This paper is one of two which bring together leading educational researchers to consider some of the key challenges facing democracy and education during the twenty-first century, including rising social and economic inequality, political instability, and the existential threats of global pandemics and climate change. In this paper, key…

In this article Henry Giroux discusses corporate school reform movement and its detrimental impact on the public school system such as the closure of public schools in cities such as, Philadelphia, Chicago and New York to make way for charter schools. Giroux argues that corporate school reform is not simply obsessed with measurements that degrade…

This article examines the so-called new school reform movement led by a host of right-wing ideologues, billionaires, and foundations. It argues that instead of being reformers, the latter are part of a counter-revolution in American education to dismantle public schools not because they are failing but because they are public and make a claim,…

This article describes America's descent into madness under the regime of neoliberalism that has emerged in the United States since the late 1970s. In part, this is due to the emergence of a public pedagogy produced by the corporate-owned media that now saturates Americans with a market-driven value system that undermines those formative…

"Education and the Crisis of Public Values" examines American society's shift away from democratic public values, the ensuing move toward a market-driven mode of education, and the last decade's growing social disinvestment in youth. The book discusses the number of ways that the ideal of public education as a democratic public sphere has been…

This article provides a case study of how a business culture imposes modes of educational leadership on a public school system in New York City that has little if any concerns for empowering children, teachers, and the communities. The article provides a counter-narrative that serves to dispel the notion that the culture of educational empowerment…

In this paper, the author focuses specifically on how the current crisis regarding teacher layoffs in the United States is being analyzed and addressed through weak reformist discourses and how the hidden order of these discourses is revealed through current policies being implemented to reform existing programs and colleges of education charged…

Privatization undermines the role of public education in keeping democracy alive, offering consumerism as the only form of citizenship. Challenging the encroachment of corporatism is essential if democracy is to remain the defining principle of education and society. (SK)

Educators and other cultural workers need a new political and pedagogical language for addressing the changing contexts and issues facing a world in which capital draws upon an unprecedented convergence of resources--cultural, political, economic, scientific, military, and technological--to exercise powerful and diverse forms of hegemony. In this…

Analyzes Gramsci's work on education, discussing right-wing attempts to subordinate public education and the role of cultural politics in spearheading this assault. The paper examines attempts by right-wing theorists to appropriate Gramsci's views on education for conservative educational work, noting implications of Gramsci's work for defending…

In the current educational reform movement, schools have become the new scapegoat for the American economy's increasing failure to compete in the world market. The Bush Administration needs to articulate a vision linking public education to democratic imperatives, rather than the marketplace's narrow demands. Education for empowerment should be a…

Invaded by candy manufacturers, sneaker companies, and fast food chains, schools increasingly promote a commercial culture. As commercial culture replaces public culture, the language of the market substitutes for the language of democracy. Educators, families, and communities must reinvigorate the language, social relations, and politics of…

This monograph argues that corporate culture, power, and politics are dominating the discourse on the role of higher education and public education. Evidence is offered of the change in the role of institution president to that of a corporate manager, of the increasing vocationalization of higher education, and of an increasingly pragmatic view of…

This book examines the relationship between democracy and schooling and argues that schools are one of the few spheres left where youth can learn the knowledge and skills necessary to become engaged, critical citizens. Not only is the legacy of democracy addressed through the work of John Dewey and others, but the democratic possibilities of…

Challenging prevalent views of teachers as technicians, bureaucratic agents, and deskilled intellectuals, the article recommends restructuring teachers' roles by considering them public intellectuals, exploring pedagogical and curricular transformations and changes in workplace conditions that might empower individual teachers and emancipate…