Capitalism & Schooling

Course Description and Goals:
This seminar seeks to understand the implications associated with neoliberal theories and practices increasingly shaping the K-12 and higher education context in the U.S. From the recent shut-down of half of Detroit city public schools to the post-Katrina privatization of New Orleans schools, neoliberal approaches to dealing with economic and socio-ecological disaster have become the dominant blueprint for transforming public goods into private for-profit sites of investment and disinvestment. In order to better understand the origins of neoliberal trends of school reform strategies, the seminar begins by posing this question: how do corporate models of education reform undermine the democratic potential of public education in the U.S.? Investigating this question, the seminar traces how an obscure economic framework that emerged during the post-WWII period became the leading framework for guiding educational reform in the U.S. In this sense the seminar seeks to elucidate the historical and political connections of neoliberal economic restructuring in the U.S. and across the globe that began in the late 1970’s and set its sights on educational institutions and policy reform as one of the key sites for radical free market intervention.
To evaluate the stakes involved in the neoliberal educational restructuring of schools, the seminar focuses on four major themes. The first theme focuses on identifying and distinguishing what exactly neoliberal economic theory is and how it is applied in social policy such as education reform. The second theme examines how the charter school debate has been conceptualized and sold to the public as a more efficient and “innovative” approach to reform. The third theme analyzes how free market education policies have created “disposable” education populations that are judged on their ability to be responsible market actors. In particular, this section/theme of the syllabus will engage recent research around the “school-to-prison pipeline” and how it connects to and is part of the broader neoliberal makeover of public education in the U.S. The final theme looks at recent efforts to re-imagine and build social movements for a public education system that is rooted in the needs of communities and not those of the elite economic class. Each of these themes highlight and critique issues and problems attributable to the neoliberalization (or free market makeover) of schools in the U.S. such as the privatization of schools through voucher and charter programs, disinvestment in districts comprised of urban youth of color and working class whites, merit pay strategies for teachers, and the general equation of education with the value system of the free market economy.