Parent-Scholar Collaboration for Educational Justice: Reconstructing Education as a Public Good

• In Event: Edu4: Social Imagination, Innovation, and Political Activism in Education

Abstract

One of the promising social phenomena in recent years has been the rise of well-coordinated educational activism by parents. Numerous organizations and networks have emerged among parents of a wide socioeconomic spectrum, covering various educational issues such as fiscal equity, school closure, class-size, and high-stakes testing. This working group seeks to bring together the local knowledge/experience of these parent activists and scholars’ theoretical expertise with the aim of facilitating action-oriented collaborations against the dominant discourse of neoliberalism toward educational justice. Given that many scholars are also parents and that these groups are engaged in many of the same issues, such collaborations seem both necessary and potent. Collaborations with scholars are likely to arm parent activists with data and theoretical underpinning while they will provide scholars the means to transform theory into action. Today’s market-based education reforms characterized by standards and accountability are largely anti-educational. For example, the increasing reliance on high-stakes testing reduces education to test scores and credentials while truncating the possibilities of teaching and learning. In response, there have been highly coordinated local and national efforts to opt out of standardized testing, especially among middle-class parents (http://optoutofstandardizedtests.wikispaces.com/,
http://timeoutfromtesting.org/, http://changethestakes.wordpress.com/).

Moreover, these reform efforts are inherently divisive, anti-democratic, and ultimately inequitable as they commodify education and legitimize its stratification by creating an education market where students and parents are pitted against each other as consumers who compete for better education. However, refusing to be passive and divided consumers, numerous parents have organized themselves as educated, vocal, and influential partners in the educational enterprise to effectively pressure policymakers on a broad range of educational issues as mentioned before. In line with Edu4’s vision, this working group hopes to use the small discussion section to bring diverse parent activists together with scholars to create a public forum in order to reconstruct education as a public good.

Discussion questions:
• What are the common areas of concern?
• What are some of the discrepancies in narratives of parents and scholars?
• What are some of the academic needs of parent organizations?
• What kinds of academic expertise might be beneficial for parent organizations?
• What kinds of resources can parent groups provide scholars?
• What kinds of parent activism can effectively transform scholarly work into action?
• How can we reconceptualize education from a market for individual consumers to a public forum for democratic citizens?

Author

• Isabel Nunez, Concordia University - Chicago