The Finance that Can Determine Materials Conditions of Teachers’ Work

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 11:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Teacher's Work in Contentious Times: Policy and Organzing

Abstract

Underneath the culture war headlines so familiar to educators in the USA the 2020s is a more complex class war over the material conditions of schooling. As the post-pandemic economy settled in, a wave of budget crises erupted in school districts, leading to closures, mass firings, and program cuts. Teachers have had to work under these conditions, with the constant threat of loss of livelihood, yet the threat can feel opaque: the public finance policies determining the struggle are often hard to understand. Using a framework of critical school finance and integrated social reproduction theory, I argue that teachers and allied movements must surface and reframe such policies to fight wonky on in the class struggle over educational resources.

Author

• David Isaac Backer, Seton Hall University