What Kind of Progressive Education? The Case of Charter Schools

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 5
  In Roundtable Session: The Effects of Ideology and Market Pressure on School Racial Composition and Culture

Abstract

Scholars have identified several competing visions of progressive education: administrative, pedagogical, and political progressivism. This research argues that administrative progressivism had the most enduring impact on the structure and practice of public schooling. In this qualitative, comparative case study, I examined what kind of progressive education endures across three charter schools whose founders centered their missions on pedagogical and political progressivism. I found that, across schools, the dominant form of progressive education on display was administrative progressivism. I argue that a policy and political context oriented around the market values of accountability, competition, efficiency, managerialism, and standardization led the focal schools to prioritize administrative progressivism rather than to leverage their autonomy to experiment with pedagogically and politically progressive approaches.

Author

• Elise Castillo, Trinity College