
Kuo-Pin Lin: Nothing?
Mary: Well, I learned something, but not for the streets.
Kuo-Pin Lin: What did you learn in this world of art so far?
Mary: That everybody is not your enemy.
Kuo-Pin Lin: Thats good. Thats important7
A simple conversation, yet notice when I bring the subject of art into the conversation
the response was on a personal social level.
Investigating further, while interviewing Olgivie on this subject, I asked, How
does community service with troubled youth work? Are they separated from the
non-offender?
We serve four different populations. One is intercity youth, one is truant youth,
one is adjudicated youth and the fourth is students in detention centers. Let me
break it down further. Intercity, truant, court mandated and then adjudicated.
Thats with detention center youth, youth study, court mandated, that sort of
thing. We have students who are first time offenders who are sentenced to us
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and they have to do usually 50 to 150 hours of service. Most of the projects
are focused on team building skills to get the students talking and working as a
team depending on the students life experience. That is a big struggle; getting
them to work collaboratively, removing them from wanting to do their own
thing and getting them to come together.8
Counselors and social workers oversee and follow through with the troubled youths
in the program. While participating, the youth offenders are monitored physically
and aesthetically and are encouraged to rethink their behavior. Attendance in the
program is excellent. Energy is geared into something positive before situations can
become more serious for young people. Golden notes, If you are a juvenile and you
like art and youre arrested for a minor crime, youre actually sentenced to the Mural
Arts Program. How great is that?9
While speaking with Snyder, she noted that for a youth to be successful they need at
least three influential adults outside of their family nucleus to provide a positive adult
role model. With this in mind, I questioned Olgivie on the subject of role models:
There is one adult for eight kids, so once we go over eight students we give
them two adults. On top of that they have the professional artists and guest
artist that are with them. The students that are with us for a year can get a
minimum of three adults that are working with them at different times. Often
the lead muralist also has anywhere from one to three assistants on a project
that also work with the students. That doesnt include field trips, workshops,
and guest lecturers. We try to keep the number ratio relatively small in the
students per adult ratio. There are actual conversations and connections that
are being made so we dont lose the focus that art is the process, the goal is not
the final product but the impact with the students.10
We can see the results of the ratio of adults and youths in the program first hand by
seeing former, troubled participants and how they now view their life situations:
Susan11:
I want a nice job and I want to finish school. After I finish school, I want to go
to college. And, then I want to have a good job and support me and my family.
Thats it. I think they (the establishment) should have more programs like this
because it could keep you out of trouble, keep you on track.
John12:
The mural art program basically helped me every way possible. Before I started
the Mural Art Program, my grades were down. Now, Im getting honor society
awards. Im listed in Whos Who for American high school students. And, I
just received an acceptance letter from Princeton University. This program has
helped me focus my life, my grades and my attitude. It has helped me become
a stronger, more all-around responsible person.13
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In my view, this program is certainly working outside of the box, giving healthy
alternatives for youth, troubled or not. The program has also proven itself as many
of these young adults have continued participating after their mandated service or
involvement in the program by developing their personal growth on a positive side
of life and begin to think of further education and/or keeping their life on track while
seeking a goal within reach.
I asked about the age range that the Philadelphia program serves, and Snyder
answered, The majority is probably from ten to eighteen. We serve art education
to a total of about 1,100 students a year with all of the different programs.14 From
information on the art program, you can learn about after-school art workshops that
Snyder gave me. After I read this information, I feel that it is necessary to design
programs in regular school systems in America that fosters the development of
students skills and abilities. Exposure to the arts of many different cultures and how
it evolves is also important and can be found by the student right in the community of
mural art. Students are exposed through discussion to the meaning of art in society;
while at the same time, the program provides a safe environment that encourages
individual creativity. Achieving the goal of creativity and personal expression will
be hard if students lack the confidence and security to engage freely in the curricular
activities. A student involved with finding his or her identity may feel particularly
vulnerable to the pressure and the opinions of his or her peer group. The Communitybased Art Education programs, such as Big Picture, Big Picture Advanced Program,
Mural Corps, Art Works! and Mural Artscape, are all designed for this situation.
The role of mural art has changed and grown dramatically in recent years in
Philadelphia. Most visitors and viewers appreciate mural art in Philadelphia as a
place in which to extend their experience and also to enjoy a social occasion. Golden,
the founder and director of the Philadelphia program, states, Music and color are
the defining story of creation of the citys own art gallery.15 Golden believes mural
art is like popular art and is making the city of Philadelphia a large gallery. For this
Snyder said, Yes, an outside gallery. Everyone can have access to art. It definitely
doesnt matter what your social or economic status is; everyone has a right to have
beauty and art in their lives. We had a focus group to evaluate our programs and we
asked some of the kids, Do you like your neighborhood? Kids said, Yea, it is pretty
nice, we like it. We were getting comments that they did appreciate.16
Looking at the professional artists involved in the program, we find a combination
of all the philosophies that are displayed in the mural program. The professional
mural artist Meg Saligman expresses strong feelings about her field in an interview:
Ive been painting murals for almost 15 years. I strongly, strongly believe that
the most important thing about the mural is what the image is, what it has to do
with the community; why is it on that building, and how does it fit in.
One of my main goals when I sit down to do a design is what is the absolute
most that I could get away with in the public with this piece being in the public?
And, I will push it and push it. And sometimes theres something I really want
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to put in, but I know if that goes in the design thats whats going to be focused
on when I walk into that design meeting, and its going to hurt it in the long
run. But then Ill think, well, what can I get away with? How can I be true to
myself? I always believe as an artist that if you feel youre compromising your
work for it to be placed in the public, then youre not doing it the right way.
The other great thing about mural art is that its not just the mural that is left
in the community. An important part of the art is the interaction, the daily
interactions that you have just creating the piece that become a part of the art
too. Whether its the kid who likes to draw who has never seen a professional
artist, and talks to you and knows that you can be a professional artist; or
whether its, you know, someone in the community who has been uplifted by
actually being painted in the mural; or the people working with you to create
it. There are all sorts of ways and things that transpire that dont end up in the
final painting.17
These are all extraordinary statements of an entire process from the people who make
up and contribute to a program with major influences on todays future generation.
Their leadership and their talents both artistically and personally are what make it real.
Charles Fowler (1996) also reveals, in the visual arts, creating and making
art assumes the role of the artist remains at the center while the students, at the
same time, explore the expressive styles of great artists throughout history and
develop their ability to analyze, interpret, and critique visual forms. This means
that production and creativity are the impetus for developing curiosity, knowledge,
and understanding, not just a repertory of techniques (p. 183). I believe, like the
conceptualists, that experience is an important part of education. When a student
is involved in a hands-on task, rather than just learning it from a textbook in a
classroom, I believe, as Fowler (1996) states, that the actual experience leads to a
greater experience and thus learning knowledge base. If one must work physically
as well as mentally, both creative and intellectual levels expand. When applied to
an art education, this kind of understanding requires more than just art supplies.
Students must have exposure to the art world around them. Besides the making of
murals, trips to museums and galleries are needed. Visits by artists to the locations
of murals as well as students visiting the studios of an artist are excellent methods
of reciprocal learning through the medium of experience in which an individual
may garner an education in art. The adolescent not only receives an art education
in different methods and techniques, but also gathers information on how society
and the environment play physical as well as emotional roles in the development of
many works of art. Mural art decorates the community and also gives the benefit of
rebuilding the community.
Jordan18, states this precisely when he says,
It (the program) taught me things that I never knew, how to paint more abstract
things, all the negative spaces and positive spaces to paint in. And the light and
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beauty of painting is so amazing to me. I understand how its made and what
people go through to make it. What it takes to really make my neighborhood
seem a better place for people to come to. Im trying to make this whole
environment just see how people, places, and things become a beautiful place
to be.19
This experience and exposure may also serve to display future jobs, which students
may wish to consider. Snyder said, We try to do two different things. We try to push
kids that may have career opportunities in the arts. Not just in painting murals but
creating. They could do stain glass making or wrought-iron fence making. Students
must have exposure to the art world around them. I find that the practice, as
Snyder explains, is an opportunity for the young individual to find avenues toward
a solid profession as a result of what they have been working on in the program.
Extraordinary benefits are also gained along the way as the individual is not only
exposed to the formal arts professions, but also to professions set by example, such as
teachers, and models, something that cannot be learned in a textbook. In Realizing
Individual Capacities, John Kretzmann and John McKnight (2000) make a strong
case for such a pragmatic approach to empowering individuals to see and use their
talents or assets for the community. They write of such reciprocal exchanges:
What characterizes each of these partnerships is that in each instance both sides
win. By working together and creatively combining their resources, both partners
in the relationship become stronger, and their increased and revitalized energy
builds a stronger and better community for its residents transition. (p. 42)
Working with professional artists and learning from firsthand experiences of how to
reach a goal, while working within the resources of the community is knowledge that
only improves upon the situation for students. Some of the skills that an artist has
may have been learned and developed formally in the home or neighborhood. Other
skills may have been learned in more formal situations such as school or work. No
matter how their skills have been acquired, artists are almost always eager to share
the skills they have learned with others who are as yet untrained. These transmissible
skills are an important part of a communitys assets and should always be linked to
the process of community building. When interviewing Olgivie, I questioned her
about mentorship. How did skills get passed on to newcomers, where was the give
and take? She responded:
The students dont have to come with any specific art skills. They generally
just have to come with a drive to participate. Thats our main focus for the
majority of our programs. It is just about coming with a passion for art, for
creating, and the goal is to always have mentorship so this way the students
are learning from other students who have been in the program longer. They
also have instructors who are practicing artists, and they have professional
muralists who are, obviously, working on the mural. So the goal is mentorship
in a whole bunch of different levels so there is always a learning opportunity
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and there is always someone from all different ages and all different skill sets
being able to guide. That is the goal.20
An artists skills are the means through which a personal vision is expressed.
These visions have much more than a personal significance. Personal vision that
artists create can provide patterns through which a community can learn to relate
to its past experience and present challenges. The artists vision can even create
new possibilities for the communitys growth and development (Kretzmann &
McKnight, 2000, p. 42).
In attempting to list the specific type of assets that artists can bring to the process
of community building, we must always remember that in terms of skill and talent
each artist is absolutely unique and has a unique place within the configuration
of the developing community. By expressing artists personal visions through the
skill they have acquired, artists create products that may have commercial value
as well as aesthetic value. Works of art and personal expression can become the
basis for various cottage industries that will bring new sources of revenue into the
economy.21 As a teaching artist, I always ask myself what I hope the public at
large will do with artistic works. Artists take pride in their work. This pride grows
and their work grows in proportion to the acceptance of their work. Acceptance
of this kind contributes not only to the artists sense of self-esteem but also to
the communitys positive recognition of its own unique character and value.
One aspect could be the public discovery of this art work as part of a community
renewal. Real life presents how artists are drawn to the Philadelphia Mural Arts
Program to demonstrate creativity and themselves. Cesar Viveros explains his
journey:
I came to work with Mural Arts Program mainly because they are the biggest
organizations who are supporting public artists. I come from Mexico, which
has a big tradition of mural painting, but the government is not supporting
this way of doing art anymore. So coming to Philadelphia really attracts me
because Mural Arts Program is doing a great job providing a good beginning
for artists, like public artists. I believe that this program is doing a lot of big
contributions to the community by providing not just the chance for artists
who work, but also to the community getting both on this process. So it gives
a chance for neighborhoods to identify themselves with a mural on their own.
And I believe its a beautiful project.22
HOW THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT INFLUENCES PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT

The strategy of the Philadelphia Mural Program is to rebuild community. Originally

started with true graffiti artists, the program has grown to the point where the young
citizens are being encouraged to view how present day graffiti has evolved into an
ever-visible communication with entire neighborhoods; the program makes visible
how their involvement can be something quite vital. The themes presented reflect
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local culture and characteristics in an attempt to raise students awareness or limited

assumptions about diverse cultural identity and ideologies that exist within a country.
The program encourages students to think about overall community needs, while
also experiencing different cultural identities; this exposure brings an awareness of
multi-cultural reality. The participating students are learning to express themselves
in ways that impact and empower local community arts, culture and education.
It is a constructive way of becoming part of the neighborhoods by working with
individuals from the neighborhoods, as well as with various artists through personal
involvement.
The opportunity originally presented itself in the Philadelphia Mural Arts
program as an extension of the classroom. For example, with mural art in the
local community, students are provided real learning situations as they perceive
and experience real problems while learning to resolve problems on their own,
with other students or with their art teachers, community volunteers, community
residents and mural artists. The situation has evolved into serving as role models
so that students may have a positive outlook not only for the arts but for living
life. With the Mural Arts Programs concept, the environment and the community
build on the evidence of the product and the response by the community and
artists in residence at the program. As Education philosopher Maxine Greene
(2000), points out in her book Releasing the Imagination, Community is not
a question of which social contracts are the most reasonable for individuals to
enter. It is a question of what might contribute to the pursuit of shared goods:
what ways of being together, or attaining mutuality, or reaching toward some
common world (p. 39).
When students become involved within their own community, they are working
in teams or groups and can increase their learning and people interaction skills. Art
connects the student to themselves and each other. Creating an artwork is a personal
experience, even if done in a group situation. The student draws upon his or her
personal resources to generate the result. By engaging his or her whole person, the
student feels invested in ways that are deeper than knowing the answer. After the
student has satisfied his or her self by contributing on an artistic level, the community
can then appreciate the art.
Educator and researcher at Brown University and the Carnegie Foundation for
the Advancement of Teaching, Shirley Brice Heath (1999) states, Effective youth
arts organizations build strong pro-civic and pro-social values in young people,
enhancing opportunities for youth to reshape the climate of their neighborhoods
through local family entertainment, socialization for younger children, public
service work, and promotion of the arts in their communities (p. 20). While this
insight applies well to the Mural Arts Program, the students in the Philadelphia
Mural Arts program are integrating themselves into certain neighborhood
communities. They will assimilate their own experiences with those of other
students from different neighborhoods that are involved. This is indeed a key goal
the program is designed to accomplish.
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IMPLICATIONS OF COMMUNITY-BASED ART EDUCATION

I have explored a range of methods for how art can be delivered within the
educational system for the benefit of the students and for their enlightenment in the
arts. The research article, YouthARTS Development Project (Arts and the National
Endowment for the Arts, 1998), found the collaborative efforts of local arts agencies
in Portland, Oregon, San Antonio, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia included a controlled
two-year research study (1995-1997) where the three cities rigorously evaluated their
arts programs for at-risk youth. Data on the results of the demonstration projects
were evaluated by an independent research firm under contract with the Justice
Department. They found out art programs can affect meaningful, positive change
in the lives of young people most at risk. Researchers under the supervision of the
U.S. Department of Justice found that when compared with control groups of young
people not involved in an arts program, participants in youth arts programs showed a
better attitude towards themselves and their role in the world. There were also fewer
new court referrals, and for repeat offenders, sentences tended to be less severe.
An increased ability to express anger appropriately and to communicate effectively
with both peers and adults also became apparent. The report also found that the
participating youth had an increased ability to stick with a complex task through its
completion (Clawson & Coolbaugh, 1998).
Another research report called Massachusetts Cultural Council YouthReach
Initiative: Impact Evaluation, written by Madison (1997) provides an independent
analysis of the Massachusetts Cultural Councils YouthReach Initiative, funding
arts-based youth development programs for some of the states most vulnerable
young people. Included in the research were extensive pre-program and postprogram measures of student attitude, life skills, and personal self-esteem. This
quantitative data was supplemented with qualitative findings from focus groups
of parents and young people themselves (Madison, 1997). Dr. Madisons report
was followed up in 2002 with a survey of YouthReach students post-high-school
plans. The program evaluations demonstrated that youth have learned to take their
life more seriously, demonstrating a more mature outlook in responsibility and in
cooperation in working with others. This report not only gives crucial evidence
of life skills that prepare young people for college, the workforce, and the world
beyond but also shows immediate results in less truancy and in higher high school
graduation statistics. After participating in YouthReach programs, the number of
students who reported that they liked school doubled. In 2002, 100% of high school
seniors who participated in a YouthReach program graduated. Eighty-two percent of
those students are now in college.
I have developed an analysis that draws connections between several scholarly
sources as my primary context. Using several analytic ideas, I have examined social
issues that will shed light on how a mural is to be designed and executed. Looking
at the initial motivation of the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program as an after-school
project broadened my horizon of thinking, so that a combination of professional
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educators, professional individuals with mural painting backgrounds, and businesses

within the urban setting could certainly pool resources and extend the idea of giving
opportunities to the entire circumference of society; in other words, everyone gains
by exposing themselves to how the individual will learn within a community when
all levels of economic and social background are given an opportunity of becoming
exposed to a learning environment outside of formal academic settings.
By attending the National Conference on Mural Arts in Philadelphia and from
my interviews with Snyder and Olgivie, I have become more deeply immersed into
the appreciation for the continuous development of visual and symbolic capacities.
It is, in part, such capacity building that this project examines more closely. I have
researched the thesis of children and adolescents making mural art with professional
muralists in laying the foundation for community action, using sources ranging
from academic research to first-hand experience from interviews, personal exposure
with students, the artists, and their involvement while visiting several of the murals
executed by the Philadelphia Mural Arts Project.
Students have alternative learning environments. In addition to methods analysis
they can eventually enter a program such as the Mural Arts Program and develop a
more practical method of art and execution while thinking about ideas of art. Mural
art helps the students to become aware of new ideas. This is accomplished by not
only having the student involved in the mathematical equations on how the mural
will fit on a particular wall, but the students must also research the history of the
neighborhood and the people, so that the design of the mural will be appropriated for
that particular area and have meaning for the residents. This accounts for the focus
of the students while they are actively engaged in art mural painting. Awareness of
the new is an underlying goal of the program.
I have learned how to provide substantial art education through mural making
while incorporating valuable life skills such as problem solving and interpersonal
relationships. For example, with mural art in the local community, students are
provided real learning situations, perceive and experience real problems, and learn
to resolve problems on their own, with other students or with their art teachers and
muralists. Traditionally, education actually had less interaction between students and
environment. Traditional education, as I experienced while teaching at Washington
Irving High School in New York City, evolved around the classroom. Everything
happened within four walls between the students and teacher. With the Mural Arts
Programs concept, the environment and the community build on the evidence of the
product and the response by the community and artists in residence at the program.
The program provides everyone the art experience as emphasized in John Deweys
(1934) philosophy: Because the objects of art are expressive, they communicate.
I do not say that communication to others is the intent of an artist. But it is the
consequence of his workwhich indeed lives only in communication when it
operates in the experience of others (p. 104).
When students become involved within their own community they are working in
teams or groups and can increase their learning and people interaction skills. In their
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article, Champion of Change, The Impact of the Arts on Learning, art educators
Steve Seidel and Denni Palmer (1999) show how effective arts are formed, operated
and learned in the community. Art connects the student to themselves and each
other. Creating an artwork is a personal experience. The student draws upon his or
her personal resources to generate the result. By engaging his or her whole person,
the student feels invested in ways that are deeper than knowing the answer (p. ix).
The Philadelphia Mural Arts Project has attracted the attention of local and distant
educators who have created lessons and units based on the themes suggested, such as
community, family, and heritage. The theme of community has been very popular
among educators and students.
Perhaps they agree with cultural analyst Dr. Marimba Ani (1994) who offers that,
The source of human morality must necessarily be in the interaction of human
beings. It must be communal, more than social, implies a joining of persons (p.
206). No one lives alone without some means of human contact. It is part of our
nature as human beings to be drawn to others, either individually or within a group.
Technology now exists and may have taken away much personal social exchange,
but people are still addicted to email, text messaging, and cell phones; they are still
communicating. There is still a need for human contact that has moved beyond
traditional means. Good communication allows people to unite to either improve
or correct a human situation, thus the morality of human beings is displayed. The
nature of art is to communicate by sharing the objects of art for people to witness
and take from the art detail the artist has created and then add their own experience.
Art is influenced by the world around us. It can be a landscape or people as part
of a landscape. Communications is the reality of creativity, which I believe Ani is
offering us as influencing our outlook on art.
Murals in the arts inspire a person towards a wonderful, beautiful kind of life
and experience. I believe that art education starts in very early childhood. I believe
art education in the Mural Program in Philadelphia can make and impress everyone
from young students to those in adulthood for creating a love of art within a society
that is expressing itself. With encouragement from parents or other family or
community members, each individual grows into the next level of development,
as I have pointed out, for all people contribute to art whether they are the artist or
the appreciator. My goal here has been to show how the growth of the individual
can lead to good, healthy accomplishments, contributing to the community. One
concluding example underscores this point. Roberta Fallon (2004) points out in an
article called Education in Wonderland that the William McKinley Elementary
School in North Philadelphia had a former geographic landscape and debris of
urban poverty featuring discarded drug trade remnants. Working against such odds,
she writes on the positive side, Education is for improving the lives of others and
for leaving your community and world better than you found it(p. 1). Thanks to a
group of hard-working teenagers and the support of the Mural Arts Program, these
words now grace the entrance to William McKinley Elementary School. Thanks
to a community that cares and individuals, like Jane Golden, Melanie Snyder and
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Kathleen Olgivie, dedicating their time and talent, we see this change happening
right in the city of Philadelphia.
CONCLUSION

I like to think that the National Conference of Mural Arts held in Philadelphia
in June of 2005 brought us together as artists and art educators to join ideas and
creativity. It certainly brought to light the level of awareness of art in the community
and its importance as a structure to be nurtured and valued by all. I hope that as
artists we can continue to encourage the public to support such endeavors as the
Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. We all are the guardians of our past. As an art
educator researcher, it is my responsibility and the responsibility of the global
community of artists, educators, and those who will appreciate art, to share and
enlighten the future generations by our continued support. Our continued passing
down of knowledge and development of the talent of upcoming generations should
not only be our responsibility, but our pleasure.
NOTES


3

4`

Former Assistant Director of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program.

Director of Art Education in the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program.
Philadelphia Mural Arts National Conference speech, Philadelphia 2005.
Interviewed with Kathleen Olgivie, Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, 1729 Mt. Vernon Street,
Philadelphia, March 20 2013.
5
Ibid.
6
All student names and former participants have been changed.
7
Interviewed with Mary, Spring 2012.
8
Interview with Kathleen Olgivie, Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, 1729 Mt. Vernon Street,
Philadelphia, March 20 2013.
9
A Healing Kalidoscope: The City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program (2002), PMA Video,
Philadelphia, PA.
10
Ibid.
11
All student names and former participants have been changed.
12
All student names and former participants have been changed.
13
Interviewed with Susan and John, Spring 2012.
14
Interviewed with Melanie Snyder, Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, 1729 Mt. Vernon Street,
Philadelphia, June 22, 2012.
15
Interviewed with Jane Golden, Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, 1729 Mt. Vernon Street, Philadelphia,
June 22, 2012.
16
Interviewed with Melanie Snyder, Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, 1729 Mt. Vernon Street,
Philadelphia, June 22, 2012.
17
Interview with artist, Meg Saligman.
18
All student names and former participants have been changed.
19
Interviewed with Jordan, Winter 2012.
20
Interview with Kathleen Olgivie, Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, 1729 Mt. Vernon Street,
Philadelphia, March 20 2013.
21
Interview with muralist Cesar Viveros, Spring 2006.
22
Ibid.
1
2

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Clawson, H., & Coolbaugh, K. (1998). Youth ARTS development project. Sponsored by the U.S.
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National Endowment for the Arts.
Cobb, P. (2001). Supporting the improvement of learning and teaching in social and institutional context.
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Creswell, J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry & research design. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Daniels, H. (2001). Vygotsky and pedagogy. London: Rutledge Falmer.
Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience. New York, NY: Berkley Publishing Group.
Fallon, R. (2004). Education in wonderland. Philadelphia, PA:American Educator Publisher.
Fiske, E. (1999). Champions of change: The impact of arts on learning. Washington, DC:Arts Education
Partnership and the Presidents Committee on the Arts and Humanities.
Fowler, C. (1996). Strong arts, strong schools: The promising potential and shortsighted disregard of the
arts in American schooling. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY:The Continuum International Publishing
Group.
Golden, J., Rice, R., & Yant Kinney, M. (2002). Philadelphia murals and stories they tell. Philadephia,
PA: Temple University Press.
Greene, M. (2000). Releasing the imagination, essays on education, the arts, and social change. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Hord, S. M. (1997). Professional learning communities: Communities of continuous inquiry and
improvement. Austin, TX: Southwest Educational Development Laboratory Inc.
Jackson, P. W. (1998). John Dewey and the lessons of art.New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
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finding and mobilizing a communitys assets. Chicago, IL:ACTA Publications.
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Trenton, NJ:African World Press.
Madison, A. (1997). Massachusetts Cultural Council Youthreach Initiative: Impact evaluation. Boston,
MA: College of Public and Community Service, University of Massachusetts.
Seidman, I. E. (2005). Interviewing as qualitative research: A guide for researchers in education and
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MANUEL CORDERO ALVARADO, ELIZABETH BUX,

MARIOCARRENO, JOSEPH DA SILVA,ADRIENNE GAGNON,
&MICHAEL OBEL-OMIA

13.SCHOOL AS A TOOL
Can Sustainable Healthy Schools and Environmental Literacy Be Achieved
Through the Pedagogy of Context in Public K-12 Education?

Envision for a moment a kindergarten classroom facing south

with a gazebo framed glass window wall nook
with soft comfortable perimeter seating
and a rocking chair purposefully situated for storytelling.
Deeper into the classroom towards the east side
prominently stands a hardwood finished upright piano,
which drowns out the busy display wall.
Gracing the north wall is a busy display board framed by two doors:
one the main classroom entrance
and the other a communicating door
to the adjacent first grade classroom.
On the west side of the room
resides a coat room
with an in and out door
and ample space for circulating.
This classroom pictures begs the following questions:

What goes through the mind of a five year old child thrust into this environment?
Overall, does the classroom feel welcoming, comfortable and safe?
Is the daylight that floods the room warm and invigorating?
Is the teacher caring, kind, soft spoken, entertaining, understanding and
attentive to students needs?
Finally, what remains when one leaves the space?
A memory remains of the group sing-alongs
with the older (first) graders in French
and the vivid and penetrating chords
J. M. Paraskeva & T. LaVallee (Eds.), Transformative Researchers and Educators for Democracy, 197228.
2015 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

M. C.AlvaradoEtal.

that miraculously oozed from the magnificent piano box.

The most prevailing memory that lingers could be as simple as
the experience of sitting with classmates
in the comfortable south facing nook area
observing the growth of seedlings
planted in cups perched on the window ledge,
while gazing into the crystal blue sky,
as the sun beams through in a warm embrace
fueling imaginative dreams of unlimited possibilities.
This experience could very well be more than just a memory.
Through this simple and functional educational space
a sense of wonder gateway is cracked opened
that awakens the souls humanity,
transforming the child and later the community
INTRODUCTION

Throughout history we have shaped our buildings to reflect our hopes, aspirations,
and beliefs and these buildings have inevitably shaped us. Every day we come in
and out of buildings that seem innocuous and sometimes anonymous, and, yet, the
structures that we inhabit create a framework for the narrative of our lives.
This is particularly true of schoolhouses where school-age children spend more
time than in any other building aside from their homes. From the buildings site
orientation to its connections to its immediate context; from the quality of light to
the arrangement of furniture; and from physical appearance and maintenance to
air quality and access to views, schoolhouses are embedded with a long string of
decisions that intimately impact the use and experience of its inhabitants. In the
context of a culture that is increasingly digitalized, wireless, and disconnected, an
expanded awareness of context and of the decisions that create places of learning
can offer students opportunities for environmental education through place-based
and hands-on experiential learning. The concept of school as a (teaching) tool has
been in the making since 2007 in Rhode Island. It was formally memorialized in
2010 at the School as a Tool Sustainable Schools Summit, held at the Providence
Career Technical Center.
This chapter is inspired by the 2012 Transformative Leadership and Policy
Conference morning panel held at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. The
workshop was moderated by Joseph da Silva, a doctoral candidate in the Educational
Leadership doctoral program at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
The School as a (teaching) Tool panel participants included Jessica Hing and
Eugene Benoit from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, Manuel
Cordero and Mario Carreno from the Rhode Island Department of Elementary &
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Rendering- The Paul Crowley East Bay MET Center designed as the first
net zero public school in Rhode Island and possibly the most sustainable school
building in the region, courtesy of Rhode Island Department of Education.
Rendering created by Studio AMD.

Secondary Education, Adrienne Gagnon from DownCity Design, Elizabeth Bux

from the Apeiron Institute for Sustainable Living, and Michael Obel-Omia from the
Paul Cuffee School. The panel framework consisted of federal, state, community,
school, and student contextualized programs. Coincidentally, three delegates from
Spain added their unique international perspectives and insights to the discussion.
Unfortunately, the missing dialogue about globalization, which is critical, is not
represented in this work due to the complexity and breadth of the subject.
The chapter is organized around existing federal and state level frameworks and
includes three detailed exemplars of community, school, and student-based case
study programs. The workshop was formally titled School as a Teaching Tool:
A Holistic Exploration of Contextual Pedagogy Shifting from the 20st Century
Paradigm. The conference program read:
Our children have a high stake in the future, so much so that some of them
may live to see the 22nd century. By helping students understand their impact
on the environment and by focusing on sustainable practices, schools empower
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our children to take responsibility for their future. Sustainable schools go

beyond high standards of achievement towards heightened levels of awareness
regarding healthy living, environmental alertness, community engagement,
and democratic citizenship. Through the holistic integration of infrastructure,
administration, curriculum and community, students become aware of their
spatial and temporal context. In this way, they become conscious of the cyclical
complexities of ecology and their role in it.
CONTEXTUAL FRAMEWORK

In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with

something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it. (Johann
Wolfgang van Goethe)
This work is predicated on the premise that in order to make sense of teaching and
learning we must view it from a wider context, which, for the purposes of this work, is
fundamentally defined as the human experience of a given time and place. Pedagogy
of context is a critical experiential Deweyan lens through which curriculum and
instruction can be spatially magnified. This magnification focuses on the physical
and socially constructed spaces of curriculum that support the transactions of the
learning experience defined here as pedagogy of context. These pedagogical spaces
are framed by the contextual boundaries of communities that influence and, thus,
translate to the school experience. The contextual layers are composed of global,
federal, state, community, school, and student textures. It is through this physical
and socially tinted lens that the school as a tool protocol is defined. The array of
sources (Apple, Ardent, Bourdieu, Dewey, Fain, Freire, Greene, Orr, Paraskeva,
Perez, Pinar, Schubert, Slather, and Tyler) which contribute to the experiential
understanding of teaching and learning is considerable, and it is on the shoulders
of these giants that this work is grounded. This work attempts to epistemologically
frame the opportunities amongst federal, state, community, school, and student based
environmental programs in Rhode Island. It is hardly expected that this work will
foster a conversation that encourages fresh ways of thinking about K-12 curriculum,
instruction, and learning in a new era of sustainability in a new century of significant
globalized influences. However, by structurally contextualizing pedagogy spatially
and temporally in Rhode Island, it may offer a glimpse into the human spirit and,
in so doing, frame the place-specific opportunity for optimizing our childrens
individual potential locally.
Growing public awareness and academic research has focused on the impact
of building design, construction, and occupation on our natural environment. By
some accounts, buildings in the United States are responsible for 10% of water use,
40% of CO2 emissions, 70% of electricity consumption, and 65% of waste output.
These figures make apparent an issue that has permeated the design and construction
business for the past 20-30 years. This anxiety has been reflected in the growing
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interest in green building practices and the institutionalization of these practices in

the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and the Collaborative
for High Performance Schools (CHPS) protools. One could conclude that the success
of these rating systems and their growing recognition by the public at large reflects a
growing epistemological recognition of the link between our built environment and
natural surroundings.
As inhabitants of the developed world, we all share the experience of dwelling in
an increasingly urbanized world. In the past, the urbanization of our planet happened
at odds or with little consideration of the impact on local and global ecologies and
natural systems. We are in the midst of a shifting paradigm that will inevitably
require us and future generations to plan, design, and build our communities and,
more specifically, our cities in careful coordination with our surroundings and a
holistic view of the compounding impact of humanity on the planet. We must emerge
from this shift with a generation of thinkers, planners, and doers who are prepared
to engage the challenges that face humanity with creativity and perseverance. The
emerging green economy is predicated on this shift and jobs in this economy of
our future will require a workforce with 21st century skills, such as: communication,
collaboration, creative problem-solving skills, and environmental literacy.
Our children have a high stake in the future of our country and planet. Preparing
students to face the challenges that they will encounter is undeniably one of our
generations greatest responsibilities. To do so, we must go beyond high standards
of academic achievement to achieve heightened levels of awareness about healthy
living, environmental awareness, community engagement, and citizenship. Similarly,
over the past thirty years, research has also found numerous benefits associated with
environmental education, including increased academic engagement and motivation
and improved academic performance.
SCHOOL AS A (TEACHING) TOOL

School as a (Teaching) Tool is protocol that uses the schoolhouse and the local
natural environment to engage students and community in sustainable practices.
According to Joseph da Silvas and Manuel Cordero Alvarados School as a
Teaching Tool protocol published in 2010, it is a place-based learning approach in
which the form (architecture) sparks an awareness of the function (curriculum). In
this protocol, the schoolhouse itself is used pedagogically to deliver an integrated
environmental curriculum.
If we take the premise that schools are empathetic spaces, then its reasonable
to extend this caring ethos into the curriculum by helping students understand their
environment and their schools environmental footprint. By understanding the
schoolhouses impact on the environment and by focusing on sustainable practices,
our children may be empowered to take responsibility for their future. This can be
achieved by illustrating the connectivity to the environment of the energy and water
the schoolhouse consumes, the waste it generates, the food it serves, the traffic it
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Figure 1. The initial contextual tripartite pedagogical approach that integrates the
green team, presented at the 2010 School as a Tool Sustainable Schools Summit,
courtesy of the Rhode Island Department of Education.

attracts, and the challenges faced by the local and global community. In so doing,
the school goes beyond high standards of achievement towards heightened levels of
awareness regarding healthy living, environmental literacy, community engagement,
and democratic participation. Through the holistic integration of infrastructure,
administration, curriculum, and community, students can become aware of their
spatial and temporal context within the cyclical complexities of ecology and thus
become an empowered agent of change towards a more sustainable future. This work
attempts to connect the epistemological links amongst federal, state, community,
school, and student-based programs with environmental literacy in Rhode Island.
From schools and districts around the country, the emerging vision of
environmental education is intrinsically linked to school sites and facilities. At the
White House Summit on Environmental Education, held on April 16, 2012, the
participants recognized that fostering an attachment to place was a key component
to the integration and delivery of environmental education. Furthermore, this forum
discussed the emerging vision of environmental education and the role the federal
government can take to support this vision. This ongoing conversation included
representatives from the National Park Services, the Environmental Protection
Agency, the Department of Energy, and the National Institute of Environmental
Health Services.
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School as a Tool

Photo: Nathan Bishop Middle School built in the early 20th century with its
dense urban context represented by an aerial view, courtesy of the Rhode Island
Heritage and Preservation Society.

The vision of environmental education as intrinsically linked to school sites and

facilities is exemplified by the federal Green Ribbon Schools awards program. The
first United States Department of Education (USED) green school initiative has
the potential to create a paradigm shift in the national green schools movement.
According to the USED, its impact is significant, touching 64 schools and 14 districts
in 2013. Some may say that one of its most significant accomplishments has been the
collaboration the program has fostered. At the federal level, we see collaborations
between several agencies such as Department of Education, Environmental
Protection Agency, Department of Energy, and the Department of the Interior, just
to name a few. The Green Ribbon Schools have engaged a majority of the state
departments of education. It has also fostered collaborations between schools and
municipalities. Finally, environmental educators as well as green building and
healthy schools advocates have been brought together through a common space,
language, and definition of what it means to be a green school.
These federal efforts are echoed, and in some cases amplified, at the state level.
Specifically, in Rhode Island, the Rhode Island Environmental Education Association
has partnered with the Rhode Island Department of Education to create the Rhode
Island Environmental Literacy Plan, which creates a vision and recommendations
for the increased integration of environmental education into the states curriculum,
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instruction, and assessments. This document highlights the potential alignments

to current state standards and the benefits of expanded access to environmental
education. Rhode Islands small size, unique geography, historic building stock,
and diverse ecosystems make it an ideal location to pioneer educational models that
ensure environmental stewardship. In fact, Rhode Islands future depends on the
preparation of its students to meet the challenges of tomorrow.
FEDERAL GUIDANCE

Right now, in the second decade of the 21st century, preparing our students to
be good environmental citizens is some of the most important work any of us
can do. It is for our children, and our childrens children, and generations yet to
come Education and sustainability are the keys to our economic futureand
our ecological future. (Arne Duncan)
Overview
Rhode Island has been at the forefront of the green-school movement, as school
construction projects in Rhode Island have been required to comply with the
Northeast Collaborative for High Performance Schools Protocol (NECHPS) since
2007. NECHPS is a green design protocol that provides guidelines and thresholds
for performance in a variety of design, construction, and operations areas, including
Site Selection, Material Selection, Indoor Environmental Quality, and Policy and
Operations. The NECHPS prerequisites and credits ensure that approved projects
provide high quality learning environments, conserve natural resources, consume
less energy, are easier to maintain, and provide an enhanced school facility.
Additionally, the Rhode Island Department of Education has been involved in
planning Sustainable Schools Summits since 2007. These summits were based on
three ideas needed to expand and grow sustainable practices: place-based learning,
maintenance and operations, and indoor environmental quality.
The Green Ribbon Schools program, created in 2011, was developed on a
foundation of three pillars, very similar to the organizing elements of Rhode Islands
Sustainable Schools Summit: environmental impact and energy efficiency, healthy
school environments, and environmental and sustainable education. Each pillar was
carefully crafted to encompass the entire spectrum of sustainability while providing
a uniform national definition. This program was created to recognize schools that
create a minimal impact on the environment, a positive effect on the health of
students, and afford effective environmental awareness to their students. Prior to
the Green Ribbon Schools program, each state defined sustainable education and
environmental literacy differently. Finally, states have national guidance to promote
green education and showcase the benefits of their safe and healthy schools.
In 2012, Rhode Island was the only New England state to participate in the
inaugural Green Ribbon Schools Program. Two Schools in Providence, Classical
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High School and Nathan Bishop Middle School, were two of the 78 recipients
receiving national awards. In 2012, Rhode Island again had two national winners out
of 64 awarded, with Providence Career and Technical Academy and The Compass
Charter School capturing the green accolade. These schools represent the tip of
the emerging groundswell of interest and support for healthier facilities as well
as increasing recognition of the interrelatedness of curriculum, facilities, and the
environment.
RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL HIGHLIGHTS

Classical High School:

In 2009, the new science room facilities were renovated to the NECHPS standards.
The corresponding science curricula allow a high level of participation in AP Science.
Students are introduced to sustainability topics in the 9th grade, and this theme is
interwoven into the curriculum with the AP Environmental Science offering. The
school also uses EPA Portfolio Manager energy data tracking and incorporates
Tools for Schools which allows students to learn about energy conservation and
sustainable design.

Photo: Classical High School with its reinforce concrete brutalistic faade typical
of 1970s modernist international style architecture of the period, courtesy of Classical
High School.

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Nathan Bishop Middle School

During the historic renovation of the Nathan Bishop Middle School, all of
the buildings mechanical and electrical equipment were upgraded to the highest
efficiency standards. The school utilizes rain and grey water harvesting, low flow
plumbing fixtures including waterless urinal fixtures, state of the art controls,
energy recovery units, solar hot water system and a rooftop weather station and data
collection system, variable-speed drives on all fans, and lighting controls combined
with day lighting strategies. This has resulted in Nathan Bishop Middle School
receiving an EPA EnergyStar label, meaning the school operates more efficiently
than most other middle schools in the U.S.
Providence Career and Technical Academy
Providence Career and Technical Academy (PCTA) is a state of the art vocational
school in Providence that was built in compliance with the NECHPS standard. The
facilitys high performance features are used to educate students about sustainability
and the environment, while also sharing the facilitys unique building systems to
spread awareness in the community. As PCTA was built on a renovated brownfield
site, environmental impact and health has become a part of the schools curriculum.
PCTA teaches students about how to choose a building site and what goes into
cleaning up a brownfield.

Photo: Nathan Bishop Middle School, Providence, Rhode Island at the time of
substantial project completion, courtesy of Rhode Island Department of Education.

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Photo: Nathan Bishop Middle School, Providence, Rhode Island, courtesy AI3 Architects.

Photo: Nathan Bishop Middle School, Providence, Rhode Island, courtesy AI3 Architects.

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Photo: Providence Career Technical Academy, courtesy of SLAM Collaborative/

Studio JAED/ Gilbane Building Company.

Photo: Taken of the transition collaborative multipurpose space in the renovation portion
of the Providence Career Technical Academy, courtesy of SLAM Collaborative/ Studio
JAED/ Gilbane Building Company.

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The Compass School

The Compass campus is comprised of 20 acres of historic farmland, with 5 acres of
wooded wetlands, a stream, vernal pools, and a variety of local plants and animals.
The entire property is used extensively as an outdoor classroom and as an area to
take walks and enjoy nature. Students engage in nature journaling and study vernal
pools, tree growth, soils, stream habitats, and how farms produce food. Seventh
and eighth grade students go on an annual camping trip to a location where they
can study the local environment. As a community, Compass recognizes that having
frequent opportunities to bond with the natural world nurtures childrens physical,
cognitive, and emotional health and development.
GREEN RIBBON SCHOOL PILLARS

The first pillar measures physical building attributes that lead to enhanced learning
opportunities. Specifically, energy consumption is targeted through both improved
lighting and systems efficiencies that directly lead to enriched learning. Furthermore,
energy efficiency can provide districts with savings that can be redirected back into
the classroom. The allocation of these additional dollars affords schools opportune
enhancements for enriched learning environments. Moreover, the physical traits of
the building can boost student morale and attendance, making this first pillar of
Green Ribbon Schools crucial to the programs success.
The second pillar focuses on the various elements necessary to harbor a healthy
interior environment, including, but not limited to, indoor air quality, ventilation
monitoring, recycling and waste removal management, integrated pest management,

Photo: Compass School morning gathering, courtesy of Compass School.

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green cleaning product usage, and health education and awareness. A clean and
healthy learning environment can drastically reduce asthma and other airborne
illnesses. Proper ventilation can lower chronic absenteeism and increase productivity.
Students learning is more likely to be thwarted when missing extended periods
of time than when present. Likewise, observing foods origination and nutritional
benefits is vital to providing healthy and delicious meals to pupils. These efforts
result in a reduction of obesity rates and an energized student body by ensuring the
delivery of proper nutrition. Simply put, healthier students are superior students.
The final pillar is perhaps the most important because it can help to connect the
entire framework. In many ways, the future of the planet hinges on the education we
offer our children today. Without sustainable education, environmental awareness,
and a comprehensive understanding of the intricacies and fragility of the ecosystem,
the future generation may not be prepared to face the growing challenges of balancing
humanities activities with the planets dwindling capacities. Through hands-on
experiences, students are immersed in real life situations and shown the importance
and ramifications of their every action. Students enrolling in schools offering such
experiences graduate with an understanding that every action taken can and will
affect their home, community, and environment. Successful implementation of
environmental literacy will create advocates that will convey the importance and
relevance of sustainability to those around them. Consequently, the successful
delivery of this knowledge safeguards our most valuable resource, the earth.
SUMMARY

While still in its infancy, the Green Ribbon Schools program strives to highlight
the importance of constructing energy efficient and practical facilities, illustrates
the significance of indoor learning environments and generates lifelong learners
who will champion environmental literacy. It is these learners who will spread
this message ensuring these monumental issues remain in the forefront of not only
education, but of society. For the moment, the Green Ribbon Schools also presents a
unified vision for environmental stewardship in the educational context.
STATE LEVEL INFRASTRUCTURE AND INCENTIVES

The regulations that govern school construction in Rhode Island are guided by a
desire to efficiently create equitable school facilities that are safe and healthy. This
is achieved through site and space standards, green building guidance, energy
efficiency and management requirements, design reviews, and other mechanisms
that ensure best practices in school construction. Although the audience for these
regulations are administrators, architects, and contractors, the end userstudents and
staffare the reason that the regulations exist. Specifically, Rhode Island has blazed
a trail in the creation of buildings that provide high quality learning environments,
conserve natural resources, consume less energy, are easier to maintain, and provide
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an enhanced community resource. The School Construction Regulations require

compliance with the Northeast Collaborative for High Performance Schools
(NECHPS) protocol, which establishes baselines and credit incentives for the
creation of green buildings.
Rhode Island is one of the only states that require all school construction projects
from small renovations to new construction to comply with the NECHPS Protocol.
This innovative requirement means that all work done in schools complies with
the highest standards for healthy and sustainable design and construction practices.
Similar to LEED, the NECHPS protocol is organized around eight compliance
categories: Policy and Operations, Indoor Environmental Quality, Energy Efficiency,
On-Site Renewable Energy, Water Efficiency, Material Selection, Site Selection,
and Innovation. Each of these categories has several prerequisites and credits that
establish minimum levels of performance, as well as incentivized thresholds for
superior performance. Rhode Island has already verified three green schools using
the NECHPS protocol: the Providence Career Technical Academy, Nathan Bishop
Middle School in Providence, and the Cole Middle School in East Greenwich. In
general, renovations are only required to comply with the prerequisites and credits
applicable to the scope of work and therefore may not receive full NECHPS
verification. However, more than 40 Rhode Island schools have been designed to
comply with the NECHPS standard.
Despite the growing segment of green buildings and an emerging recognition
of the importance of environmental literacy, the connection between the facilities
and learning (the actual curricular content) is very tenuous. Facilities are measured
by their cleanliness, efficiency, and ability to accommodate a certain amount of
students and a prescribed set of the educational uses within a defined amount of
space. Classroom teaching is geared towards different metrics alignment with
the Basic Education Program and the applicable standards, testing, and ultimately
student learning.
Fortunately, the apparent disconnect between facilities and learning is bridged by
a requirement in the Northeast Collaborative for High Performance Schools protocol
(NECHPS), where schools are required to develop a plan for using the School as a
Teaching Tool. The NECHPS policy requires high performance schools to leverage
their facilities to provide opportunities for learning about environmental quality,
energy efficiency, renewable energy, and many other benefits of the facility. The
intent is that students and staff become acquainted with the high performance features
of the facilities that the state had invested in. The two interesting, if unintended,
consequences of this requirement are:
1. It creates a vehicle for teaching about the environment both built and natural.
2. It implicitly emphasizes the connection and the inter-relatedness of what happens
inside the classroom and what is outside the classroom.
This prerequisite suggests a strong and perhaps obvious connection between
the bricks and mortar and the curriculum. From the perspective of an architect, these
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connections can be seen clearly as well as the potential for educational programming
that inspires students to actively engage the world starting with the walls, windows,
and doors that surround them. Our schools are connected to a wide social, cultural,
spiritual and temporal context; the buildings and their sites are lenses to the world
which are catalysts for exploration and ripe with opportunities to ignite the minds
of our youth.
The School as a Teaching Tool is well aligned to the three pillars of the Green
Ribbon Schools: place-based learning, indoor environmental quality, and facilities.
In fact, the Rhode Island Environmental Education Association has assisted the
Rhode Island Department of Education in creating a School as a Tool guidance
document to assist districts that are implementing programs to comply with the
School Construction Regulations and the NECHPS protocol. The guidance includes
five components:
1. Establish a Green Team
2. Conduct a School Environmental Survey
3. Integrate Environmental Literacy into Existing Curriculum
4. Inform and Involve the Community
5. Monitor and Evaluate Progress
The unifying element is the Green Team which is comprised of a group of
stakeholders such as students, teachers, school nurse, maintenance staff, parents,
and administrators that is uniquely positioned to make connections between
facilities and curriculum. An active and engaged Green Team can advance a
school culture that values sustainability and take an integrated approach to school
improvements in energy and water consumption, waste reduction, nutrition, and
environmental education.
SCHOOL BASED ENVIRONMENTAL PEDAGOGY BROWNFIELD INNOVATION

Winston Churchill remarked, We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us,
and, at the Paul Cuffee School, important and impactful work occurs in our converted
garage, but few are inspired by its design. In education, educational spaces should
honor the work of our faculty, inspire the faculty to teach creatively, and allow for
students to imagine and to believe that where they are and what they are doing
is important and vital. A beautiful building, like the State House in Providence,
suggests that important work occurs there and stirs feelings of respect. A converted
garage, not so much.
In that converted garage the faculty and staff of Paul Cuffee School do exceptional
things. The school practices not only differentiated instruction, but also, and equally
important, experiential learning to educate, inspire, and uplift students. Founded in
2001, the Paul Cuffee School is the highest performing fully urban school in the state.
In addition, it is a maritime charter school for Providence public schoolchildren
[and is] currently serving 691 students from kindergarten through eleventh grade.
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Photo: Paul Cuffee School the garage, courtesy of Convergent Consultants.

The school provides rigorous academics, individualized teaching, and hands-on

learning within a school culture of mutual respect and personal responsibility. The
schools standardized testing results, which are higher than the states average on
each NECAP session, affirms the shared belief that all students can achieve.
The school accomplishes its goals through differentiated instruction, experiential
learning, caring about the students emotional and social selves. Also, this is achieved
by hiring passionate, persuasive, persistent, patient educators who learn their craft
well, seek to grow as educators, collaborate effectively with their colleagues, believe
that every child can learn, and love each child for who he or she is. Differentiated
instruction allows for each student to acquire content, to process it, and make sense of
it at a level and speed that benefits him or her. In addition, educators and administrators
exemplify their belief in experiential learning, as exemplified through their work with
the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Commission, Narragansett Bay Commission,
Alton Jones, and Save the Bay, which teach students about their environment; the
University of Rhode Island and Brown University to study fish and their habitats, and
sharks, motion, and aerodynamics; Johnson and Wales University to learn culinary
skills; and the Anthony Quinn Foundation to see magnificent art and to understand
the artists process. The school invites authors, such as Laurie Halse Anderson and
Torrey Maldonado, to improve knowledge of history and understanding of the writing
process; Emmy-Award winning singer Bill Harley to learn story-telling; Community
Boating Center to acquire sailing skills. In addition, the school travels to a host of
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museums, farms, and historical homes for the purpose of learning with all senses. In
addition, high school students traveled to New Hampshire this autumn to campaign
for a presidential candidate, while middle school students worked a telephone bank
for one of the presidential candidates on Election Day.
One of the Schools most prized experiential learning pieces is Empty Bowls; this
project connects students with the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. Students
make bowls in art class and sell them for $10 at a community dinner with the profits
benefiting Rhode Islands most needy families, while teaching students about
philanthropy, empathy, and service learning. In addition, the school recently secured a
$400,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to remediate a lot adjacent
to the garage so that the students have a play space that allows for their physical
growth. Consistent with the Paul Cuffee Schools experiential learning mantra, the
remediation project was used as an opportunity to teach students about stewardship
and the environment. Teaching and learning can and does happen everywhere at the
school. In spite of being located in a converted garage, the school maintains the belief
in achieving wonderful accomplishments, as long as the educators, the most important
component of education, are well-trained, well-supported, encouraged to stretch
themselves and to be innovative. Also the educators must continue to believe in the
schools mission and vision and care deeply about and for the students before them.

Photo: Paul Cuffee playground remediated lot adjacent to the school funded by
EPA and used as an opportunity to teach students about stewardship and the environment,
courtesy of Convergent Consultants.

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The primary purpose in this work is to inculcate in students the skills, behaviors,
habits, and routines that lead to success in life. The responsibility is great to educate
children for jobs, careers, and fields that dont even exist today. Students must be
prepared, so the school emphasizes 21st century skills. The Paul Cuffee School
ensures that students have both a deep understanding of the major principles and
facts in core subjects, such as mathematics, language arts, science, history, foreign
language, and, also more importantly, students are able to apply this knowledge to
important contemporary challenges, such as global warming, financial sustainability,
health and environmental crises. Students must not only have the information, but
also, they must have the skills to apply the knowledge, and those skills are acquired
with differentiated instruction and experiential learning. As William Butler Yeats
noted, Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. As a society
we need to share skills around taking initiative, leading with care, compassion, and
empathy, adapting to a hastily changing world, and seeking to solve problems, not
just identify them. In essence, students need to learn how to be creative thinkers who
understand and embrace diverse people, cultures, traditions, ways of thinking, and
work to be compassionate, empathetic, and responsible risk-takers. At Paul Cuffee,
student work on these skills, behaviors, habits, and routines, hopeful that important
work will produce students who embrace their responsibilities as citizens.
The 20th century hegemony, which allowed for a ruling class to dominate our
culturally diverse country (and potentially our world), cannot be allowed to continue
in the 21st century. Students need to collaborate, to work together, to embrace a new
paradigm in terms of learning. The Paul Cuffee School has a simple motto: we take
care of ourselves, we take care of one another, we take care of our community, so
that we can take care of our world. In order to do that, students need to be aware of
themselves, aware of others, and aware of their community and its needs. In essence,
students learn awareness in that converted garage, even as people drive by unaware
of its existence.
At a place like Paul Cuffee School, which resides not only in a converted garage,
but also in a dilapidated, outdated, utilitarian Catholic School building from the
50s (the middle school) and in a converted IRS building without a gymnasium or
a meeting space (the high school), the facilities neither reflect the good work that
is being done, nor do they allow for teachers to teach creatively. They fail to honor
the Herculean efforts of the faculty and staff, who, too often, labor in spaces that
undermine their ability to teach imaginatively. The desire for more aesthetically
pleasing space isnt vanity; rather, it is the desire for spaces that honor teachers
work, allow for their inventiveness, inspire their charges, support their culture, and
improve their ability to deliver pedagogically significant ideas.
Is the Louvre, or the Capitol Building, or the White House, or the Empire State
Building necessary to teach? No. But, by looking at school buildings of the 19th
century and early 20th century, you see that these buildings once held, by design
and location, a central place in the heart of a community. Paul Cuffee School sits
in a post-industrial section of Providence, tucked away from the center of activity.
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However, it has created its own buzz by improving the land around it with the EPA
grant and by producing the highest test scores in the state for a fully urban district.
We would do a great service for our students, our teachers, and our community if
educational spaces sought to honor and reflect the good work that quietly occurs
daily.
COMMUNITY BASED ENVIRONMENTAL PEDAGOGY DESIGN INNOVATION

DownCity Design (DCD), a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering youth

through design education, was founded by an architect and an art educator, both of
whom strongly believe in the empowerment of youth to address issues in the urban
environment. By getting students involved in designing and building the future
of their cities, they can become creative problem solvers and agents of change.
Students in DCD programs identify challenges and opportunities in their schools
and neighborhoods, and they use the tools of Design Thinking to create solutions to
improve their communities.
Through the process of investigation and intervention, DCD blurs the distinction
between inside and outside the classroom and between curricular delivery and hands
on learning. By focusing on student driven projects, the learning is personalized
and contextualized in such a way that is relevant to students lives. DownCity
Design partners with schools, after-school programs, and community organizations
to offer inquiry-based programs that engage students and improve their outcomes,
helping them to become active citizens with skills that will serve them in school and
beyond. Youth who participate in DownCity Designs experiential programs gain
valuable academic and career skills, as well as an authentic sense of civic pride and
responsibility.
Over the course of the 2011-2012 academic year, DownCity Design had the
opportunity to host a year-long after-school design/build studio for the students of
Providences Nathan Bishop Middle School through the Providence After School
Alliance (PASA).
Nathan Bishop had recently undergone a major transformation. Their historic 1928
Georgian Revival Style building had been closed in 2005 due to its poor physical
condition. The following year, the school was up for demolition and was on the top
of Providence Preservation Societys Most Endangered Properties list. Many felt
that demolishing the building would be more cost effective and forward-thinking
than renovating it. Demolition would have generated substantial construction waste,
however, and new construction would have had a significant environmental impact.
Parents, preservationists, and advocates of sustainable design successfully advocated
instead for a smart renovation that would preserve the charm of the existing building,
while upgrading the interior to make it a 21st century learning environment.
Nathan Bishop reopened in 2009 as the first renovated historic school in Rhode
Island to be certified a High Performance Green School, using criteria defined by the
NECHPS. The floor-to-ceiling windows, generous classroom spaces, and historic
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Photo: Greenhouse Project Winter/Spring 2012, Nathan Bishop Middle School

Greenhouse, Build It! PASA AfterZone, courtesy of DownCity Design

details that made it a beloved neighborhood school have been preserved, and now
co-exist with SMART Boards, energy recovery units, solar-powered water heating,
and rainwater harvesting.
Perhaps most significantly, Nathan Bishop had made a commitment to using their
renovated school building as a teaching tool for students by installing signage that
explained the schools sustainable features as well as having kiosks that meter live
energy data and demonstrate consumption trends, including water usage.
The schools science teachers were eager to take the themes of sustainability and
environmental education a step further by launching a garden program in which
students would grow food for the school community. Through discussion, interviews,
and team decision making, DownCity Designs team of student designers chose to
help bring this vision to life by creating a greenhouse for the school.
DownCity Design Instructors Joshua Lantzy, Anastasia Laurenzi, and Sally
Harman were eager to help Nathan Bishop students explore sustainable design
principles through the greenhouse project, using the school building as the lens
through which to understand what all living things need to thrive. Students spent
the fall exploring systems that sustain life. They studied the day lighting strategies
used within the Nathan Bishop School to understand solar orientation, solar heat
gain, and passive heating. They looked at water capture, like the buildings rainwater
harvesting system, to better understand how to collect water for their greenhouse.
They learned about the schools energy-recovery system and HVAC systems to think
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about ventilation. And, they looked at the buildings historic brick structure to think
about energy transfer through building assemblies. The building literally became a
tool for understanding a variety of environmental phenomena and their interactions
with buildings.
All of the building specific learning was constantly referred back to plant
biology. To build upon the investigations, students built miniature greenhouses,
incorporating the principles they had researched, and they planted seeds to test
out their ideas. Some plants thrived, others withered. The team used this data to
revisit their designs, choosing the best features from each until they arrived at a
final consensus design.
The DCD student design team then researched solar orientation and mapped the
school grounds to determine the ideal site for their design. To build the greenhouse,
students chose to use sustainable materials and techniques. They reclaimed pallet
wood, prying it apart with crowbars and sanding down the rough edges. In addition,
they used storm windows, rather than new glass, bringing daylight to the plants
inside. Students learned to wield saws and drills many for the first time as they
mastered basic construction techniques and built their greenhouse. The final result is
both beautiful and functional and will be used for years to come by Nathan Bishop
science teachers and students.

Photo: Greenhouse Project Winter/Spring 2012, Nathan Bishop Middle School

Greenhouse, Build It! PASA AfterZone, courtesy of DownCity Design

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Photo: Greenhouse Project Winter/Spring 2012, Nathan Bishop Middle School

Greenhouse, Build It! PASA AfterZone, courtesy of DownCity Design

In the spring of 2013, Nathan Bishop was awarded the U.S. Department of
Educations inaugural Green Ribbon Schools Award. The STEM inspired, placebased curriculum developed through this work, and DownCity Design was a key
component of the schools comprehensive strategy for sustainability. Particularly
innovative and impactful was the innovative cross-disciplinary approach to
sustainability that connected the Green Ribbon environmental education pillar with
the health and safety and facility performance pillars to provide a learning experience
that was holistic, specific to their school and location, and most importantly
personally meaningful.
Although these projects are modest in scale, their impact and implications
are immense. The actions of these students implicitly make critical connections
between curricular content and the surrounding built and natural environment
through student engagement and agency. By doing so, the students are questioning
and, in some cases, breaking down the walls of the traditional and paradigmatic
classroom. In this implied construct, the school is no longer the ivory tower,
removed from the real context of their lives and disconnected from their life at
home and everything that falls in between. The school is instead a hub in a vast
web of connections that helps to contextualize learning by making it personal and
meaningful.

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Photo: Greenhouse Project Winter/Spring 2012, Nathan Bishop Middle School

Greenhouse, Build It! PASA AfterZone, courtesy of DownCity Design

Photo: Greenhouse Project Winter/Spring 2012, Nathan Bishop Middle School

Greenhouse, Build It! PASA AfterZone, courtesy of DownCity Design

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STUDENT BASED ENVIRONMENTAL PEDAGOGY- GREEN TEAMS INNOVATION

The Apeiron Institute for Sustainable Living provides education, advocacy, and
green job training to help individuals and institutions create sustainable lifestyles,
communities, and institutional practices. Apeirons work is grounded in a vision of
a world where humanity respects its intimate connection with the earth and lives
in a manner that fosters educated, prosperous, physically and spiritually healthy
communities while creating and sustaining clean air and water, fertile soil, abundant
wildlife, and beautiful places.
Apeirons Sustainable Schools Network is a vibrant community of K-12 schools
and districts working together to transform educational environments into living
models of environmental and social action. Through the Network, Apeiron provides
education and support to schools interested in integrating sustainability principles
and practices into their school curriculum, culture, physical infrastructure, and
operations. Since its inception, the Sustainable Schools Network has created,
delivered, and inspired school-based sustainability initiatives across the state. Among
its accomplishments, the Network has organized four Sustainable Schools Summits
in partnership with Rhode Island Department of Education and Rhode Island
College, among other partners, and through the support of Rhode Island Foundation,
Verizon Foundation, National Grid, RI Office of Energy Resources, and Prospect
Hill Foundation. Each event brought together upwards of 200 teachers, students,
parents, administrators, facilities managers, and officials from school communities

Photo: MET student working on photovoltaic solar powered car,

courtesy of Apeiron Institute

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Photo: Students demonstrating their constructed solar thermal heater,

courtesy of Apeiron Institute

across the state to showcase successful local initiatives and to provide participants
with the knowledge, resources, and support network to move their school toward
greater sustainability.
This quest and desire for learning are no better demonstrated than through
the formation of school-based green teams. Two notable examples, one from an
alternative public high school context, and one from a Providence district middle
school, reveal just how robust the initiatives of these green teams can be, contributing
in significant ways not only to school-wide behavior change, but to changes in
school culture, acting as models for other schools and groups of students considering
initiation of such change.
The East Bay Met School, located in Newport, RI, has had a Green Team since
2004. Among their many activities, they launched a recycling program at the school,
have done water testing, and participated in food production. Each of these activities,
in the spirit of project-based learning, is integrated into the larger curriculum, and
each affords opportunities to learn math, science, and other 21st century skills. For
example, students maintain detailed logs of recycling, monitoring quantities of
various items, including paper, plastic, and batteries that are recycled over time. Food
production involves seeding beds, tending to plants, and maintaining greenhouses.
Green Team students have also created passionate video films to share their message
with wider audiences these films have been shown at the Sustainable Schools
Summit.

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Photo: Green team students showcasing their urban garden, courtesy of Apeiron Institute
APEIRONS SCHOOL-BASED GREEN TEAM MODEL

School-based Green Teams give young people the chance and the tools to step up
as leaders, make a difference in their schools, and become community caretakers.
This program engages youth in hands-on, real world problem solving in their school.
With support from all sectors of the school community, the Green Team inventories
their schools functions and habits takes an inside look at how their building
uses energy, how much the school recycles, where school food comes from and
ultimately designs and implements a school based project of importance to the team.
By the nature of the program, youth are practicing STEM and literacy skills through
critical thinking.

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Photo: MET recycling program tracking mural, courtesy of MET school.

Photo: Paul Crowley MET school community gardening program,

courtesy of MET School.
GILBERT STUART MIDDLE SCHOOL GREEN TEAM

In the Spring of 2012, the Apeiron Institute partnered with Gilbert Stuart Middle
School math teacher Krystyna Nicoletti through the Providence After School
Alliance to launch the inaugural Gilbert Stuart Middle School Green Team in
Providence, RI. The initiative evolved out of a unique and powerful co-teaching
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Photo Green Team recycling and school yard cleanup program,

courtesy of Apeiron Insitute

relationship between a public school teacher and a community based educator who
understood that Gilbert Stuart is an example of an underperforming, underserved,
and under-maintained school in need of a community coming together to improve
the health and vitality of a building and its occupants.
Providence Public Schools (PPSD) has made significant strides in recent years
to improve environmental conditions and operations in schools. Two schools were
recently awarded Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) certification
and a system-wide infrastructure improvement plan has resulted in the completion
of extensive renovations in 11 schools, with 11 more underway. Despite strong
leadership and initiative PPSD has classified 67% of its school buildings as being
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Photo Gilbert Stuart Youth Program students, courtesy of Apeiron Institute

in either poor or fair condition, and an even greater percentage (75%) of Providence
middle schools are categorized as such (www.providenceschools.org).
With this in mind, a school teacher and community educator came together to
engage a team of students, teachers, facilities managers, and community members
to redress these health problems on the ground. Green Team youth were given the
opportunity to assess their school building, identify what they liked and disliked,
collect data on school-wide consumption and waste production, and develop
strategies to create an environmentally sustainable school. Through this process,
students uncovered the relationship between their collective lifestyle choices and
the resulting impact on the environment. They learned that by engaging in activities
that were healthy for their environment walking to school, learning in outdoor
classrooms, using non-toxic cleaning products they were also doing things that
were healthy for their bodies. They were given the opportunity to share their beliefs,
concerns, and ideas and become agents of change.
The greatest dissatisfaction came from observing the garbage in their schoolyard
and the littering habits of the school community. As a result of their findings, the
Green Team designed and implemented a plan to clean up their schoolyard and
prevent future littering through an organized clean up event, educational signage,
and additional garbage and recycling bins. In order to accomplish their goal, they
realized they would need to reach out to the stakeholders responsible for their facility
and engage the school community and neighborhood in their efforts. In calling
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Aramark headquarters in Providence and writing to a local volunteer mobilizing

organization, Green Team youth practiced communication and debate skills in a
real world setting. Their voices, concerns, and ideas were validated and respected.
Aramark responded with additional bins, and volunteers from the school and stepped
forward to participate in the effort.
As a result of this experience, middle school youth at Gilbert Stuart learned how
to utilize their school as an opportunity for skills building and were empowered as
positive change makers. The school building became a fertile platform for practicing
critical thinking, inquiry, problem-solving, innovation, data collection and analysis,
and communication. Even more profoundly, they created a positive feedback loop
by moving their school environment in a healthy direction that would in turn have
the capacity to foster effective teaching and learning.
CONCLUSION

Our students, schools, community, state, country, and our planets future rely on a
well-informed and engaged generation of stewards who can meet the challenges of
the world that they will inherit. In order to create environmentally literate citizens
who can face these challenges, we must ensure that our students learn about the
interconnectedness of human and natural systems by embedding environmental
education into all strands of K-12 curriculum and including higher education.
This chapter has helped discover, contextualize, and connect the expanding
frameworks of environmental education, from the federal level to individual students
in their communities of Rhode Island. Through the study of these various initiatives,
programs, and regulations, we can establish the space and place of environmental
education in the landscape of K-12 education. This conceptual mapping can assist us
in further understanding the unrealized potential of our current systems, as well as
establish areas that are ripe for intervention, innovation, and connection.
The growing federal and state support and guidance for environmental education
has helped create a vision for an environmentally literate generation. In addition
to these emerging visions of environmental literacy, there is growing interest and
great potential in the creation of a cohesive government framework and funding
for environmental education similar to the No Child Left Inside senate bill
introduced in 2009, sponsored by Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed. Despite the lack
of a unifying agency or legislation, several federal agencies have been supporting
environmental education programs and integration through funding and other
resources. Interestingly, most of the funding for environmental education has been
channeled through the Environmental Protection Agency.
This work also argues that Rhode Island is uniquely poised to implement and
benefit from the implementation of a strong environmental education because of the
unique and compact presence of a very diverse ecosystem (coastal zone) and urban
development in a relatively small geographic area. Additionally, the high percentage
of children living in urban settings in Rhode Island makes it an ideal place to foster
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a generation of citizens who understand societys impact on that natural world.

As evidenced in this chapter, Rhode Island has been blazing the trail in environmental
literacy. The state has adopted an Environmental Literacy Plan, participated in the
Green Ribbon School program since the inaugural year, and has a green school
verification program that includes an environmental literacy component.
It is worth noting that the contents of this chapter are predicated on the conviction
that there is great value in the knowledge and understanding of the environment, as
well as the interrelatedness of the built and natural environment. Furthermore, there
is an underlying belief that active engagement and participation (i.e. place-based and
experiential learning) provides meaningful learning experiences that can enhance
more traditional curriculum and instruction. Few would argue that environmental
education cannot improve student engagement and high order thinking skills, such
as creative problem solving and critical thinking. However, this learning is intended
to enhance, not replace, current curricula.
Thus, the proposed contextual pedagogy called School as a Tool attempts to
bridge the quality of education our children receive with their ability to become
environmental stewards of our home planet. Further, it attempts to reinforce the
notion that the curriculum we choose to deliver today, however entrenched in 20th
century sensibilities, must be critically transformed towards a more sustainable and
socially just quality of life based curriculum that acknowledges generational equity.
To this end, the curricular choices we make must focus on sustainable development,
given our understanding that our children will potentially face unprecedented
anthropogenic induced global challenges beginning as soon as the middle part of 21st
century. Therefore, we must develop local solutions to these global environmental
challenges of climate change, global poverty and growing tensions between nations by
incorporating the School as a Teaching Tool protocol. Through this environmental
based pedagogy, we may shed a light on the localized experiences that can create
positive change while aligning our values with 21st century sustainable principles
that can potentially improve student achievement in academics and in careers, but
can also enhance that most critical and noble venture of all, a long and healthy life.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES

Manuel Cordero Alvarado is the Assistant School Construction Coordinator

at RI Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Alvarado earned his
undergraduate degree from Yale College and received a Master of Architecture
degree from the University of California, Berkeley. He is active in the Providence
community and has taught architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design and
U. C. Berkeley.
Clyde Barrow earned his doctorate from the UCLA in 1984. He is the Chancellor
Professor and Director of the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouths Center for
Policy Analysis, specializing in Massachusetts public policy, policy formation,
higher education policy, gaming policy, and regional economic development. His
research interests in education are focused on the impact of globalization and
its impact on organizational and curriculum development in higher education,
the corporatization of higher education institutions, and the evolution of higher
education as an ideological state apparatus. His publications include Globalisation,
Trade Liberalisation, and Higher Education in North America: The Emergence of
a New Market Under NAFTA?; Critical Theories of the State, Universities and the
Capitalist State: Corporate Liberalism and the Reconstruction of American Higher
Education, 1894-1928; as well as over thirty-five journal articles and essays. Barrow
sits on the Board of Editors for New Political Science journal.
Jeffry Beard is a doctoral student in Educational Leadership at Plymouth State
University in Plymouth, New Hampshire. Beard is presently working at Beech Hill
School in Hopkinton, NH, teaching English and Literature to students in grades 6, 7,
and 8. Beards research interests include: interpersonal relationships, the formation
of groups and the experiences of individuals working within those groups, doctoral
programs of study and the experiences of students in those programs.
Dawn Bryden is a doctoral student in Educational Leadership and Supervision
at American International College, and she is the Assistant Dean of Academic
Partnerships and Transfer Enrollment at Bay Path College. She has dedicated
much of her life to developing and educating others. Bryden has also developed
comprehensive academic and co-curricular programming with a focus on transfer
student retention and persistence which has supported 94% retention for this
cohort of students. She has also been responsible for developing, promoting, and
researching academic partnerships with community colleges in the New England
Region that offer students a seamless transition from the two-year institution to Bay
Path College. Bryden received her bachelors degree in Business and a Masters
degree in Communication and Information Management at Bay Path College.
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Author Biographies

Elizabeth Bux is the Director of Youth Programming & Teacher Education at The
Apeiron Institute for Sustainable Living in Providence and has served for 6 years
as an environmental educator, naturalist and sustainability role model for youth
of all ages. She organizes Apeirons school-based education programs, state-wide
RI Junior Solar Sprint competition and Sustainable Schools Summit, among other
sustainability education efforts, and has led various professional development
workshops addressing topics ranging from model solar car construction to placebased education. She has developed meaningful and positive relationships working
with youth groups over the years and advocates for their development as community
caretakers and positive agents of change.
Kathy DesRoaches is earning a doctoral degree in Educational Leadership at
Plymouth State University in Plymouth, New Hampshire. She is the director of
workforce development at Manchester Community College, Manchester NH. Her
research interests are: womens studies, women in politics, mentoring, and peer
mentoring.
Adrienne Gagnon is the Founder and Executive Director of DownCity Design
and is a visual artist and arts educator. She graduated magna cum laude from Yale
University and received her MA in Community Arts Education from Rhode Island
School of Design. Adrienne has worked as a curator of contemporary art for the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the UC Berkeley Art Museum. Since
returning to her native Rhode Island, Adrienne has taught for several local arts
education organizations, including the RISD Museum, Providence CityArts, Project
Open Door, and RISD Continuing Education. Gagnon is currently the Education
Director for Providence CityArts for Youth.
Elizabeth Janson is a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership and Policy
Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She works as a high
school English teacher with a research background in technology and standardization
of curriculum. She is the President of Graduate Students Association, the chair of the
November 2013 Critical Transformative Leadership and Policy Conference Voices
and Silences of Social and Cognitive Justice and a doctoral student in Educational
Leadership and Policy program. Her research focus is centered on how schools play
a role in the development of identities, discourses, and hegemony within the context
of privatization, globalization, and cultural politics.
Brad Kershner is a doctoral student at the Lynch School of Education at Boston
College. He holds an AM from the University of Chicago and has worked as an
educator in New York City, Chicago, Cleveland, and the San Francisco Bay area. He
is currently training to become a school leader in Boston while working on research
projects related to school leadership, complexity, educational reform, and human
development.
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Author Biographies

Kuo-Pin Lin is a doctoral student in Education at Plymouth State University. His

research interests are in community-based arts programs that integrate arts education
and youth development. He earned his B. F. A. and M. L. A. degrees from the
University of Pennsylvania; M. F. A. degree from the NY Academy of Art; M. Ed.
degree from the Teachers College, Columbia University and M. A. degree from the
Yale University. As a teaching artist and landscape painter, he has exhibited in the
U.S., South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, and is in collections in the U.S. and Taiwan.
Kuo-Pin Lin lives and works in Connecticut and New Hampshire, continuing to
exhibit his artwork in the US and internationally.
Deborah Meier is the founding principal of the Central Park East II and River East
schools, located in East Harlem, and founder of the Central Park East Secondary
School, all of which were established on the progressive principles of democracy
within the school, where the schools posted graduation rates of 90%, and where
90% of those graduates went on to college. She is currently on the faculty of New
York Universitys Steinhardt School of Education. Her Books include: The Power
of their Ideas: Lessons for America from a Small School in Harlem; Will Standards
Save Public Education?; In Schools We Trust: Creating Communities of Learning
in an Era of Testing and Standardization; Keeping School: Letters to Families from
Principals of Two Small Schools; and Many Children Left Behind. In 1987 she was
the first educator to receive a McArthur Genius Award.
Michael C. Obel-Omia is Head of the Paul Cuffee Charter School in Providence.
With a quarter century of educational experience, including teaching, coaching,
advising, serving as a dean of students, a director of admission, a head of an upper
school, and now head of school, Obel-Omia has been working with sustainability
issues since reading with relish Thoreaus Walden Pond as an undergraduate student
at Middlebury College, an institution that has been a leader in sustainability for the
past quarter century. As Head of the Hunting Valley Campus of University School
in Ohio, Obel-Omia focused the school community on maintaining and honoring
its abundant physical resources. While at Paul Cuffee School, he has assisted the
School in securing a $400,000 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grant to
remediate an adjacent lot to the elementary school.
Joo M. Paraskeva was born in Maputo, then Peoples Republic of Mozambique,
and concluded the middle and secondary education under the Marxist-Leninist state.
A former middle school and high school teacher in the southern Africa region, he
is currently a Full Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Chair of
the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. and Program Director
of Ed. D / Ph. D in Education Leadership and Policy Studies. Paraskevas research
interests are profoundly interdisciplinary and focus on the relation between social
policy, education, and curriculum within the dynamics of ideological production.
He is particularly interested in doing research regarding the tensions and challenges
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Author Biographies

within and between critical and post-al theories. While he is not definitely the first
to examine and identify such intricate tensions, he surely pioneered the struggle
against curriculum epistimicides by undertaking original research in understanding
such intricate epistemological clashes, as well as producing new theoretical paths
that challenge the totalitarianism of both dominant and particular counter dominant
western epistemological approaches, thus bringing to the fore the importance
non-western epistemological approaches to better understand the production and
reproduction of the systems of reason that govern social policy and research related
to education. His latest books are Conflicts in Curriculum Theory; Challenge
Hegemonic Epistemologies; Globalisms and Power; Peter Lang; Nueva Teoria
Curricular. He the Promodoc Ambassador of the European Union PhD Programs
in the United States. He was recently elected the Director of the prestigious Center
for Portuguese Studies and Culture in the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
Kenneth Saltman is a Professor of the Educational Policy Studies and
ResearchDepartment in the School of Education and the Social and Cultural
Foundations in Education graduate program at DePaul University. His research
interests include sociology of education, philosophy of education, educational
politics and policy, the cultural politics and political economy of education and
mass media, critical pedagogy, cultural studies, critical theory, globalization and
education, educational leadership, curriculum theory, and philosophy of sport and
the body. He is the author most recently of The Failure of Corporate School Reform;
Capitalizing on Disaster: Taking and Breaking Public Schools, which was awarded
a 2008 American Educational Studies Critics Choice Book Award, and The Edison
Schools.
Joseph da Silva is a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership and Policy
Studies program at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and an awardwinning registered school architect and a public servant for the Rhode Island
Department of Education. He is responsible for the construction oversight of the
States public school facilities. Under his leadership, the Departments School
Construction Program has been transformed into a nationally recognized green
schools exemplar. Following his Masters degree in environmental science with
a sustainability focus from the University of Rhode Island, he received an adjunct
appointment at Bristol Community College in the Mathematics, Science and
Engineering Division. Da Silvas research focuses on exploring the hegemonic
interplay between elements of school architecture and curriculum major traditions.
Mary Taft has held diverse roles in public, private, and higher education. For fifteen
years she taught science, technology, and engineering in Massachusetts public
schools to students in grades 2-8. She has recently been appointed the Academic
Dean of the Kildonan School, which is an independent school for grades 2-12 that
is dedicated to providing specialized educational services to dyslexic students. Mary
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Author Biographies

Taft holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh, a M.Ed. in

School Administration, and an Ed.D. in Teaching and Learning from American
International College.
Katie Warren is a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
program at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and a English teacher at
Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School in Fall River, MA. She has
worked within the education field for eleven years and has spent much of that time
teaching grades 7-12 English and college level writing courses. Additionally, Warren
is Massachusetts certified as a building principal. Though she hopes to one day
advance her career within the education field, Warrens current focus involves issues
relating to the Common Core State Standards, high-stakes testing, and standardized
curriculum. All of these areas will be addressed in her upcoming doctoral dissertation.
Halley Zanconato is a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership and Policy
Studies program at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She earned her
Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Mount Holyoke College and her Master of
Library and Information Science degree from Rutgers University with a specialization
in Digital Libraries. She is currently the Library Media Specialist at Dartmouth High
School in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and has previously worked as an elementary
librarian, public reference librarian, and high school English teacher. Her research
interests reside in the gap between academic curricula and school library standards
and programs.
For further information about the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouths
Educational Leadership and Policy doctorate program, to learn about future events,
or to find information on forthcoming conferences, please visit our website:
http://www.umassd.edu/cas/schoolofeducation/educationalleadership/.

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