Knowledge, Power, and a K-16 Continuum: Who Benefits? Who Is Harmed?

• In Event: Education for Human Possibility or Human Capital?

Abstract

Increasingly, states are turning toward legislated policies that seek to create a seamless flow for students from primary to secondary to tertiary education and a connectedness to the curricular experiences across grades and educational levels (e.g., Barnett & Fay, 2013). Such efforts are intended to address remaining, and in some cases growing, disparity among students, and seek to leverage an accountability-based framework by: 1) linking k-12 and higher education; 2) placing increasing expectations on students as the proposed “lever” for institutional reform; and 3) accepting a free-market based framework that suggests development of capital rather than development of potential ought to undergird this strategy.

In many important ways, such a policy framework marks an important shift conceptually. Specifically it challenges traditional educational models that contribute to continued stratification of educational opportunities and outcomes (Antonio, Kirst & Venezia, 2004; Kirst & Venezia, 2004). Problematically, however, such efforts may mismatch stipulated policy goals and the policies and investments in implementation, which, contrary to those stated goals, often result in growing inequality.

Using Texas as a case study, this study documents how one state is seeking to intersect policy and curricular experiences along the K-16 continuum. Texas serves as an important litmus for understanding such issues because of both its policy and demographic realities. The legislature has made substantial cuts to all education budgets in the last several years, resulting in the layoff of thousands of teachers as well as the reduction in a broad range of academic and co-curricular services (Fernandez, 2012). That legislative reality intersects with the demographic reality that almost 30 percent of the Texas school-age population lives in poverty (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2012), more than 30% speak a language other than English at home (Translation Source, 2009), and a youth age population among the most diverse in the country abounds (Murdock, 2012).

The paper begins with a theoretical rationale for the importance of careful policy attention to the continuum of educational experience K-16, especially to the shifting definitions of the purposes of education. It next provides an overview of the current student demography of Texas as well as the relevant K-16 policies in place in Texas (e.g., House Bill 1 (2005)) that connect secondary and postsecondary curricular experiences, paying close attention to which children are empowered to move on paths that lead away from singularly “human capital” toward “human possibility.”

The presentation then analyses the extent to which three specific curricular policy levers - grade- and subject-specific learning objectives described by the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), subject-based State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR), and the Texas College Readiness Standards - identify, describe, and weight similarly a designated set of curricular priorities. It systematically assesses whether these policy levers address conditions of social and educational poverty. The presentation concludes with a discussion of the ways in which current policy changes that blur traditional educational borders in the United States, more comprehensively conceived, might ultimately expand and enhance sense of belongingness and opportunity for all students.

Author

• Catherine L. Horn, University of Houston