Review: Mathematician's Lament by Lockhart

A Mathematician's Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form

by Paul Lockhart

A Review

 Wonderful Ideas in Theory, with tragic flaws in argument

As a mathematics teacher and long-time student of mathematics, I was overjoyed to begin reading this book, finally one that attempts to explain the beauty and elegance of mathematics and to expose the way in which we are teaching it, which does not do justice to it at all. I absolutely agree with *most* of Lockhart's assessment on many points, for example, that mathematics is an art, that it should not be taught as procedures and formulas and meaningless word problems that contrive to be about "real life." 

I agree, most of our math teachers do not have this kind of appreciation for mathematics, which is tragic because it means our kids will grow up scared and intimidated by math ("math anxiety") instead of awed at its power of abstract interpretation. I agree our approach needs to be completely overhauled. 

My 2 star rating is due to the fact that Lockhart's analysis is strongly lacking in a historical understanding as well as pedagogical/curriculum knowledge. For example, he says that word problems should not be contrived to be about real life (I agree with this point), and that math is beautiful precisely BECAUSE it is irrelevant to real life. 

As a mathematician I cannot possibly comprehend how another mathematician could possibly believe the beauty of mathematics comes from its "irrelevance" of abstraction: in fact, the reason math is SO powerful is that these abstract representations have all been historically "discovered" or "invented" (depending on what you believe math is: inherent in the world, or a human game of abstraction)--particularly in order to try to model and explain phenomena observed in "the real world." 

Lockhart says math was created by humans "for their own amusement" (p. 31), but ignores that in fact all branches of mathematics in the past were created in response to actual world problems, and not only that, but now, some of the most fascinating mathematics is being created again in response to solving some of the most complex problems we have imagined, such as the mathematics behind string theory. I don't know how Lockhart could possibly consider that humans invented counting, ways to measure their plots of land and keep track of money, or ways to measure the orbits of planets (thus leading us to the current "space age") as "purely amusement"--perhaps, if LIFE is amusement in general, but really, all of these inventions had a very REAL, concrete, specific historical cultural purpose and are not "just made up" for fun!!! 

In fact, math is EMBODIED in our cognitive schemas and perception, and THIS IS PRECISELY what makes it so WONDERFUL: its RELEVANCE to EVERYTHING in real life and humanity's inherent capacity for thinking about the real world in this abstract way! Math is not "just" "fantasy" (as on p. 39) (see especially Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being). 

I teach functions (precalculus, AP calculus) and the main theme and point of math for example at this level is to teach kids how basically, in life, we track patterns of change in anything and everything--public health data, unemployment, polling, the stock market, baseball stats, etc. Functions are just the most abstract way to model these changing patterns over time (or some other variable) and thus give us the powerful tool of projecting into the future/past and otherwise analyzing trends. Yes, functions are abstract, but they are NOT "just fantasy play," irrelevant to the real world, or made up simply for the fun of it, in fact, quite the opposite of all of these. 

Further, my (and I believe, many) students would be aghast to learn that a math teacher is suggesting an overhaul of math education based on the idea that"kids don't really want something that is relevant to their daily lives." This is the most absurd statement I have ever heard, so I am guessing Lockhart knows nothing about adolescent/child development, interest, and pedagogical literature. Learning in general is based on making connections to prior knowledge, and I have never heard any question asked more often in math class when I didn't explain the relevance in advance than "Why do I need to know this? How is this relevant to my life?" This is probably the MOST pressing question for adolescents in general.. 

Other examples of pedagogical tragedies in this book include Lockhart's admonitions that "you can't teach teaching," that "schools of education are a complete crock" and that teachers shouldn't lesson plan because this is somehow "not real" or authentic (p. 46-47). While I agree schools of education are not preparing our teachers well and what we need is much more systemic training in content knowledge (for example, math teachers should all have to double major in math/pedagogy or education), IT IS absolutely not true or supported by any research (except perhaps by the current corporate brand of the reform movement) that teaching is something you "have" that you don't need to "learn" and, further, that you shouldn't plan because this is inauthentic. 

A plan should of course never prevent a teacher from moving in new directions as suggested by the course of the class, but coming in without a plan is certainly not considered sound practice in any theory of learning and from any angle, and in general is not a sound principle of life (i.e., just doing everything by the seat of your pants and counting on your "genius" to lead you through whatever you should have planned usually doesn't work, unless you are in a feel-good movie). Only in Lockhart's fantasy "lala land" of irrelevancy is planning a vice and not a virtue. Plus, there's so much more to "planning" than thinking about the flow of the lesson, how you will help students make connections, etc. I assess and plan hand in hand for example, so I will grade the last night's HW and that day's Exit Slip and plan the next days's and week's lessons all the while incorporating items my students did not fully understand the first time, and also while addressing specifically the mistakes they made (and each class/year of students tends to have different problems and make different mistakes so it is important to constantly plan and reflect as a teacher on what is best for your particular students NOW).

Review: The University in Chains by Giroux

The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex (The Radical Imagination)

by Henry A. Giroux A Review

 First part: powerful and convincing; Second part: polemical and arrogant

After the first (and only truly substantive chapter), I would have given this work 4 stars; having (with difficulty) swallowed the next three chapters, I had to revise this rating down to 2 stars.

In the first part of the book, Giroux makes a compelling argument that institutionalized forms of academics have succumbed to the national security state and to a mythico-masculine idealization of American imperialism. Giroux writes that this military-industrial-academic complex has taken over American universities, that the intersection of corporatism and militarization legitimizes and normalizes a constant state of terror/fear (especially embodied in our culture since 9/11), and that the academy is a contested terrain in which such struggles manifest in a unique and singular way.

Though this first part is clearly rooted in an Enlightenment-democracy-model of education and thus has its agenda and ideological orientation, it's not ostentatiously polemical. The second part, however, degenerates rapidly into polemical rantings: he complains that Horowitz speaks in "sweeping monolithic terms" of "the Left", while speaking in sweeping monolithic terms of the "formidable alliance of far-right-wing foundations", conservative talk-show hosts, thinktanks, and the like. He bemoans that the "right" uses a rhetoric of fear and terror, while urging us to consider his argument on terms that engender fear (this is, after all, a "dark time", characterized by "dark" forces that threaten democracy and all that is good in America, and so on). In other words, Giroux uses the language and rhetoric of the "right" in his "leftist" rant, and is thus not any more "academic" or "professional" in his tone than those he so adamantly condemns.

On a personal note--not that Giroux ever feels compelled to share his background as a context for his views--I am a liberal in academia, not an outraged "rightist." What does outrage me, however, is the doublespeak of the "left": instead of practicing a politics of reconciliation, as we preach, some of us choose to continue divisive dialogue.

A typical example: After lamenting that democracy is not respected in the academy, Giroux asserts that "because students disagree with an unsettling idea doe not mean that they have the authority, expertise, education, or power to dictate for all their classmates... [what the curriculum should be]"... and that there is "no language for conservative students to become conscious of their own ignorance". I challenge Dr. Giroux to critically examine these assertions: does he truly want to claim that students (in a democratic academy, student who are supposedly critical thinkers, Enlightened rationalists, etc) are in fact powerless to challenge their curriculum?? And SHOULD BE?? because they do not have "the authority, expertise, education".. or "language" to understand their "ignorance"?? Whoa...

Review: Class and Schools by Rothstein

Class And Schools: Using Social, Economic, And Educational Reform To Close The Black-white Achievement Gap

by Richard Rothstein A Review

 Technocratic meta-research that aims to "prove" what history has told us for centuries

Rothstein's Class and Schools compiles empirical, quantitative studies that have investigated effects on child learning in school to show that children enter school with significant differences in abilities and potentials. These differences are caused by various factors such as class, race, health status, home situation, and so on--all factors typically outside the domain of influence of the school. Essentially Rothstein shows that, because children spend much of their time outside of schools--in their homes and communities, schools cannot be expected to solve all problems (or at least cannot be faulted for not being able to do so). Rothstein's recommendations include moving some of the factors involved into the school or into the dominion of the state. For example, he suggests school health/vision clinics and increased supervision in before and after-school programs (and over the summer). Rothstein further suggests broader policy is needed to restructure the inequality outside of the school--for example, by providing stable, safe housing for low-SES communities.

I absolutely agree with Rothstein's conclusion: schools can't fix all problems. My two main problems with the work, and the reason for the one star rating, are (1) that Rothstein's logic is driven by no evidence, and that he manages to mangle basic logical constructs of arguments, and (2) scientific quantitative ahistorical methods are not at all suited for the questions at hand.

In regard to (1): it is fairly well accepted in most other disciplines that focus on social phenomena--sociology, history, psychology, philosophy, others--that things never happen in a vacuum, that there are always relationships between what happens at home, at school, at work, in public and in private, in body and in mind, at the individual level and at the societal level. This is never something that has to be proven: it is always taken as a premise. Rothstein twists this logic on its head.

He vaguely accuses a "They" for expecting schools to fix all ills, without any proof--In Rothstein: "Americans have come to the conclusion that the achievement gap is the fault of `failing schools'" (p. 1)--additionally, monolithic conceptions such as this should be suspect to any critical reader.

Which brings me to (2): it seems that if one were really trying to show how forces intersected to shape child learning, one might be much better served by historical methods. The unequal structures that still shape American society today that have roots in colonial times, in slavery, in the unique construction of racism in the United States. Rothstein acknowledges that there is a deep connection between race and class in the United States, but leaves the nature unspoken. Instead, he attempts to quantify the correlation between race and class, essentially trying to extricate the effects of race from class by a number.

Historically this construction is absurd. It ignores the fact that race and class have an intricate, intertwined history in America as they do nowhere else. It is here that the racialization of slavery occurred, here that class formation emerged along lines of race because of the nature of racialized slavery. Scholars have written about how racialization, or the construction of race, occurred during American slavery (for example as shown by Ira Berlin, professor of history at UMD in his various works including Ira Berlin, Generations of captivity: A history of African-American slaves. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press). Splitting the two by a number cannot be done in general, but in particular here in the United States, where class formation occurred along racialized lines institutionalized in slavery. This not a simple problem of addition--race and class are not distinct in any way that can be quantified by a number (as a `correlation', or alleged overlap between the two separate phenomena).

There is certainly a place for quantitative work in assessing schools, curriculum, and even individuals. However, to draw lines from what little quantitative data can tell us to implications for how people should live their lives (i.e., in school from `before-school' programs through `after-school' programs, 6am-8pm) seems far-stretched if the problem is placed in historical/holistic perspective. Then, it becomes clear that a whole structuring of society is at play, and that transformations of such structurings have historically taken centuries of gradual change in all aspects of society.

For example, school segregation and inequality is not a new phenomenon discovered by the "reformers" nowadays who are allegedly trying to save schools. Schools have a long history of segregation in the United States: as old as this land has been colonized by English speaking settlers. From the very beginning (1600s) schools have been a mechanism of preservation (or enhancement) of the dominant culture. In the emergence of the common school (that occurred everywhere from the 1830s/40s in parts of the North through the 1870s in parts of the South), segregation was key to the organization and allocation of school resources and to dictating curriculum. Blacks, were, for example, encouraged towards schools of manual labor as women were trained to be good wives and white men continued on to Harvard et al (see, for example, Lawrence Cremin, American Education: The National Experience, New York, Harper & Row, 1980).

There are many other problems with the work: Rothstein speaks of 'averages' yet never shows us a distribution graph (what he means by 'averages' is distribution), he casually throws around the phrase 'black culture of underachievement' while never mentioning slavery and his white-maleness, he repeatedly confuses class and race without defining either, he uses his own ancestors (Jewish immigrants) as example of 'superior' adjustment over Italian immigrants in the States, he never examines his position/bias, he takes tests at their value and fails to critically examine who wrote the tests and for what purpose, ... and much more. He exalts middle-class culture as an ideal to be imparted upon the 'disadvantaged', he suggests we should attempt to assess "non-cognitive skills" like "tolerance, comprehension of pluralism, self-direction, responsibility, and commitment to craft" (p. 97); he is often contradictory, and at times even racist. Consider what Rothstein has to say on biology and genetics:

On one hand, Rothstein writes that a "family's economic, educational, and cultural traits are influenced by the genetic traits of the parents"; in other words, "smarter" parents have "smarter" babies and such reasoning (17). On the other, he says blacks and whites do not have inherent different genetics--but then again, whites do test "smarter", according to him, and there is nothing wrong with the testing in essence (i.e., who constructs the tests, the framework tests follow, etc)... we are left to work out the ambiguities of the position on our own. What saves Rothstein's ambiguity from more blatant expression is that he believes it's essentially out of policy's range at this point to regulate genetics or to do anything about them, so he "does not dwell on the possible genetic contributions" (p. 17).

This work is truly disturbing in its lack of critical examination, considering it claims its place within a critical tradition.

Review: Pedagogies of the Imagination by Leonard

Pedagogies of the Imagination: Mythopoetic Curriculum in Educational Practice

by Timothy Leonard a review

 Engaging collection that will challenge assumptions and diffuse boundaries,

This collection of essays explores mythopoetic dimensions of pedagogy from various perspectives. While each contributor has his or her own individual understanding of mythopoetic, Patricia Holland and Noreen Garman provide a broad theoretical foundation for the collection--essentially they construct the mythopoetic as both critical and interpretive (two 'paradigms' in the field of educational research that are often understood as distinct-the critical dimension as normative, the interpretive as interested in meaning). The message: the mythopoetic domain is not only a land of imagination where nothing is *real*, but in fact is political in its very being and requires reflexive, continuous self-questioning. Imagination is political. This implies a radical ethics, one in which we become responsible for our envisioning of the world.

I personally enjoyed the first half of the collection ("Mythopoesis and Curriculum Theorizing") but found myself glossing over the second part ("Mythopoesis in Educational Practice", save a few articles, for example Mary Doll's "Capacity and Currere"). While the first part often offers profound interpretations and inter-disciplinary connections, the second part is more descriptive of actual classroom practices and overall has the very 'social sciency' feel to it, and not a rigorous one at that (categorizing things in stages and steps, writing them in bulleted lists, quoting long passages of 'lived experience' accounts, quoting secondary sources who quote primary sources, using language like 'representation' when talking about art, and so on).

Overall, however, the message of the work is solid and powerful. Even the chapters I did not enjoy so much I found challenged some of my held assumptions, and for that I highly recommend this collection. As Leonard and Willis write in the conclusion, perhaps this work will help teachers or others who already practice or experience within this dimension to articulate their experiences, and to come forth and tell their stories--to make themselves known. Or perhaps this work will help us better understand how we live in the myth of Western science, and how we may otherwise envision our worlds. It's worth your time (though based on this first edition's price, I would find it in a library).

Review: Inequality at the Starting Gate by Lee & Burkam

Inequality at the Starting Gate: Social Background Differences in Achievement as Children Begin School

A Review

 Dry ahistorical statistical analysis of child inequality

Lee and Berkham use data from the U.S. Department of Education's Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) to show that various variables affect `cognitive skills' of children, such as everything from socioeconomic context to television habits, particularly as children first enter school. They contend that of all influences, socioeconomic status has the most impact on child learning, and propose several directions for policy based on their analysis, including beginning out-of-home daycare/school at an earlier age and increasing school resources in low SES communities.

Why only a "2" star rating? The book is dry and ahistorical: there is no analysis of *why* or *how* we find ourselves in the dire situation of today. Instead, Lee and Burkam act as if we could disentangle race and class through hierarchical modeling, and construct the problem as a simple one of addition: race contributes this much to learning, class this much, school resources this much, and so on. In fact, historically this is absurd, particularly in the Unites States where class formation occurred along the lines of race institutionalized in slavery. There is no simple number that will extricate race from class.

There are many other problems with the work, even within its own paradigm. For example, Lee and Burkam use a hierarchical least squares regression model to disentangle the effects of (in order): race; social class; child demographics; home demographics; education expectations and pre-K care; at-home activities; outside-home activities (p. 49-56)

However, this model has a bias that is left unexamined in the report: the order in which the variables are used in the hierarchical analysis matters. This model is mathematically hierarchical; when it is applied to social science situations, it is generally used to study phenomena that are naturally hierarchically structured. For example, the first level might divide students by state, then by district, then by school, and so on (in naturally nested subunits of students). However, students are not naturally divided into race, social class, and so on in the same naturally hierarchical way. In fact, Lee and Burkam rank their chosen variables in order of what they believe most characterize students: first, at the top as the most significant characteristic, race, then, social class, and so on. Their analysis would yield different numbers/correlations, in other words, if they had ranked their variables differently. Their 'results', then, that SES matters more than class, are in fact invalidated by their own construction of the problem.

Other question marks: This research is published by EPI, according to them, a non-profit thinktank (turns out EPI is funded by labor unions and similar organizations). Of note is that this research is published `in-house'. Also: Lee and Burkam do not critically question the hierarchical framework of testing and of their own quantitative framework, do not analyze their assumptions, and so on.

This research could have been published as one article--certainly it does not merit a book.

Historicizing Education Policy Debates

Education policy has been a hotly debated issue in the public sphere for some time—some would argue, since the very beginning of the formation of the first public schools in the Unites States in the 17th century (for a seminal work in the field of colonial history of education, see Cremin, 1970).

Despite this long history of public education and policy, today’s conversations are particularly one-dimensional and ahistorical, for example:

• Solutions are proposed as if they are “novel,” despite decades’ worth (or longer) of research into their efficacy.  For example, solutions that link market principles with educational policy have been around since at least the nineteenth century, when district and state controlled “common schools” surfaced as the predominant form of education for most children (versus the religious and locally based schools from previous centuries, Cremin, 1980).  Much discourse from the nineteenth century reveals that the arguments given at the time for centralization and alignment with private industry run parallel with argument given today: for example, industrialists saw education, especially state-funded vocational education, as a perfect solution for creating a skilled workforce to facilitate the creation of the United States into a key player in the global market-place (Kaestle & Smith, 1982). 

• Ideas that have long been included in educational policy are forgotten and discarded (that, for example, the complex socio-economic ecosystem in which students experience education plays a significant role in educational achievement, Anyon, 1997, 2005a, 2005b, and Apple, 2004).  Today’s educational key policy-makers and leaders, such as President Barak Obama, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and various local school district leaders of all political stripes, espouse a rhetoric that solutions to poor educational achievement can come only through better schools and better teachers—thus ignoring hundreds’ of years worth of research from all fields—history, sociology, psychology, education, policy, philosophy—that environmental and contextual factors (economic, social, racial, etc) play a much larger role in student achievement than schools ever could.

• Overall the atmosphere dictated by the rhetoric of the media and of reformers is one of “crisis.”  Scholars describe “crisis disciplines” as those in which solutions must be chosen before research can be fully completed, such as, for example, conservation science. In conservation science, many solutions may be attempted before much data is acquired because problems often call for immediate action (Soule, 1985).  In education, often situations also demand quick action, however, a lot of data already exists, and research has already been done for centuries from multiple perspectives, so education policy cannot really be said to truly occupy a place of “crisis” (because research exists that can be used to ground and construct solutions).

In his seminal work, Truth and Method, Hans-Georg Gadamer writes that it is important to “recognize that in all understanding, whether we are expressly aware of it or not, the efficacy of history is at work,” and that “on the whole the power of effective history does not depend on its being recognized” (1975, p. 300).  In other words, historical context shapes current worldviews, policies, and events, whether we are conscious of particular histories or not.  Therefore, creating education policy in a vacuum of information, while ignoring the hundreds of years’ worth of research into education from many perspectives and disciplines, is negligently irresponsible, for it facilitates the institutionalization of ideas that are not supported by evidence or research (and thus, ideas that largely derive their power from fiery rhetoric or partisanship, and not scholarship or actual historical record).

A plethora of research into the historical origins of current educational policy exists (a limited list of examples includes Anyon, 1997, 2005a, 2005b; Apple, 2001a, 2001b, 2004; DeBray, McDermott, & Wohlstetter, 2005; Hursh, 2005;  Kaestle & Smith, 1982; Kantor, 1991; Kantor & Lowe, 1995, 2006; Kliebard, 2004; McDonnell, 2005; McNeil, 2000; Meier & Wood, 2004; Oakes, Wells, Jones, & Datnow, 1997; Orfield, 1978; Orfield & Lee, 2005; Price & Peterson, 2009; Spring, 1986; Steffes, 2008; Sunderman & Kim, 2007; Tyack, 1974; and Whitty, 1997)—the critical questions we need to ask include not “what is the research” but “have our policymakers read the research” and, more importantly, “how do we make policy makers and the public aware of the research” and “how can we create research-aligned policy that serves our current needs?”

I am currently working on my PhD Comprehensive Exams, which, for my program, consist of writing three research papers, on (1) education policy, (2) curriculum and pedagogy, and (3) methodology (that I will use in my dissertation). My first question (on policy), written and advised by Professor Robert Croninger, essentially involves historicizing current trends in federal education policy (such as No Child Left Behind, initiatives to link pay to quantified test scores, efforts to standardize and centralize curriculum, and more) in order to assess possibilities for and paths towards “eco-justice” oriented reform.

I will be writing much more on this topic in future days and weeks, but for now it will suffice to say that eco-justice oriented reform is another reform agenda, supported by a significant amount of research, that stands in many ways opposed to current dominant market-oriented reform agendas.  Eco-justice reform is grounded in a perspective that values embodied and holistic individual and communal health and well-being, a view that stands in stark contrast to current mainstream reform movements that value individualistic, rational, intellectual pursuits (see, for example, the work of Barron, 1995; Bowers, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1993a, 1993b, 2001, 2003a, 2003b, 2004, 2005a, 2005b, 2005c, 2006; Bowers & Aoffel-Marglin, 2005; Fien, 1993; Fromm, 2009; Garrard, 2004, 2010; Gaard & Murphy, 1998; Glotfelty & Fromm, 1996; Gruenewald, 2008; Heise, 2008; Judson, 2010; Mortimer-Sandilands, 1999, 2008; Morton, 2007; Murphy, 1995; Noddings, 2005; Orr, 2002, 2004; Roberts, 2007; Schwartz, 2009; Stables & Scott, 2001, and Warren, 1994).

Before discussing eco-justice reform and its potential in detail, however, as I have discussed above, it is important to first understand the current context of education policy by historicizing its roots and development.  Here is a sketch of a time-line of general trends and specific events I am looking at to help contextualize policy today:

1800s
 Trends towards centralization of schooling begin, manifested in gradual transfer of control of schools from localities to districts and states (see, for example, Kaestle & Smith, 1992) but overall small, rural schools remain celebrated institutions embodying localized democracy (Steffes, 2008).

1867
The federal Department of Education is created; its primary mission is to collect information, not to dictate policy or programs, or to offer funding.

1868
14th Amendment to the Constitution is passed; this Amendment includes the Equal Protections Clause, which stipulates that the state must provide equal protection to all people in its jurisdiction. The Equal Protections Clause would be cited as the decisive text upon which the Supreme Court based its 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling.

Early 1900s
The “rural school problem” comes to the fore of policy debates; rural schools are considered inferior to urban schools, and mostly white rural folk are incensed that large portions of black urbanites receive access to better schools than white children in the country (Steffes, 2008). Trying to solve the rural school problem, states propose a series of steps that increase centralized control over local school districts (in order to supervise them and offer professional development and support)—this finding stands in stark contrast to most perspectives that emphasize urban growth and reform as the defining factor in centralization; in fact, rural school reform also contributed significantly to consolidation and standardization trends.

1910s-1930s
More movement towards centralization occurs as multiple states experiment with “equalization funds,” aimed to help districts with poorly performing schools “equalize” achievement for their students.  These funds are passed partially in response to the “rural school problem.”

1917
The Smith-Hughes Act is passed in response to the 1913 Commission on Vocational Education, whose 1914 report emphasized the importance of schools to creating a productive, internationally competitive and prosperous workforce (Anyon, 2005b, and Kaestle & Smith, 1982).

1930s
The New Deal ushers in a new era in federalization; although the New Deal passed a significant number of social progressive policies such as Social Security, Old Age Assistance, and Aid to Dependent Children (Quadagno, 1998), access to these was limited based on race and class.  The overall effect of the New Deal is that it institutionalized racism in America’s federal social support network (an effect that would partially be undone by legislation passed during the Great Society era of the 1960s).

Late 1930s
Black and civil rights activist groups begin to win “equalization” court cases, thus furthering the legitimacy of federalization.  For several decades, local school districts are able to evade court rulings by creating merit-pay systems that favor white teachers (Kantor & Lowe, 1991).

Late 1930s and Early 1940s
 The “compensatory” (vs. “regulatory”) state wins out political debates in the United States.  A compensatory state attempts to mitigate the social outcomes of market forces by providing social scaffolds to individuals at-risk in the market (for example, by providing insurance for investors), while a regulatory state is one that regulates the market directly and thus ensures that it does not create social inequities.  For many historical reasons, as much of Europe moved towards regulatory states, the United States blazed its own trail (Kantor, 1991 and Kantor & Lowe, 1995).  This has significant consequences for education, as it is now seen as *the* key to social mitigation of the market. Instead of choosing to equalize actual outcomes of market-forces (such as extreme poverty in a large portion of the population), a compensatory state views education as the (for the most part, ONLY) way to provide equalization opportunities for individuals.

1954
Supreme Court decides Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, overturning 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson decision and stated unequivocally that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

1958
National Defense Education Act prioritizes intellectual achievement, honors and gifted and talented programs, math and science, and conveyed the message that “critical self reflection, the arts, and humanities are luxuries we can hardly afford” (Kaestle & Smith, 1982, p. 395).

1960s
The Great Society is ushered in by Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” and is considered the “second big bang of welfare state reform” (Quadagno, 1998, p. 4).  However, just as other nations began offering a new tier of benefits, the United States movement “became absorbed with the struggle for civil rights and equal opportunity” and thus did not significantly expand entitlement programs, except for the creation of Medicare and Medicaid by Congress in 1965.

1964
Civil Rights Act is passed, which includes Title VI, prohibiting federal aid to schools practicing discrimination.  This legislation paves the way for the ESEA in 1965.

1965
Elementary & Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is passed; this act is the predecessor of No Child Left Behind (in fact, NCLB is a revision of the original ESEA act and not an original policy, though it does modify several significant implementation details; there have been many revisions of ESEA since 1965).  ESEA is considered by many the beginning of federalization, though a careful historical account shows trends towards centralization had been present for at least a century.  However, ESEA does mark a significant turning point in attempts of the federal government to dictate local education policy (Kantor & Lowe, 1995; Kaestle & Smith, 1982; and Anyon, 2005b).  ESEA is highly influenced by the thesis of “cultural deprivation thesis” prominent at this time, that postulates poverty creates certain psychological conditions that individuals have a difficult time overcoming alone (for example, culture-of-poverty proponents emphasize that poverty creates dependency, and thus a lack of will and capacity to attack source of own problems).

1970s
A move towards “color-blindness” racism is prevalent in the United States; after 1973, courts begin retreating from enforcement of segregation orders, and in general the public begins accepting the notion that “equal education for people of color can be achieved without asking anything of whites” (Kantor & Lowe, 2006, 490).

1972
 Tite IX Amendment to ESEA bans sex discrimination in schools.

1973
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 protects rights of people with disabilities in schools.

1974
Education of the Handicapped Amendment to the ESEA is passed.

1975
Education of All Handicapped Children Act further protects the rights of students with disabilities.

Early 1980s
A shift occurs in the “culture of poverty” thesis; the rhetoric in the public policy sphere turns from “equity” to “excellence.” No longer primarily concerned with equalizing opportunities, policy makers declare themselves committed to “success” (McDonnell, 2005).

1981
The Education Consolidation and Improvement Act is passed at the behest of President Reagan, and embodies his belief in smaller government by cutting federal spending on education.

1983
The influential report, A Nation at Risk, is published by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, commissioned by President Reagan.  A Nation at Risk bemoans the lacking state of U.S. education and the negative effect on productivity and international competitiveness.  This report has been much criticized since its publication, however it has been immensely influential in defining today’s momentum towards standardization, endless testing, accountability, and quantification (McDonnell, 2005 and Anyon, 2005b).

Late 1980s and Early 1990s
Neo-conservatism ascends in policy rhetoric, and gains influence as it is espoused by an increasing number of private organizations, “think-tanks,” non-profits, and lobbyists (Quadagno, 1998); neo-conservatives are especially concerned with federal welfare provisions impeding the “natural” progression of the free market, and thus attempt to privatize an increasing number of federal programs.  This will have significant consequences for education, as charters, vouchers, “school choice,” and other privatization efforts will come to the forefront in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

1994
Clinton’s Improving America’s Schools Act is passed; this is not a new bill, but a reauthorization of ESEA.  This incarnation of ESEA mandates challenging standards for all students, and for the first time requires states to disaggregate test results by race, gender, ELL status, migrant status, disability, and economic status.  Further, it requires corrective action against schools deemed “failing.”

2001
President W. Bush tries his hand at revamping ESEA and lobbies Congress to pass the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).  Scholars argue that NCLB “highlights how federal responsibility for social welfare has narrowed over time” (Kantor & Lowe, 2006, p. 476)—whereas previously, the state took some responsibility for segregation, poverty, and socio-economic conditions that affect educational achievement, with NCLB the rhetoric that education is *the* one and only answer to societal problems caused by capitalism (free market forces).  Scholars also argue that NCLB stigmatizes failing schools and children and punishes them (by withholding funds, for example) instead of supporting them (by offering research, professional development, or additional funds).

Early 2000s
Our educational system has institutionalized privileges for those of higher socio-economic status, typically whites and has “consistently exacerbated differences in access and outcome based on race, ethnicity, and class” ( Apple, 2004, p. 24).  Other detrimental effects of policies currently in place have been the decline in overall standards, a shift in emphasis from “what the school does for the student to what the student does for the school,” and the transformation of public education into a marketable commodity.


There is much analysis to be done here, but at 6 pages this post is long enough for today.  What I have attempted to do (through only a broad and brief overview) is show that today’s educational policies have a long and complex history that we must consider before attempting any kind of “reform”; in today’s ahistorical climate of discussion, such historicizing is particularly critical in turning the conversation towards actual time-tested and researched reforms, instead of empty and non-practical ideological propositions.

* For a complete bibliography of the sources used in this post, please see my running Bibliography.

Welcome to My Dissertation Blog!

Thank you so much for visiting my blog, I truly appreciate your feedback and contributions!

I am currently a doctoral candidate in the School of Education Policy Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, where I also received degrees in Electrical Engineering (2003) and Mathematics (2004). Besides working on my dissertation, I also teach Precalculus and AP Calculus to 11th and 12th graders at the McKinley Technology High School in NE Washington, DC. For more information about me, including teaching experience, dance background, and prior publications and presentations, please see my profile and University of Maryland terpconnect page.

I have several purposes for starting this blog:

1) Receiving feedback for my thoughts-in-progress as I embark on researching and writing my comprehensive exams and dissertation. I truly appreciate all comments and value your privacy, which is why "anonymous comments" are allowed and no moderation will be made for comments I do not agree with.*  I will also do my best to reflect on and respond to all comments.

2)  Overcoming writer's block and inauthentic voice through continual writing, reflection, and conversation.

3)  "Setting the mood" for writing my comps and dissertation; I find that when I am able to first colloquially explain and discuss something in an informal environment, my academic writing becomes more authentic, articulate, and precise.

*Comments will be removed after-the-fact only if they constitute "spam" or use profanity or threatening or abusive language towards an individual or group of people.


Thank you for visiting! I very much look forward to your comments and suggestions! I also appreciate any feedback on mistakes, oversights, updates, possible additions, or inconsistencies on this website. Please comment here on this blog or email me at ioana.stoica@gmail.com.

~ Ioana

Bibliography - Eco-justice Pedagogy and Education Reform

Adamson, J., Evans, M., & Stein, R. (2002). Environmental justice reader: Politics, poetics, and pedagogy. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Barron, D. (1995). Gendering environmental education reform: Identifying the constitutive power of environmental discourses. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 11, 107-120.

Bowers, C. (1984). The promise of theory: Education and the politics of cultural change. New York: Longman.

Bowers, C. (1993). Against the grain: Critical essays on education, modernity, and the recovery of the ecological imperative. New York: Teachers College Press.

Bowers, C. (2003a). Mindful conservatism: Rethinking the ideological and educational basis of an ecologically sustainable future. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Bowers, C. (2003b). Towards an eco-justice pedagogy. Retrieved March 12, 2011, from http://www.cabowers.net/CAbookarticle.php.

Bowers, C. (2004). Revitalizing the commons: Cultural and educational sites of resistance and affirmation. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Bowers, C. (2005a). How the ideas of Paulo Freire contribute to the cultural roots of the ecological crisis. In C. Bowers & F. Aoffel-Marglin (Eds.), Re-thinking Freire: Globalization and the environmental crisis (pp. 133-150). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Bowers, C. (2005b). The false promises of constructivist theories of learning: A global and ecological critique. New York: Peter Lang.

Bowers, C. (2005c). Is transformative learning the Trojan horse of Western globalization? Retrieved March 12, 2011, from http://www.cabowers.net/CAbookarticle.php.

Bowers, C. (2006). Revitalizing the commons: Cultural and educational sites of resistance and affirmation. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Bowers, C. & Aoffel-Marglin, F. (Eds.). (2005). Re-thinking Freire: Globalization and the environmental crisis. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Esteva, G., Stuchul, D., & Prakash, M. S. (2005). From a pedagogy for liberation to a liberation from pedagogy. In C. Bowers & F. Aoffel-Marglin (Eds.), Re-thinking Freire: Globalization and the environmental crisis (pp. 13-30). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Fien, J. (1993). Education for the environment: Critical curriculum theorizing and environmental education. Geelong: Deakin University Press.

Fromm, H. (2009). The nature of being human: From environmentalism to consciousness. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Garrard, G. (2004). Ecocriticism. New York: Routledge.

Garrard, G. (2010). Problems and prospects in ecocritical pedagogy. Environmental Education Research, 16 (2), 233-245.

Gaard. G. & Murphy, P. (Eds.). (1998). Ecofeminist literary criticism: Theory, interpretations, pedagogy. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Glotfelty, C. & Fromm, H. (1996). The ecocriticism reader: Landmarks in literature ecology. London: University of Georgia Press.

Gruenewald, D. (2008). The best of both worlds: A critical pedagogy of place. Environmental Education Research, 14 (3), 308-324.

Heise, U. (2008). Sense of place and sense of planet: The environmental imagination of the global. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Judson, G. (2010). A new approach to ecological education: Engaging students’ imaginations in their world. New York: Peter Lang.

Luke, C., & Gore, J. (Eds.). (1992). Feminisms and critical pedagogy. New York: Routledge.

McLaren, P. (1991). Schooling the postmodern body: Critical pedagogy and the politics of enfleshment. In H. Giroux (Ed.), Postmodernism, feminism, and cultural politics (pp. 144-173). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Mortimier-Sandilands, C. (2008). Queering ecocultural studies. Cultural Studies, 22 (3), 455-476.

Morton, T. (2007). Ecology without nature: Rethinking environmental aesthetics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Murphy, P. (1995). Literature, nature, and other: Ecofeminist critiques. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Namulundah, F. (1998). bell hook’s engaged pedagogy: A transgressive education for critical consciousness. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 1998.

Noddings, N. (2005). Educating citizens for global awareness. New York: Teachers College Press.

Orr, D. (2002). The nature of design. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Orr, D. (2004). Earth in mind: On education, environment, and the human prospect. Washington, DC: Island Press.

Rasmussen, D. (2005). Cease to do evil, then learn to do good… (A pedagogy for the oppressor). In C. Bowers & F. Aoffel-Marglin (Eds.), Re-thinking Freire: Globalization and the environmental crisis (pp. 115-131). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Roberts, J. (2007). Education, eco-progressivism, and the nature of school reform. Educational Researcher, 41 (3), 212-229.

Rothenberg, D., & Ulvaeus, M. (Eds.). (2001). The world and the wild. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Sallis, J. (2010). Pursuing Levinas and Ferry toward a newer and more democratic ecological order. In P. Atterton & M. Calarco, (Eds.), Radicalizing Levinas. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Sandilands, C. (1999). Good-natured: Ecofeminism and the quest for democracy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Sarkar, S. (2001). For Indian wilderness. In D. Rothenberg & M. Ulvaeus (Eds.), The world and the wild (pp. 37-55). Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Schwartz, E. (2009). At home in the world: Human nature, ecological thought, and education after Darwin. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Soulé, M. (1985). What is conservation biology? BioScience, 35 (11), 727-734.

Soulé, M. (1986). Conservation biology: The science of scarcity and diversity. Sunderland, MD: Sinauer Associates.

Soulé, M., & Wilcox, B. (1980). Conservation biology: An ecological-evolutionary perspective. Sunderland, MD: Sinauer Associates.

Stables, A. & Scott, W. (2001). Post-humanist liberal pragmatism? Environmental education out of modernity. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 35 (2), 269-279.

Teran, G. (2005). Vernacular education for cultural regeneration: An alternative to Paulo Freire’s vision of emancipation. In C. Bowers & F. Aoffel-Marglin (Eds.), Re-thinking Freire: Globalization and the environmental crisis (pp. 69-82). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Tyack, D. (1972). The tribe and common school: Community control in rural education. American Quarterly, 24, 3-19.

Warren, K. (1994). Ecological feminism. New York: Routledge.

Weiler, K. (Ed.). Feminist engagements: Reading, resisting, and revisioning male theorists in education and cultural studies. New York: Routledge.

Wilson, E. (1992). The diversity of life. Boston: Belknap Press of Harvard University.

Bibliography - Education History, Policy, and Critique (19th Century - Present)

(for more historical sources on schools and education policy, see http://edpolicy-dissertationjourney.blogspot.com/2011/05/bibliography-educational-context-and.html)

Allman, P. (1970). Revolutionary social transformation: Democratic hopes, political possibilities, and critical education. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.

Anyon, J. (1997). Ghetto schooling: A political economy of urban education reform. New York: Teachers College Press.

Anyon, J. (2005a). Radical possibilities: Public policy, urban education, and a new social movement. New York: Routledge.

Anyon, J. (2005b). What “counts” as educational policy? Notes toward a new paradigm. Harvard Educational Review, 75 (1), 65-88.

Apple, M. (2001). The rhetoric and reality of standards-based school reform. Educational Policy, 15 (4), 601-610.

Apple, M. (2004). Creating difference: Neo-liberalism, neo-conservatism, and the politics of educational reform. Educational Policy, 18 (1), 12-44.

Aronowitz, S. & Giroux, H. (1985). Education under siege: The conservative, liberal, and radical debate over schooling. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey.

Bernstein, B. (1990). The structuring of pedagogic discourse. New York: Routledge.

Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control, and identity. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Borman, G., Stringfield, S., & Slavin, E. (Eds.) (2001). Title I: Compensatory education at the crossroads. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Bowers, C. (1984). The promise of theory: Education and the politics of cultural change. New York: Longman.

Bowers, C. (1986). The dialectic of nihilism and the state: Implications for an emancipatory theory of education. Educational Theory, 36 (3), 225-232.

Bowers, C. (1987). Elements of a postliberal theory of education. New York: Teachers College Press.

Bowers, C. (1988). Teaching a nineteenth-century mode of thinking through a twentieth-century machine. Educational Theory, 38 (1), 41-46.

DeBray, E., McDermott, K., & Wohlstetter, P. (2005). Introduction to the special issue on federalism reconsidered: The case of the No Child Left Behind Act. Peabody Journal of Education, 80 (2), 1-18.

De Lissovoy, N. (2008). Power, crisis, and education for liberation: Rethinking critical pedagogy. New York: Palgrave McMillan.

Cooper, K., & White, R. (Eds.). (2006). The practical critical educator: Critical inquiry and educational practice. Dordrecht: Springer.

Ellsworth, E. (1989). Why doesn’t this feel empowering? Working through the repressive myths of critical pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review, 59 (3), 297-324.

Esteva, G., Stuchul, D., & Prakash, M. S. (2005). From a pedagogy for liberation to a liberation from pedagogy. In C. Bowers & F. Aoffel-Marglin (Eds.), Re-thinking Freire: Globalization and the environmental crisis (pp. 13-30). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Evans, J., & Penney, D. (1995). The politics of pedagogy. Journal of Education Policy, 10, 27-44.

Freire, P. (1974). Education for critical consciousness. London: Sheed & Ward.

Freire, P. (1985). The politics of education: Culture, power, and liberation. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey.

Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Freire, P., & Shor, I. (1987). A pedagogy for liberation: Dialogues for transforming education. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey.

Gilborn, D. (1997). Racism and reform: New ethnicities/old inequalities? British Educational Research Journal, 23 (3), 345-360.

Gillborn, D. (2006). Critical race theory and education: Racism and anti-racism in educational theory and praxis. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 27 (1),11–32.

Giroux, H. (1983). Theory and resistance in education: A pedagogy for the opposition. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey.

Giroux, H. (1988). Teachers as intellectuals: Toward a critical pedagogy of learning. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey.

Giroux, H. (1992). Educational leadership and the crisis of democratic government. Educational Researcher, 21 (4), 4-11.

Giroux, H. (2004). The abandoned generation: Democracy beyond the culture of fear. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Giroux, H. (2007). The university in chains: Confronting the military-industrial-academic complex. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.

Giroux, H., & McLaren, P. (1986). Teacher education and the politics of engagement: The case for democratic schooling. Harvard Educational Review, 56 (3), 213-238.

Greene, M. (1978). Landscapes of learning. New York: Teacher’s College Press.

Grumet, M. (1988). Bitter milk: Women and teaching. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

Haggerson, N. (2000). Expanding curriculum research and understanding: A mytho-poetic perspective. New York: Peter Lang.

Holland, P. & Garman, N. Macdonald and the Mythopoetic.  Journal of Curriculum Theorizing,  9 (4), 49-72.

hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge.

Hursh, D. (2005). The growth of high-stakes testing in the USA: Accountability, markets, and the decline in educational equality. British Educational Research Journal, 31 (5), 605-622.

Kaestle, C., & Smith, M. (1982). The federal role in elementary and secondary education, 1940-1980. Harvard Educational Review, 52, 396-400.

Kantor, H. (1991). Education, social reform, and the state: ESEA and Federal Education Policy in the 1960s. American Journal of Education, 100 (1): 47-83.

Kantor, H. & Lowe, R. (1995). Class, race, and the emergence of federal education policy: From the New Deal to the Great Society. Educational Researcher, 24 (3), 4-11, 21.

Kantor, H. & Lowe, R. (2006). From New Deal to No Deal: No Child Left Behind and the devolution of responsibility for equal opportunity. Harvard Educational Review, 76 (4), 474-502.

Karen, D. (2005). No Child Left Behind? Sociology ignored! Sociology of Education, 78, 165-168.

Kincheloe, J. & Steinberg, S. (1993). A tentative description of postformal thinking: The critical confrontation with cognitive theory. Harvard Educational Review, 63 (3), 296-320.

Kliebard, H. (2004). The struggle for the American curriculum, 1893-1958. New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

Leonard, T. & Willis, P. (Eds.). Mythopoetic curriculum in educational practice. New York: Springer.

Luke, C., & Gore, J. (Eds.). (1992). Feminisms and critical pedagogy. New York: Routledge.

McDonnell, L. (2005). No Child Left Behind and the federal role of education: Evolution or revolution? Peabody Journal of Education, 80 (2), 19-38.

McLaren, P. (1991). Decentering culture: Postmodernism, resistance, and critical pedagogy. In N. Wyner (Ed.), Current perspectives on the culture of schools (pp. 231-257). Boston: Brookline Books.

McLaren, P. (1991). Schooling the postmodern body: Critical pedagogy and the politics of enfleshment. In H. Giroux (Ed.), Postmodernism, feminism, and cultural politics (pp. 144-173). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

McLaren, P. (1994). Life in schools: An introduction to critical pedagogy in the foundations of education. New York: Longman.

McNeil, L. (2000). Contradictions of school reform: Educational costs of standardized testing. New York: Routledge.

Meier, D. & Wood, G. (Eds.). (2004). Many children left behind: How the No Child Left Behind Act is damaging our children and our schools. Boston: Beacon Press.

Namulundah, F. (1998). bell hook’s engaged pedagogy: A transgressive education for critical consciousness. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 1998.

National Longitudinal Study of No Child Left Behind prepared for the U.S. Department of Education. (2007). State and local implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act: Title I school choice, supplemental educational services, and student achievement. Washington, DC: Zimmerman, R., Gill, B., Razquin, P., Booker, K., & Lockwood, J. R. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/choice/implementation/achievementanalysis.pdf.

Noddings, N. (2005). Educating citizens for global awareness. New York: Teachers College Press.

Oakes, J., Wells, a., Jones, M., & Datnow, A. (1997). Detracking: The social construction of ability, cultural politics, and resistance to reform. Teachers College Record, 98, 482-510.

Olssen, M. (1996). In defense of the welfare state and of publicly provided education. Journal of Education Policy, 11, 337-362.

Orfield, G. (1969). The reconstruction of southern education: The schools and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. New York: Wiley.

Orfield, G. (1978). Must we bus: Segregated schools and national policy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

Orfield, G. & Lee, C. (2005). Why poverty matters: Poverty and educational inequality. Cambridge: Harvard Education Publishing Group. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 489186)

Pinar, W., Reynolds, W., Slattery, P., & Taubman, P. (2004). Understanding curriculum. New York: Peter Lang.

Price, T. & Peterson, E. (Eds.). (2009). The myth and reality of No Child Left Behind: Public education and high stakes assessment. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

Purpel, D. (1989). The moral and spiritual crisis in education: A curriculum for justice and compassion in education with an introduction by Henry Giroux and Paulo Freire. New York: Bergin & Garvey.

Purpel, D. & Shapiro, S. (1995). Beyond liberation and excellence: Reconstructing the public discourse on education. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.

Rasmussen, D. (2005). Cease to do evil, then learn to do good… (A pedagogy for the oppressor). In C. Bowers & F. Aoffel-Marglin (Eds.), Re-thinking Freire: Globalization and the environmental crisis (pp. 115-131). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Rosenfeld, S. & Sher, J. (1977). The urbanization of rural schools, 1840-1970. In Sher, J. (Ed.), Education in rural America: A reassessment of conventional wisdom. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Ryan, J. (2004). The perverse incentives of the No Child Left Behind Act. New York University Law Review, 79, 932-989.

Soltis, J. (1984). On the nature of educational research. Educational Researcher, 13 (10), 5-10.

Spring, J. (1986). The American school, 1642-1985. New York: Longman.

Stein, S. (2004). The culture of education policy. New York: Teachers College Press.

Steffes, T. (2008). Solving the “Rural School Problem”: New state aid, standards, and supervision of local schools, 1900-1933. History of Education Quarterly, 48 (2), 181-220.

Sunderman, G. & Kim, J. The expansion of federal power and the politics of implementing the No Child Left Behind Act. Teachers College Record, 109 (5), 1057-1085.

Teran, G. (2005). Vernacular education for cultural regeneration: An alternative to Paulo Freire’s vision of emancipation. In C. Bowers & F. Aoffel-Marglin (Eds.), Re-thinking Freire: Globalization and the environmental crisis (pp. 69-82). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Tyack, D. (1972). The tribe and common school: Community control in rural education. American Quarterly, 24, 3-19.

Tyack, D. (1974). The one best system: A history of American urban education. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Tyack, D. & James, T. (1986). State government and American public education: Exploring the “Primeval Forest.” History of Education Quarterly, 26, 39-69.

Whitty, G. (1997). Creating quasi-markets in education: A review of recent research on parental choice and school autonomy in three countries. Review of Research in Education, 22, 3-47.

Bibliography - Introduction

Welcome and Thank You for Visiting!

This bibliography is a work in progress and reflects works and research I have encountered throughout my past five years as a doctoral student in education history, philosophy, and policy, and that I have found most useful for my own research. Any sources quoted in any blog posts on this website can be found in this bibliography.

For ease of browsing, I have broken down the sources by topic; four bibliographies are currently available: general context and historical sources, educational context and history, current education history and debates, and eco-justice pedagogy and reform research (the list of sources within each is always growing as I currently work to sort over 3GB of information I have collected over the years!)  I am further working on organizing the remainder of my sources into seven more bibliographies on the way (see below for more information).

Bibliographies Available Now:
General Context and Historical Sources
Educational Context and Historical Sources
Current Education History and Policy
Eco-Justice Pedagogy and Reform

More Bibliographies Coming Soon:
Embodied and Holistic Education Research
Critical (including Feminist, Race-based, and Queer) Perspectives
Critical Eco-Justice Oriented Phenomenology as Embodied Method
Philosophical and Sociological Perspectives
Psychological and Rational-Empirical Studies of Education
Dance and Dance Education Research
Mathematics and Mathematics Education Research

Bibliography - Educational Context and Historical Sources

(for historical sources and context not specifically related to education or education policy, please see http://edpolicy-dissertationjourney.blogspot.com/2011/05/bibliography-context-and-historical.html)

Anderson, J. (1988). The education of blacks in the South, 1861-1935. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Bailyn, B. (1991). Education in the forming of American society. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.

Ballard, A. (1973). The education of black folk: The Afro-American struggle for knowledge in white America. New York: Harper & Row.

Beadie, N. (2001). Academy students in the mid-nineteenth century: Social geography, demography, and the culture of academy attendance. History of Education Quarterly, 41, 251-262.

Browning, J. (2008). “Bringing light to our land... when she was dark as night”: Northerners, freedpeople, and education during military occupation in North Carolina, 1862-1865. American Nineteenth Century History,  9, 1-17.

Carnoy, M. & Levin, H. (1985). Schooling and work in the democratic state. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Clifford, G. (1976).  Education: Its history and historiography. Review of Research in Education, 4, 210-267.

Cremin, L. (1970). American education: The colonial experience, 1607—1783. New York: Harper & Row.

Donavan, F. (1938).  The schoolma’am. New York: Frederick Stokes Co.

Duffy, J. (1979). School buildings and the health of American school children in the nineteenth century.  In C. Rosenberg, (Ed.), Healing and History: Essays for George Rosen. New York: Science History Publications.

Duitsman, J. (1991).  “When I can read my title clear”: Literacy, slavery, and religion in the antebellum South. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.

Eelman, B. (2004). An educated and intelligent people cannot be enslaved: The struggle for common schools in antebellum Spartanburg, South Carolina. History of Education Quarterly, 44, 250-270.

Earp, C. (1941). The role of education in the Maryland colonization movement.   The Journal of Negro History, 26 , 365-388.

Farnham, C. (1994).  The education of the southern belle: Higher education and student socialization in the antebellum South.  New York: New York University Press.

Finkelstein, B. (1991). Dollars and dreams: Classrooms as fictitious message systems.  History of Education Quarterly, 31, 463-487.

Finkelstein, B. (1989). Governing the young: Teacher behavior in popular primary schools in nineteenth century United States. New York: Falmer Press.

Fuke, R. (1971).  The Baltimore Association for the Moral and Educational Improvement of the Colored People, 1864-1870. Maryland Historical Magazine, 66, 369-404.

Fuquay, M. (2002). Civil rights and the private school movement in Mississippi.  History of Education Quarterly, 42, 159-180.

Hayden, C. (1971).  Conversion and control: Dilemma of Episcopalians in providing for the religious instruction of slaves in Charleston, South Carolina, 1845-1860. Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 40, 143-171.

Hoffman, B. (1981). Woman’s "True" Profession: Voices from the History of Teaching. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Johnson, C.  (1904). Old-time schools and school-books. New York: MacMillan Company.

Kaestle, C. (1973). The evolution of an urban school system: New York, 1750—1850. Cambridge, MA.

Kaestle, C. (1983).  Pillars of the republic: Common schools and American society, 1780—1860.  New York: Hill & Wang.

Katz, M. (1968). The irony of early school reform: Educational innovation in mid-nineteenth century Massachusetts. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Kelley, M. (2006).  Learning to stand and speak: Women, education, and public life in America’s republic.  Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Kliebard, H. (1996). The feminization of teaching on the American frontier: Keeping school in Otsego, Wisconsin, 1867-1880. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 27, 545-561.

Knight, E. (1922).  Public education in the South. Boston: Athenaum Press.

Knight, E. (Ed.). (1949).  A documentary history of education in the South before 1860.  Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Knopp Biklen, S.(1995). School work: Gender and the cultural construction of teaching. New York: Teacher’s College Press.

Lepore, J. (2002).  A is for American: Letters and other characters in the newly United States. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Maddox, A. (1918). The free school ideal in Virginia before the Civil War.  New York: Teachers College Press.

McCaul, R. (1987). The black struggle for public schooling in nineteenth century Illinois. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

Middlekauff, R. (1961).  A persistent tradition: The classical curriculum in eighteenth-century New England. William & Mary Quarterly, 18, 54-67.

Moss, H. (2004). “Opportunity and opposition: African American struggle for education in New Haven, Baltimore, and Boston, 1825-1855." (PhD diss., Brandeis University).

Nash, M. (2005). Women’s education in the United States: 1780-1840. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Park, R. (1978). “Embodied selves”: The rise and development of concern for physical education, active games and recreation for American women, 1776-1865.  Journal of Sport History, 5, 5-41.

Pawa, J. (1971). Workingmen and free schools in the nineteenth century: A comment on the labor- education.  History of Education Quarterly, 11, 287-302.

Perillo, J. (2003). Beyond progressive reform: Discipline and construction of the “professional teacher” in interwar America. History of Education Quarterly, 44, 337-63.

Perlmann, J. & Margo, R. (2001). Women’s work? American schoolteachers: 1650—1920. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Preston, J. (1993).  Domestic ideology, school reformers, and female teachers: Schoolteaching becomes women's work in nineteenth-century New England.  The New England Quarterly, 66, 531-551.

Preston, J. (2004). Transformations in organizational structures and the feminization of schoolteaching.  American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco.

Rudolph, J. (2005). Epistemology for the masses: The origins of “the scientific method” in American schools. History of Education Quarterly, 45, 341-376.

Rury, J.  (1989). Who became teachers? The social characteristics of teachers in American history.  In D. Warren (Ed.), American Teachers: Histories of a Profession at Work (pp. 9-48).  New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.

Rury, J.  (2006).  The curious status of the history of education: A parallel perspective. History of Education Quarterly, 571-98.

Shannon, W. (1964). “Public education in Maryland (1825-1868) with special emphasis upon the 1860s.” (PhD diss.: University of Maryland, College Park).

Sheller, T. (1982).  The origins of public education in Baltimore, 1825-1829. History of Education Quarterly, 22, 23-44.

Spring, J. (1986). The American school, 1642-1985: Varieties of historical interpretation of the foundations and development of American education. New York: Longman.

Strober, M., & Tyack, D. Why do women teach and men manage? A report on research on schools. Signs, 5, 494-503.

Sugg, R. (1978).  Motherteacher: The feminization of American education. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.

Sundue, S. (2007).  Confining the poor to ignorance? Eighteenth-century American experiments with charity education.  History of Education Quarterly, 47, 123-148.

Swett, J. (1900).  American public schools: History and pedagogics. New York: American Book Company.

Taylor, W. (1966). Toward a definition of orthodoxy: The patrician South and the common schools.  Harvard Educational Review, 36, 412-426.

Teaford, J. (1970).  The transformation of Massachusetts education, 1670-1780.  History of Education Quarterly, 10, 287-307.

Thomas, B. (1971). Public education and black protest in Baltimore, 1865-1900. Maryland Historical Magazine, 66, 381-391.

Tolley, K. (1996). Science for ladies, classics for gentlemen: A comparative analysis of scientific subjects in the curricula of boys' and girls' secondary schools in the United States, 1794-1850. History of Education Quarterly, 36, 129-153.

Tolley, K., & Beadie, N. (2006).  Socioeconomic incentives to teach in New York and North Carolina: Toward a more complex model of teacher labor markets, 1800-1850. History of Education Quarterly, 46, 36-72.

Tyack, D. (1976). Ways of seeing: An essay on the history of compulsory schooling. Harvard Educational Review, 46, 355-389.

Vinovskis, M. & Bernard, R. Beyond Catharine Beecher: Female education in the antebellum period.  Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 3.

Warren, D. (Ed.). (1989).  American teachers: Histories of a profession at work. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.

Williams, H. (2005).  Self-taught: African American education in slavery and freedom.  University of North Carolina Press.

Wyman, A. (1995). The earliest early childhood teachers: Women teachers of America's dame schools.  Young Children, 50, 29-32.

Bibliography - Context and Historical Sources

(for historical sources and context specifically related to education and education policy, please see http://edpolicy-dissertationjourney.blogspot.com/2011/05/bibliography-educational-context-and.html)

Badger, A. (1989). The New Deal: The depression years, 1933-1940. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee.

Bailyn, B. (1992). The ideological origins of the American Revolution. New York: Belknap Press.

Berlin, I. (1998). Many thousands gone: The first two centuries of slavery in North America.  Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Berlin, I. & Hoffman, R. (Eds.). Slavery and freedom in the age of the American revolution.  Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia.

Betts, J. (1968).  Mind and body in early American thought. The Journal of American History, 54, 787-805.

Blumin, S. (1989). The emergence of the middle class: Social experience in the American city, 1760-1900. Cambridge.

Boyer, P. (2000). Urban masses and moral order in America, 1820-1920. Cambridge, MA.

Brinkley, A. (1989). The New Deal and the idea of the state. In S. Fraser and G. Gerstle (Eds.), The rise and fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980 (pp. 85-121). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Fischer, D. (1970). Historian’s fallacies: Toward a logic of historical thought. New York: Harper Torchbooks.

Forret, J. (2006).  Race relations at the margins: Slaves and poor whites in the antebellum Southern countryside.  Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

Gilborn, D. (1997). Racism and reform: New ethnicities/old inequalities? British Educational Research Journal, 23 (3), 345-360.

Gomez, M. (1998). Exchanging our county marks: The transformation of African identities in the colonial and antebellum South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Goodman, D. (1992). Public sphere and private life: Toward a synthesis of current historiographical approaches to the Old Regime. History and Theory, 31, 1-20.

Goodman, P. (1993). The Manual Labor Movement and the Origins of Abolitionism. Journal of the Early Republic, 13, 355-388.

Habermas, J. (1991). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Harrington, M. (1983). The politics at God’s funeral: The spiritual crisis of Western civilization. New York: Holt, Rineheart & Winston.

Hofstadter, R. (1972). The age of reform. New York: Alfred Knopf.

Horton, L. (1997).  In hope of liberty: Culture, community, and protest among northern free blacks, 1700-1860. New York: Oxford University Press.

Hudson, N. (1996). From “nation” to “race”: The origin of racial classification in eighteenth-century thought. Eighteenth-Century Studies, 29 (3), 247-264.

Iggers, G. (2004). Historiography in the twentieth century: From scientific objectivity to the postmodern challenge. Wesleyan University Press.

Katz, M. (2008). The price of citizenship: Redefining the American welfare state. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Katz, M. (Ed.) (1993). The “Underclass” debate: Views from history. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Katz, M., Stern, M., & J. Fader. (2005). The new African American inequality. Journal of American History, 92 (1), 75-108.

Katznelson, I. (1989). Was the Great Society a lost opportunity? In S. Fraser and G. Gerstle (Eds.), The rise and fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980 (pp. 185-211). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Kincheloe, J. & Steinberg, S. (1993). A tentative description of postformal thinking: The critical confrontation with cognitive theory. Harvard Educational Review, 63 (3), 296-320.

Lieberman, R. (1998). Shifting the color line: Race and the American welfare state. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Massey, D. (1993). American apartheid: Segregation and the making of the underclass. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Pope Melish, J. (1998).  Disowning slavery: Gradual emancipation and “race” in New England, 1780-1860.  Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Quadagno, J. (1994). The color of welfare: How racism undermined the war on poverty. New York: Oxford University Press.


Quadagno, J. (1999). Creating a capital investment welfare state: The new American exceptionalism. American Sociological Review, 64 (1), 1-11.

Scott, D. (1997). Contempt and pity: Social policy and the image of the damaged black psyche. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Sugrue, T. (1995). The origins of the urban crisis: Race and inequality in postwar Detroit. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Tyler, A. (1944).  Freedom’s ferment: Phases of American social history to 1860. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Wilentz, S. (2004).  Chants democratic: New York and the rise of the American working class, 1788-1850. New York: Oxford University Press.