Obama, Where Art Thou? Hoping for Change in U.S. Education Policy

2009 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wayne Au
Keyword(s):  
Education Policy ◽  
Barack Obama ◽  
American Education ◽  
Educational Justice ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Equitable Education

In this essay, Wayne Au carefully considers the educational stance of Barack Obama by exploring the president's speeches and his personnel and policy choices. Au considers the election of Obama as a moment of possibility for change in American education,but also questions whether Obama's hopeful message about education will be fully realized, given the decisions the administration has made or said it will make. Finally, he calls for individuals to build a movement that demands educational justice in order to achieve the vision of equitable education set forth by Obama.

Focal Case Examples

Making Change ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 57-62
Author(s):  
Tina P. Kruse
Keyword(s):  
Education Policy ◽  
Youth Culture ◽  
American Education ◽  
Case Examples

This part of the text revisits the focal case examples of Section I of the book: the SOUL Sisters Leadership Collective (SSLC) and the Cookie Cart and relates them to the topics covered in Section II. Both SOUL Sisters and Cookie Cart operate within the broader macrosystem of youth culture, American education policy, and volatile economic and political climates. They aim to counter the numerous disempowering pressures affecting their involved youth by providing concrete opportunities to hold power.

scholarly journals Re-thinking comparative education and religion: temptations, traditions, and politics

2019 ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Robert Cowen
Keyword(s):  
Education Policy ◽  
Equilibrium Problem ◽  
Comparative Education ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Education Systems ◽  
Major Topic ◽  
Axiom A ◽  
Political Equilibrium ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Secular State

This article opens by refusing some traditional ways to approach the theme of comparative education and religion-and-education. Partly, this is because some topics, in terms of religion and education, have been well covered. More generally, there is an explicit refusal of the clichéd assumption that ‘comparative education articles’ compare (e.g. education systems in Argentina and Australia, or in Brazil and Bolivia; and so on), juxtaposing narratives on any-old-topic which interests the writer, provided the narratives are about two or more different countries. Fortunately, some current changes in the ‘epistemic gaze’ of comparative education create new levels of theoretical difficulty and permit a break from the classic political equilibrium problem of the liberal secular state juggling education policy choices and juggling competing religious groups. Starting from a different axiom, a sketch of new possibilities is offered. The sketch is theoretically clumsy but it opens up a strategically different way to tell comparative education stories, of the kind which traditionally we have not tried to tell.  The conclusion of the article makes a guess about why religion and education might again become a major topic in comparative education. 

Oakeshott, Schumacher, and an examination of the tension between the “college and career readiness” consensus and school choice in American education policy

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Wearne
Keyword(s):  
School Choice ◽  
Education Policy ◽  
Standardized Test ◽  
Economic Outcomes ◽  
Career Readiness ◽  
College And Career Readiness ◽  
American Education ◽  
College And Career ◽  
Elite Level ◽  
American Schools

American education policy at the elite level has coalesced around a consensus valuing “college and career readiness” as the primary metric and value for American schools. This “readiness” is often defined by economic outcomes or by standardized test measures (which serve as predictors for economic outcomes). Policy actors at the local, state, and national levels are pursuing more centralized methods to reach goals based on these value assumptions. At the same time, more individualized programs and more forms of school choice are being implemented across the nation. This theoretical paper explores criticisms of this approach from both the political left and right, as well as the inherent tension between the desire for centralized standardization and outcomes measured by economic outcomes on one hand, and the growing desire among families for individualized, varied, and self-directed schooling experiences on the other.

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