Education Reform - Dissent Magazine

Belabored Podcast #87: Class War in the Classroom

Sarah Jaffe and Michelle Chen ▪ October 3, 2015

Megan Erickson joins us to discuss her new book, Class War: The Privatization of Childhood, and how education can’t solve inequality, but can become less unequal.

Classroom Saints and Fiends

Joanne Barkan ▪ Spring 2015

Dana Goldstein’s The Teacher Wars shows that the failed ideas underlying today’s ed-reform crusade are as old as public education itself.

Where the Promise of Preschool Ends

Amy Rothschild ▪ August 21, 2014

This August, as I look over names of my incoming prekindergarten and kindergarten students, my attention is divided. I’m also focused on Ferguson. At an assembly on August 14 in Washington, D.C.’s Malcolm X Park, I joined the hundreds gathered …

Teachers, Education Reform, and Mexico’s Left

Benjamin T. Smith ▪ October 7, 2013

Mexican leftists have flocked to support teachers’ unions in their protests against proposed education reforms. But by overlooking the unions’ undemocratic features and lack of popular support, the left weakens the fight against neoliberalism.

How Many Lives Did Your Last Spreadsheet Change?

Ilana Garon ▪ August 30, 2013

It was an ad on a subway train that first gave me the idea to become a teacher. In March of 2003, my senior year of college, I was riding along listening to my MP3 player when I looked up and saw an advertisement for New York City Teaching Fellows—a black background with stark white lettering: “How many lives did your last spreadsheet change?” The job seemed like a challenge, and that was what I was looking for.

“Empowerment” Against Democracy: Tinseltown and the Teachers’ Unions

Liza Featherstone ▪ September 26, 2012

“You know those mothers who lift one-ton trucks off their babies?” says Jamie Fitzpatrick, a working-class mom (played Maggie Gyllenhall), in a confrontation with a corrupt union rep in Daniel Barnz’s edu-drama, Won’t Back Down. “They’re nothing compared to me.” …

Chicago Teachers on Strike

Editors ▪ September 10, 2012

Update (9/10): read Bill Barclay’s background on the strike here. Update (9/12): watch Dissent contributor and editorial board member Joanne Barkan discuss the strike on Al Jazeera English. After unsuccessful negotiations between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union, …

Hired Guns on Astroturf: How to Buy and Sell School Reform

Joanne Barkan ▪ Spring 2012

For the last decade and more, a generation of self-proclaimed “ed reformers” has been setting up programs to show the power of competition and market-style accountability to transform inner-city public schools. Ed reformers spend at least a half-billion dollars a year in private money…

Calling the Shots in Public Education: Parents, Politicians, and Educators Clash

Eva Gold, Jeffrey R. Henig, and Elaine Simon ▪ Fall 2011

The gap between calls for parental engagement in education and institutional realities is wide. Educators say they value parent participation, but by that they often mean a junior partner role in which parents monitor homework, make sure kids get to …

Criminalizing Kids: The Overlooked Reason for Failing Schools

Heather Ann Thompson ▪ Fall 2011

The nation’s dropout rate reached crisis levels in 2009, and test scores posted by its poorest public schools were also grim. Only 70 percent of first-year students entering America’s high schools were graduating, with a full 1.2 million students dropping …