African American Education for Freedom and the Socialist Sunday Schools: Historical interventions in contemporary neoliberal discourse

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African American Education for Freedom and the Socialist Sunday Schools: Historical interventions in contemporary neoliberal discourse

Luro, Brooke - Thesis

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title: African American Education for Freedom and the Socialist Sunday Schools: Historical interventions in contemporary neoliberal discourse

creator: Luro, Brooke

subject: Academic theses.

description: This paper aims to intervene in contemporary neoliberal educational discourse by proposing an alternative vision of education. Current public education policy and discourse leaves out any consideration of education as a site of social justice and/or liberation, instead favoring practices that see children as human capital and schools as profit machines. Mainstream debates on the state of public education typically center upon the issue of the achievement gap and panic over American students falling in global rankings of achievement. Popular media depictions of the achievement gap, such as Davis Guggenheim’s documentary Waiting for “Superman” and publications by Teach For America’s founder Wendy Kopp, generally see poor teaching and conditions of poverty as the cause of the gap, while supporting the increase of charter schools and elimination of teacher’s unions as solutions to the issue. President Obama’s Race to the Top policy reflects and supports these critiques of education by adopting a neoliberal approach to education reform. The policy sees economic progress and academic achievement as “inextricably linked,” therefore drawing upon practices such as high-stakes testing and increased supportof charter schools in order to drive a consumer-based, free-market approach to public education (The White House). Meanwhile, a large body of research exists that refutes these practices asthe answer to the achievement gap, such as theories of stereotype-threat and unconscious bias.

publisher: Simmons College (Boston, Mass.)

contributor:

date: 2014

type: Text

format: 1 PDF (42 Pages)

identifier: td_gcs_2014_bl

source:

language: English

relation:

coverage:

rights: Material from the Simmons University Archives collections are made available for study purposes only. For more information, or to request rights to reproduce or reuse any material, contact the University Archives at archives@simmons.edu.

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