policy
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Superintendent Certification Program
Review of: Re-Framing Politics of Education for Social Justice
Paul E. Pitre, [email protected]
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