Encasement: A Neoliberal Framework for Dismantling Public Education

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 15
  In Roundtable Session: The Politics of Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Neoliberalism proclaims an allegiance to free, unfettered markets. But recent examples in bringing market “solutions” to formerly public, liberal-democratic institutions has shown that the mechanisms deployed typically involve the use of governmental mechanisms to create an unfair advantage for the private options, often via the sabotage of the public institution. American K12 public education is precisely one of these sectors in which a long-term reform strategy has been deployed to encase the system, enable private options to flourish and shift billions of dollars to private shareholders. The efforts have increased segregation and inequality, lowered achievement and limited access to resources that threaten the persistence of 20th century power dynamics via another civil rights movement.

Author

• Michael A Seelig, Danbury Public Schools