SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
"The history of social movements makes clear that people want political education in moments of crisis and repression, and that they want to mobilize when they see reasons for hope." (Photo: John Picken Photography/Flickr/cc)
A Back-to-School Lesson for 2018: As Elites Cut, the Masses Build
Education can strengthen our democracy when it raises our consciousness, reframes the debate, and mobilizes the public
Aug 11, 2018
As students and educators gear up for back-to-school this month, more and more of us are asking how we should make sense of public education in this political moment. The history of social movements makes clear that people want political education in moments of crisis and repression, and that they want to mobilize when they see reasons for hope. The Highlander Folk School, for instance, offered such education and hope for the building of the Civil Rights Movement, which then seeded hundreds of citizenship schools and freedom schools across the South.
Freedom schools today would likely be pushing us to ask, "What is happening with our public education system, and what should be our intervention?" One sign to give us hope is that as elites cut, the masses build.
The Washington Post recently revealed a detailed timeline of policy changes and other efforts over the past year and a half by the Education Department to curtail and roll back civil rights protections for students, including policies to refrain from examining possible systemic causes of discrimination. Federal actions have also included renewed attacks on affirmative action, using rhetoric from a quarter-century ago that positioned Asian Americans as "racial mascots." But in the face of such regression, victories in the courts are accumulating, many led or supported by members of the new national Education Civil Rights Alliance. Several recent examples:
- The Trump Administration has been pushing to siphon funds from various programs, which would dis-invest in already struggling communities in order to invest billions into expanding school choice and vouchers. But inadequate funding for historically marginalized communities is what lies at the heart of the New Mexico ruling that the state fails to provide sufficient public education, the California ruling that the case against the state for violating students' constitutional right to literacy can move forward, and the Michigan ongoing case to ban public funds for private schools.
- The Education Department has rescinded guidance that protects transgender students. But federal courts have repeatedly upheld school or district policies protecting transgender students in Florida, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.
- Newly filed cases seek to protect other groups as well, including children of immigrants in New Jersey, students with mental health disabilities in North Carolina, and students defrauded by for-profit online colleges and loan-servicing agencies nationwide.
A month ago, the Supreme Court decided problematically in Janus v. AFSCME that public sector unions (including of public school teachers) cannot mandate that all sector employees pay "agency fees" even if they benefit from the contracts, protections, and services of that union. But in the build-up to that decision, teachers were already waging large-scale walkouts ("wildcat strikes"), successfully changing how schools are funded and what the public knows about school funding in six right-to-work states. In one such state, Oklahoma, before and after the SCOTUS decision, 100 teachers ran for public office, with dozens of them now proceeding into the general election on public education platforms.
And, as Congress remains immobilized and ineffective in addressing gun-fueled violence and killing, who can forget the mass mobilizing and policy-directed actions by and of students following the Parkland shooting? Young people stand at the heart of social movements, from the student groups in the Civil Rights Movement, to today's Movement for Black Lives--centered heavily on young people, catapulted by three young Black women, two of whom are also queer, that provided the momentum for the post-Parkland mobilizing.
None of these happened without struggles over inclusion and the intersection of multiple forms of injustice, but they thrived precisely when they dived into those contradictions. Education can strengthen our democracy when it raises our consciousness, reframes the debate, and mobilizes the public to retool the core levers of change to advance equity and justice. As we head back to school, such should be central to our lessons.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Kevin Kumashiro
Kevin Kumashiro is former dean of the University of San Francisco School of Education and an award-winning author of 10 books on education and social justice, including "Bad Teacher!: How Blaming Teachers Distorts the Bigger Picture" (2012) and "The Seduction of Common Sense: How the Right Has Framed the Debate of America's Schools" (2008). Follow him on Twitter: @kevinkumashir.
As students and educators gear up for back-to-school this month, more and more of us are asking how we should make sense of public education in this political moment. The history of social movements makes clear that people want political education in moments of crisis and repression, and that they want to mobilize when they see reasons for hope. The Highlander Folk School, for instance, offered such education and hope for the building of the Civil Rights Movement, which then seeded hundreds of citizenship schools and freedom schools across the South.
Freedom schools today would likely be pushing us to ask, "What is happening with our public education system, and what should be our intervention?" One sign to give us hope is that as elites cut, the masses build.
The Washington Post recently revealed a detailed timeline of policy changes and other efforts over the past year and a half by the Education Department to curtail and roll back civil rights protections for students, including policies to refrain from examining possible systemic causes of discrimination. Federal actions have also included renewed attacks on affirmative action, using rhetoric from a quarter-century ago that positioned Asian Americans as "racial mascots." But in the face of such regression, victories in the courts are accumulating, many led or supported by members of the new national Education Civil Rights Alliance. Several recent examples:
- The Trump Administration has been pushing to siphon funds from various programs, which would dis-invest in already struggling communities in order to invest billions into expanding school choice and vouchers. But inadequate funding for historically marginalized communities is what lies at the heart of the New Mexico ruling that the state fails to provide sufficient public education, the California ruling that the case against the state for violating students' constitutional right to literacy can move forward, and the Michigan ongoing case to ban public funds for private schools.
- The Education Department has rescinded guidance that protects transgender students. But federal courts have repeatedly upheld school or district policies protecting transgender students in Florida, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.
- Newly filed cases seek to protect other groups as well, including children of immigrants in New Jersey, students with mental health disabilities in North Carolina, and students defrauded by for-profit online colleges and loan-servicing agencies nationwide.
A month ago, the Supreme Court decided problematically in Janus v. AFSCME that public sector unions (including of public school teachers) cannot mandate that all sector employees pay "agency fees" even if they benefit from the contracts, protections, and services of that union. But in the build-up to that decision, teachers were already waging large-scale walkouts ("wildcat strikes"), successfully changing how schools are funded and what the public knows about school funding in six right-to-work states. In one such state, Oklahoma, before and after the SCOTUS decision, 100 teachers ran for public office, with dozens of them now proceeding into the general election on public education platforms.
And, as Congress remains immobilized and ineffective in addressing gun-fueled violence and killing, who can forget the mass mobilizing and policy-directed actions by and of students following the Parkland shooting? Young people stand at the heart of social movements, from the student groups in the Civil Rights Movement, to today's Movement for Black Lives--centered heavily on young people, catapulted by three young Black women, two of whom are also queer, that provided the momentum for the post-Parkland mobilizing.
None of these happened without struggles over inclusion and the intersection of multiple forms of injustice, but they thrived precisely when they dived into those contradictions. Education can strengthen our democracy when it raises our consciousness, reframes the debate, and mobilizes the public to retool the core levers of change to advance equity and justice. As we head back to school, such should be central to our lessons.
Kevin Kumashiro
Kevin Kumashiro is former dean of the University of San Francisco School of Education and an award-winning author of 10 books on education and social justice, including "Bad Teacher!: How Blaming Teachers Distorts the Bigger Picture" (2012) and "The Seduction of Common Sense: How the Right Has Framed the Debate of America's Schools" (2008). Follow him on Twitter: @kevinkumashir.
As students and educators gear up for back-to-school this month, more and more of us are asking how we should make sense of public education in this political moment. The history of social movements makes clear that people want political education in moments of crisis and repression, and that they want to mobilize when they see reasons for hope. The Highlander Folk School, for instance, offered such education and hope for the building of the Civil Rights Movement, which then seeded hundreds of citizenship schools and freedom schools across the South.
Freedom schools today would likely be pushing us to ask, "What is happening with our public education system, and what should be our intervention?" One sign to give us hope is that as elites cut, the masses build.
The Washington Post recently revealed a detailed timeline of policy changes and other efforts over the past year and a half by the Education Department to curtail and roll back civil rights protections for students, including policies to refrain from examining possible systemic causes of discrimination. Federal actions have also included renewed attacks on affirmative action, using rhetoric from a quarter-century ago that positioned Asian Americans as "racial mascots." But in the face of such regression, victories in the courts are accumulating, many led or supported by members of the new national Education Civil Rights Alliance. Several recent examples:
- The Trump Administration has been pushing to siphon funds from various programs, which would dis-invest in already struggling communities in order to invest billions into expanding school choice and vouchers. But inadequate funding for historically marginalized communities is what lies at the heart of the New Mexico ruling that the state fails to provide sufficient public education, the California ruling that the case against the state for violating students' constitutional right to literacy can move forward, and the Michigan ongoing case to ban public funds for private schools.
- The Education Department has rescinded guidance that protects transgender students. But federal courts have repeatedly upheld school or district policies protecting transgender students in Florida, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.
- Newly filed cases seek to protect other groups as well, including children of immigrants in New Jersey, students with mental health disabilities in North Carolina, and students defrauded by for-profit online colleges and loan-servicing agencies nationwide.
A month ago, the Supreme Court decided problematically in Janus v. AFSCME that public sector unions (including of public school teachers) cannot mandate that all sector employees pay "agency fees" even if they benefit from the contracts, protections, and services of that union. But in the build-up to that decision, teachers were already waging large-scale walkouts ("wildcat strikes"), successfully changing how schools are funded and what the public knows about school funding in six right-to-work states. In one such state, Oklahoma, before and after the SCOTUS decision, 100 teachers ran for public office, with dozens of them now proceeding into the general election on public education platforms.
And, as Congress remains immobilized and ineffective in addressing gun-fueled violence and killing, who can forget the mass mobilizing and policy-directed actions by and of students following the Parkland shooting? Young people stand at the heart of social movements, from the student groups in the Civil Rights Movement, to today's Movement for Black Lives--centered heavily on young people, catapulted by three young Black women, two of whom are also queer, that provided the momentum for the post-Parkland mobilizing.
None of these happened without struggles over inclusion and the intersection of multiple forms of injustice, but they thrived precisely when they dived into those contradictions. Education can strengthen our democracy when it raises our consciousness, reframes the debate, and mobilizes the public to retool the core levers of change to advance equity and justice. As we head back to school, such should be central to our lessons.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.