Reenvisioning Public Education Reform: Reclaiming a Public Path Toward the Public Good

• In Event: Roundtable Session 111
  In Roundtable Session: Questioning the Purpose of Education

Abstract

This paper draws from philosophical and policy analyses to explore possibilities for revitalizing public education through conceptualization of, and commitment to, fidelity in public education policy. Informed by contemporary theory and research regarding prevailing approaches to political advocacy and social change, it is then proposed that this commitment can only be realized by re-envisioning now dominant paradigms and processes for public education reform. It is necessary to shift our attention and our resources from targeted support for episodic expressions of social entrepreneurship toward broad-based engagement in a sustained social movement aimed at granting access to high quality public education for all American youth, and more deeply democratic civic and political participation for all U.S. citizens.

Author

• Ruthanne Kurth-Schai, Macalester College