The Erosion of Democracy in Education: From Critique to Possibilities

by John P. Portelli (Editor), R. Patrick Solomon (Editor)

The topic of democracy and education has again become a prominent one in educational literature and discourse. Educators, academics, policy analysts, and critics from different ideological stances are debating this topic. While none have argued against the importance of the relationship between democracy and education, different and conflicting views and recommendations have emerged. Given the nature of the concepts in question, this should not be surprising. However, from the perspectives presented in this collection, recent educational reforms in several regions of Canada are troubling because they have undermined some basic democratic principles, beliefs, and practices. These reforms in Canada are an echo of similar or identical reforms promoted in other parts of the world, particularly in English-speaking countries like Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. While such countries continue to present themselves as bastions of democracy, some recent educational reforms have been questioned because they contradict some basic democratic qualities.

This collection of twelve papers on democracy and schooling by Canadian scholars argues against such issues as curriculum and testing standardization, outcomes-based education and the marketization of education and in favor of focusing more strongly on issues such as equity, diversity, and social justice in schools.

Table of Contents

Dedication
Acknowledgements
Now´s the Time: Foreword by Roger Simon
Introduction

1. Democracy, Democratic Citizenship, and Education (Ken Osborne)
2. Beyond Common Educational Standards: Towards a Curriculum of Life (John H. Portelli and Ann B. Vibert)
3. Texts, Tyranny, and Transformation: Educational Restructuring in Ontario (Alison Griffith)
4. Limited Vision: The Ontario Curriculum and Outcomes-Based Learning (Carol Anne Wien and Curt Dudley-Marling)
5. A Wolf in Sheep´s Clothing: A Critique of the Atlantic Provinces Education Foundation Program (David Mackinnon)
6. "No-one has ever grown taller as a result of being measured" Revisited: More Educational Measurement Lessons for Canadians (Sharon Murphy)
7. Education, Business, and the ´Knowledge Economy´ (Alison Taylor)
8. School Reforms in Ontario: The ´Marketization of Education´ and the Resulting Silence on Equity. (George J. Sefa Dei and Leeno Karumanchery)
9. The Struggle for Equity, Diversity, and Social Justice in Teacher Education (R. Patrick Solomon and Andrew M.A. Allen)
10. Pendulum Swings and Archaelogical Layers: Educational Policy and the Case of ESL (Nina Bascia)
11. Educational Programming for Children Living in Poverty: Possibilities and Challenges (Bill Maynes)
12. An Argument for the Progressive Possibilities for Public Education: School Reforms in Manitoba (Dick Henley and Jon Young)

328 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2001

Reviews

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a book criticizing trends in Canadian regional education circa 1997-2000. Written for the Canadian market, many of the assumptions and omissions made twelve years ago, makes it difficult for an outsider to follow or presume to criticize in detail.

This is not a balanced book, it is written by academics opposed to the shift to outcomes-based education, the use of standardized tests to evaluate the state of education and what was perceived to be an increased influence of business on the public education agenda. It also argued that such a shift was moving schools away from paying much needed attention to issues such as diversity and the incorporation and practice of values to strengthen and pave the way to a more open, pluralistic, responsible, democratic and compassionate society.

Unfortunately, some of the authors set up straw men only to demolish them with shrill and gleeful gusto. For instance, measuring anything that has to do with education is considered bad, illusory, bureaucratic, deforming and part of a hidden capitalistic agenda. Business and the Canadian conservatives have formed an unholy alliance to dismantle progressive education in order to further the inequities of Canadian society, prepare uncritical and subordinate workers and citizens to big business´s specifications. Thus, in the best strawman building tradition, the editors assert that:

The arguments developed in this book rest on a conception of democracy, which is associated with equity, community, creativity and taking difference seriously. This conception is contrasted with a notion of democracy that is minimalist, protectionist, and marginalist and hence promotes a narrow notion of individualism.

Alison Griffith starkly announces that:

"...Bill 160: The Educational Improvement Act (1997) [...] supports a retreat from the possibilities of emancipatory or critical leadership to the tyranny of the bureacratic-managerial leadership.

Science is shamefully lumped together with the bogeyman, only the humanities are on the side of the angels, and business is democracy´s sworn foe:

[S]chools these days are expected to prepare students to be flexible and adaptable workers in an emerging global economy [...]Education is now seen, not as a training ground for democracy but as the "paramount ingredient for success in the competitive world economy" [...] Policy-makers in education now think of producing workers, not citizens, of retooling Canadian schools so as to produce the kind of work-force that will guarantee success in the new global economy.[...]The implications of this argument for education are clear. They include closer links between schools and business; an emphasis of skills over knowledge (literacy but not literature, for example); a concentration on economically oriented subjects such as mathematics, science , and computer science, at the expense of history, literature and the arts; a general vocationalization of the curriculum; and a tightening up of accountability measures to ensure that teachers and students are doing what is expected of them. In the process, democratic citizenship comes a poor second. Education for democracy is counter-productive in the era of the global marketplace.

In this sense, one is grateful for David MacKinnon ("A Wolf in Sheep´s Clothing: A Critique of the Atlantic Provinces Education Foundation Program"), who is one of the few authors who at least makes a much appreciated effort to carefully explain the main items of the program, before critiquing it.

There are some thoughtful and thought-provoking nuggets which effectively uncover fallacies and deficiencies in public policies and rightfully point at the need for more balanced perspectives. With the wrong set of incentives or simply left to itself, testing can easily become the curriculum (as Wien and Dudley-Marling point out), an unimaginative and inflexible adherence to expected outcomes can straitjacket both the slower and the faster learners, focusing on preparing students for today´s jobs can mean missing the opportunities to prepare people to create different, better jobs for tomorrow and too much emphasis on more business-oriented educational goals can lead to narrower, less enriching educations.

Public education has to reconcile many purposes: it encourages individuals to grow towards their full potential, it provides the groundwork for community, it encourages values that help build a better society and a better world for all. These are all tangled skeins, pulling on just one regardless of the rest is an infallible recipe for hopelessly tight knots. Reducing education to vocational training for jobs is indubitably a huge and tragic mistake, but just focusing on diversity is like chopping the skeins into little isolated pieces and hoping they will come together somehow. Education should respect the prowess of individual teachers and encourage them to make their best efforts on the behalf of their particular students, but this does not mean we should simply refuse to look at their efforts, examine what it is they are doing, what is working and what isn´t and hope for the best. Outcomes-based education and standardized curricula have their place in education, as do diversity, community and democratic principles, the real problem is not choosing between one or the other, but knitting them into a stronger and better whole.

Roger Simon points out in his forward that:

Surely it is time to re-open public discussion about the aims of education and ensure that our current policies and practices are consistent with the core qualities of democracy; democracy not narrowly defined as a form of government, but as Dewey characterized it -as a way of life, as an ethical conception, and hence always about the democracy still to come.

So what exactly can an outsider take away from this book? I think it is that it is always the right time to discuss the aims of public education and that in drawing up educational public policy, we should always remember to take into account student diversity and the role of education in community building and in preparing citizens for tomorrow´s democracy.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book in a used book store. I thought it may come in hand as I was studying for my education degree. Sure enough, I was able to write a few papers using the essays inside. Interesting food for thought.