policy

Superintendent Certification Program

Review of: Re-Framing Politics of Education for Social Justice

Paul E. Pitre, Ph.D.pepitre@wsu.edu

Office Hours: Wednesday & Thursday 9-11 am or by Appointment

Room 358 Cleveland Hall(509) 335-6363

February 6, 2009

Education in a Democracy

For the fact is that how schools are designed, and what they actually do as a result, will be determined by the institutions and politics of democratic government, whose outcomes may have little to do with, or be dramatically different from those that scholars think are best… If we want to explore how schools might shape democracy for the better, we have to begin by trying to understand how democracy shapes schools—for the better or the worse”

(Moe, 2000, p.127-128).

Education in a Democracy

What is the role of education in a democracy?

Education in a Democracy

What is your role as an educational leader in a democratic society?

Take Aways

Importance of education in a democracy

Role of values in Politics and Policy

Think about your role in advocating for marginalized individuals and groups in political arenas.

What were some of the things you learned from the readings?

Education in a Democracy

Are you a player (Actor)???

What is your role in the political arena?

Experts in educational policy

Followers of educational policy

Implementers of educational policy

Street level bureaucrats

Fowler (2004)

Street Level Bureaucracy

“… the notion of street level bureaucrats highlights how individuals can subvert and resist policies they deem do not fit with the needs of their local context.”

Weatherly & Lipsky (1977) in Marshall et al. (2005)

Values and Politics

How do values play a role in education?

What are our values related to social and economic inequality?

How do values relate to politics & policy

Values Transmission

Politics – Mode

Policy – Means

Education Policy Tripartite

Education Policy Goals (Dominant Values):

Efficiency – Emerged as dominant policy focus of the 1920s

Equity – Emerged from Brown v. Board

Excellence – (Quality) – 1970s – Concern for public school performance and skills of incoming freshman

Education Policy Tripartite

Are these three policy goals in conflict?

What is driving the current focus?

Which of these policy goals should we focus in on?

Underlying Values in Educational Policy

Equity

Excellence Efficiency

- Mitchell & Encarnation (1984)

Key Points:

Values and Value Shifts values of key actors in policy process and values shift

with change in players Conflicting values = Politics

Policy Stream – Direction of policy agenda1. Problems2. Proposal3. Politics

Policy Windows – Where streams converge

Key Points

Arena Model - Subsystems of legislators, bureaucrats and interest groups who dominate agenda

Assumptive worlds – Unstated rules of the game

Policy logics – Rationale or reasoning attached to a policy to strengthen its appeal. Making policy make sense.

Symbolic policy – actors use symbolism to motivate constituencies into action. Political spectacle.

Can you give an example of policy logic?

What about symbolic policy?

The Political Frame

Viewed through your political lens, how is your institution political?

Are there voices missing from the policy arena?

Who has a voice in your schools and school districts?

Values in Politics

Values – Drive politics

Politics – means/ Policy – mode of values transmission

Power – used in political contests

Critical Consciousness

New Leaders Understand:

Human Agency – How to exert individual influence on the world. Rooted in an understanding of what it means to be human and a clear sense of how humans deal with and respond to adversity.

New Policy Lenses – Alternative ways of looking at problems. Feminist Lens Critical Analysis Lens Language and Symbols Lens

Advocacy – How to operationalize power to enhance educational opportunities for the disenfranchised.

Equity and Social Justice

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms; the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

 - Theodore Roosevelt