New Book: Radical Possibilities

Posted by on October 27, 2006

[posted from Public Education Network newsblast]

RADICAL POSSIBILITIES

Jean Anyon’s new book demonstrates the influence of federal policies on the poverty that plagues schools and school reform in America’s urban areas. Public policies — such as those regulating the minimum wage, job availability, tax rates, and public transit — all create conditions in urban areas that no education policy as currently conceived can transcend. Anyon reminds us that historically, more equitable public policies have typically been created as a result of the political pressure brought to bear by social movements. Basing her analysis on new research in civil rights history and social movement theory, she argues that the current moment offers serious possibilities for the creation of such a force. Teachers, principals, and urban students are not the culprits — as reform policies that target increased testing, educator quality, and the control of youth assume. Rather, an unjust economy and the policies through which it is maintained create barriers to educational success that no teacher or principal practice, no standardized test, and no “zero tolerance” policy can surmount. Rules and regulations regarding teaching, curriculum, and assessment certainly count; but, perhaps policies that maintain high levels of urban poverty and segregation should be part of the educational policy panoply as well — for these have consequences for urban education at least as profound as curriculum and pedagogy. As a nation, we have been counting on education to solve the problems of unemployment, joblessness, and poverty for many years. But education did not cause these problems, and education cannot solve them. An economic system that chases profits and casts people aside (especially people of color) is culpable.

http://www.publiceducation.org/pdf/20060425_Radical_Possibilities.pdf