scholarly journals Integration Versus Meritocracy? Competing Educational Goals During the COVID-19 Pandemic

AERA Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 233285842110657
Author(s):  
Elise Castillo ◽  
Molly Vollman Makris ◽  
Mira Debs
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Educational Goals ◽  
Social Efficiency ◽  
The Public ◽  
Equity And Access ◽  
Democratic Equality ◽  
The Individual

Alongside the immediate challenges of operating schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, over the past year, parents, students, and policymakers around the country have also debated equity and access to some of the country’s most elite and segregated public schools. This qualitative case study examines how New York City activists conceptualized educational equity during the pandemic. Conceptually framed by Labaree’s (1997) typology of the three competing purposes of education—democratic equality, social efficiency, and social mobility—we document different lessons learned from the pandemic by integration activists, who emphasized school integration for democratic equality; and meritocratic activists, who prioritized retaining the existing stratified system mainly to foster social mobility and social efficiency. Our findings highlight the challenge of sustaining a vision oriented around the public good amid powerful framings emphasizing the individual purposes of education.

scholarly journals Pivoting in the Time of COVID-19: An in-Depth Case Study at the Nexus of Food Insecurity, Resilience, System Re-Organizing, and Caring for the Community

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebekah Fox ◽  
Joshua Frye
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Food Insecurity ◽  
Unmet Need ◽  
School Nutrition ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
School Lunches ◽  
The Public ◽  
Northwest Arkansas ◽  
Meaningful Engagement

According to the School Nutrition Association, nearly 100,000 schools serve free or reduced school lunches and breakfasts daily to approximately 34. 34 million students nationwide. However, as COVID-19 forced many schools to close, students who depended on the public schools to meet the majority of their nutritional needs faced an even larger battle with food insecurity. Recognizing this unmet need, and that food insecurity was intertwined with other needs within the community, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and its satellite contemporary art space the Momentary, partnered with the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank and over 30 additional partner organizations to pivot their existing outreach services. In this case study, we identify lessons learned by Crystal Bridges that might be useful for other organizations who seek to foster meaningful engagement with the public, especially in times of crisis. Specifically, we focus on three main lessons: 1) how the museum created a plan to learn through the pivot in order to capture their own lessons, 2) how the members of the organization experienced a sense of coming together (congregation) during the pivot, and 3) how the organization planned to improve both internal and external communication.

Democratic Justice

Free Justice ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 86-116
Author(s):  
Sara Mayeux
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Public Defender ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Defense Attorneys ◽  
The Public ◽  
Criminal Defense ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Constitutional Right ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Cold War

In contrast to earlier periods when elite lawyers expressed skepticism of the public defender, this chapter describes the Cold War moment when elite lawyers, like the New York lawyer Harrison Tweed, celebrated the public defender as central to the “American way of life.” By the 1950s, lawyers and political leaders touted the rights that U.S. Constitution afforded to criminal defendants as hallmarks of democracy. These rights were thought to exemplify democratic regard for the individual, in contrast to the state-dominated show trials that symbolized totalitarianism. Within this context, criminal defense attorneys were rhetorically celebrated and the public defender was reframed from a harbinger of socialism into an anticommunist figure. In 1963, the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, further enshrining the constitutional right to counsel. Gideon held that the Sixth Amendment requires states to provide counsel to indigent defendants in all serious felony trials. The decision was celebrated and chronicled in the widely read book by journalist Anthony Lewis, Gideon’s Trumpet, and the Ford Foundation announced ambitious plans for a nationwide initiative to expand public defender offices.

The 49th Annual PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools

2017 ◽  
Vol 99 (1) ◽  
pp. NP1-NP32 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
School Quality ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Academic Preparation ◽  
After School ◽  
The Public ◽  
Annual Survey ◽  
Public Money ◽  
Landline Telephone

The 2017 PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools finds that Americans overwhelmingly want schools to do more than educate students in academic subjects. While they value traditional academic preparation, Americans say they want schools to substantially help position students for their working lives after school, which means both more direct career preparation and efforts to develop students’ interpersonal skills. In addition, as in past years, the 2017 poll also shows little public support for using public money to send children to private schools. The more Americans know about how voucher programs work, the less likely they are to support them or to say they’d participate in them. The poll also asked Americans about valuing diversity in schools, measuring school quality, wrapping support around students, grading the public schools, and expecting students to attend college. The 2017 poll is PDK’s 49th annual survey. It is based on a random, representative, 50-state sample of 1,588 adults interviewed by cell or landline telephone, in English or Spanish, in May 2017. For the first time, this year’s study also includes a pair of statewide samples — focusing on Georgia and New York — which are covered in separate reports that were not published in the magazine but are available at the organization’s poll web site. Langer Research Associates of New York, N.Y., produced this year’s poll.

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