Jenny D and NOST: Vouchers and Social Justice
Some interesting discussions going on in the edusphere this past week:
Over at Jenny D's blog, there is an interesting conversation going on about vouchers. Jenny D poses the question: Suppose the federal government ordered that every child in the nation receive a school voucher equal to the average per pupil spending in the state. Suppose the order was for complete school choice to begin in September. The taxpayers would give you money to send your kid to any school. You have to decide where you want to go and apply by July 1. Now...if a private school decides to accept vouchers, should it be allowed to admit students based on test scores or interviews or some other subjective criteria? Should admittance to a school be based on a lottery? Should the school be allowed charge more money, above and beyond the voucher amount, or else a student couldn't attend? Should it be mandated to accept special ed students?
Another interesting dialogue is at Newoldschoolteacher (NOST) about her social justice assignment in graduate school and what social justice actually means in education. NOST argues a big part of social justice is, in essence, having a choice, regardless of income, race, or creed, to be able to receive a quality education.
Check them both out and please comment either on their blogs, or on ours...because the more we can all contribute to the diaglogue about how to fix education, the closer we become to solving the problem together.
2 Comments:
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Thanks for the notice. It's great to see this many people digging in to think about it.
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Jenny D., at May 22, 2006 2:03 PM
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On NOST: I feel for her... it seems like she spends a lot of time discussing the need to fight structures of oppression in her classroom, when she believes that the best way to do that is to teach students the things they need to know to have opportunities in life. She's frustrated that her teacher prep program makes ponder the former, when she doesn’t feel that she’s been taught to do the latter. That stinks.
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I happen find what Sociology has to say about the hidden curriculum and cultural capital as fascinating as (honestly, probably a lot more fascinating than) the next person, but I agree w/ NOST that a more salient question in most daily classroom experiences is whether the kids learning the content they need to know. For Qualitative Methods I interviewed teachers who actively use critical pedagogy (not surprisingly, in private schools), which led me to believe that social justice and strong academics are false opposites, and both can be accomplished at the same time. But it doesn’t strike me as easy or necessarily appropriate for everyone. IMO, it’s training probably best reserved for those who desire to practice it.
These diversions aside, I posted a response to NOST's school choice thoughts over there. NMD, at May 23, 2006 1:16 PM
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