Education USA

EDUCATION USA: CORPORATIZATION, CHARTER SCHOOLS, PEACE

Contents
Commercialization, Commodification, Militarization of Higher Ed: Giroux, Radder
Stanley Fish on Kant
Responses to Waiting for “Superman” on Charter Schools: Ravitch
Peace Education


CORPORATE UNIVERSITIES
Henry A. Giroux, “Beyond the Swindle of the Corporate University: Higher Education in the Service of Democracy,” Truthout Op-Ed, Jan. 18, 2011
Henry A. Giroux, Truthout: "Memories of the university as a citadel of democratic learning have been replaced by a university eager to define itself largely in economic terms. As the center of gravity shifts away from the humanities and the notion of the university as a public good, university presidents ignore public values while refusing to address major social issues and problems. Instead, such administrators now display corporate affiliations like a badge of honor, sit on corporate boards and pull in huge salaries." “If the commercialization, commodification and militarization of the university continues unabated, higher education will become yet another one of a number of institutions incapable of fostering critical inquiry, public debate, human acts of justice and common deliberation.”
Read the Article https://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&shva=1#inbox/12d9b3d186ed6919


SCIENCE IN CORPORATIZED US UNIVERSITIES
Radder, Hans, ed. The Commodification of Academic Reseach: Science and the Modern University. U of Pittsburgh P, 2010. Rev. Steven Shapin, “Commerce at the Helm?” Science Magazine (Jan. 7, 2011). “Our whole society has become shot through with econometric sensibilities and corporate patterns of organization.” www.sciencemag.org, shaping@fas.harvard.edu


“We’re All Conservatives Now” By STANLEY FISH
December 20, 2010, New York Times [Here is Fish’s concluding paragraph.] …There are some things to fear, but their names are not West or Chomsky or Horowitz. The forces — call them neoliberal, call them corporate capitalism, call them political indoctrination — that have in different ways turned the university away from the emancipatory project Kant called us to (and every one of these authors celebrates) are enemy enough. We don’t have to demonize each other. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/were-all-conservatives-now/?ref=global-home


RESPONSES TO THE FILM “WAITING FOR ‘SUPERMAN.’”“The Myth of Charter Schools”, by Diane Ravitch, NY Review of Books, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charter-schools/
…..Waiting for “Superman” and the other films appeal to a broad apprehension that the nation is falling behind in global competition. If the economy is a shambles, if poverty persists for significant segments of the population, if American kids are not as serious about their studies as their peers in other nations, the schools must be to blame. At last we have the culprit on which we can pin our anger, our palpable sense that something is very wrong with our society, that we are on the wrong track, and that America is losing the race for global dominance. It is not globalization or deindustrialization or poverty or our coarse popular culture or predatory financial practices that bear responsibility: it’s the public schools, their teachers, and their unions.

Here is the report of "...Superman" on DemNow. http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/1/waiting_for_superman_critics_say_much (from Carl B)

“Waiting for Substance” By LynNell HancockA high-profile documentary shortchanges the education debate.

PEACE EDUCATIONPEACE EDUCATION K-12
This is a very comprehensive curriculum. Ian
From: LINDEN NELSON
Date: November 1, 2010 1:50:56 PM CDT
To: psysr-pe-announce listserv

Subject: Peace Education Course for K-12 teachers

Teachers Without Borders has created a new course on peace education for teachers that may be read or downloaded without cost at http://www.scribd.com/document_collections/2700158 . The 302 page document includes many lesson plans and much relevant information for K-12 teachers interested in developing peace education competencies. Although the authors have made little use of the peace psychology literature relevant to peace education, the course seems to offer a good basic introduction to peace education and many useful resources. Unit 1 covers history, definitions, key thinkers, and core concepts. This is followed by a compilation of lesson plans from the Hague Appeal for Peace. Unit 2 is on various approaches to peace education including critical peace education, disarmament education, human rights education, global citizenship, multicultural education, gender issues, environmental issues, conflict resolution education, and futures education. Unit 3 covers pedagogy and classroom practice, and the appendices include a variety of resources.