The Commodification of American Education

For the last few decades, teacher preparation has increasingly aligned itself with “best practices,” standards, and accountability, and such policies became mandatory in P-12 schooling nationwide. Technical skills instruction and methods have become the common practice of teacher preparation and accreditation of programs. Teacher candidates are encouraged to be unquestioning servants of a school system rather than educators who govern the meaning of schooling. The purpose of this book is to present a view of how we got to where we are today and to offer strategies to bring the job of teaching back to its roots. It seeks to identify the conservative influences that treat students as a commodity rather than future citizen scholars. For teacher candidates, this has meant the excision of social foundations of education courses and any further explorations of the philosophy of education or the history of schooling in their curricula. The Commodification of American Education looks at ways to re-establish teachers as professionals rather than mere technicians, and to take back public education to transform schools into places that educate while eliminating inequality and oppression.


Perfect for courses such as: Social Foundations of Education | General Methods


Foreword

Noah De Lissovoy


Chapter 1

Introduction

W. Gregory Harman


Chapter 2

Education and School: How Defining Our Terms Determines Our Approach

W. Gregory Harman & Matthew J. Hayden


Chapter 3

Resisting Neoliberal Reforms in Early Childhood Education: Play Pedagogy as the Antidote to GERM

Denisha Jones


Chapter 4

How Schools Reinforce Socially Constructed Notions of “Smartness” and How we Can Subvert them Through Trust

T. Jameson Brewer & Scott T. Grubbs


Chapter 5

Creating and Commodifying the Neoliberal Self: A Weberian Analysis of an International Education Course

Ashlee B. Anderson & Andrea Arce-Trigatti


Chapter 6

Combating the Commodification of Knowledge: The Maker Movement

Michael Schad & Kurt Stemhagen


Chapter 7

Unionizing Educators in Charter Schools: A Case Study of the Chicago Teacher’s Union Organizing Model

Michelle Strater Gunderson


Chapter 8

What Are “Soft Skills,” and Should We Be Teaching Them?

Bailey B. Smolarek 


Editor and Contributor Biographies


Index