Inside Educational Activism and Organizing: Insurgent Insights on the Advancing Endgame Revolt in U.S. Education

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Public education has endured the attacks of corporate ‘reform’ efforts and neoliberal policies for a few decades. While many activists and activist-scholars commonly associate ‘reform’ with the realm of K-12, it is unquestionable that the same ideological tidal wave is flooding the halls of the academy with force. The good of public education (PK - PhD) demands deliberate attention be directed toward current resistance efforts and the necessity for similar efforts in the academy. This symposium merges a swath of critical theories with lived experience and hard-fought insights in order to begin this dialogue. Data for these papers is drawn from the qualitative case reports of the presenters who struggle regularly in the trenches of resistance.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 4: Social Context of Education Policy, Politics, and Praxis

Chair

• Ricardo D. Rosa, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth

Papers

• A Point in Time: A Point of Origin - Richard J. Meyer, University of New Mexico; Bess Altwerger, Towson University

• The Education Revolution Will Not Be Standardized: The "Moral Imperative" of Testing Refusal - Morna M. Mcdermott, Towson University

• Building Resistance by Seizing Tensions Within the Conservative Restoration - Denisha Jones, Howard University; Becky L. Noel Smith, Opt Out Orlando & Save Our Schools; Ricardo D. Rosa, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth; Jessica Heybach, Aurora University

• American Association of University Professors Advocacy: Paranoia, Radical Disclosure, and the Difficulties of Collective Action Without a Common Identity - Jessica Heybach, Aurora University