Learning Power

by Oakes, Jeannie; Rogers, John; Lipton, Martin

• ISBN13: 9780807747025
• ISBN10: 0807747025
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-03-31
• Publisher: Teachers College Pr

Summary

In cities across the nation, low-income African American and Latino parents hope that their children’s education will bring a better life. But their schools, typically, are overcrowded, ill equipped, and shamefully under-staffed. Unless things change dramatically, more than half the students will never graduate and many will face a life of poverty-wage work. Learning Power documents a radical approach to school reform that includes: grassroots public activism informed by social inquiry as the best way to realize Brown v. Board of Education’s promise of education on equal terms”; activist young people, teachers, parents, and community organizations working to improve schools in our nation’s poorest neighborhoods; the voices, images, and actions of people who are organizing to fight for better schools; and a comprehensive critique of the prevailing logic of American schooling and an alternative logic based on justice and participatory democracy. Here are the best arguments against those who want to give up on public schools in America. Read Learning Power for clear examples of how ordinary people can influence schooling through their organizing and social critique.

Author Biography

Jeannie Oakes is Presidential Professor in Educational Equity and Director of UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access (IDEA) John Rogers is the Associate Director of IDEA Martin Lipton is Communications Analyst at IDEA

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Prologue: Learning Power	1	(6)
Unjust Schools	7	(14)
Still Separate and Still Unequal	8	(8)
``Steps On Freedom Road'': An Activist Public	16	(3)
Elaborating the Argument: Social Inquiry and Grassroots Organizing	19	(2)
The Limits of School Reform	21	(13)
Preserving Advantage/Preserving Inequality	22	(2)
Equity Reform at Wilson High	24	(2)
What Went Wrong?	26	(3)
The Limits of Enlightenment as a Change Strategy	29	(4)
Reform that Changes Little	33	(1)
Participatory Social Inquiry: What John Dewey Offers Equity Reformers	34	(9)
Dewey On Equality	35	(2)
A Revitalized Public	37	(1)
Towards an Educative Politics	38	(1)
The Legacy of Dewey's Educative Politics for Contemporary School Reform	39	(2)
Social Design Experiments	41	(2)
Futures: Students Disrupting High School Inequality	43	(28)
The Futures Project	46	(3)
Participatory Social Inquiry	49	(16)
What Happened to Futures?	65	(1)
Gains Through Struggle	66	(3)
Transforming Students But Not Schools	69	(2)
Teaching to Change Los Angeles: Teachers Bringing Social Justice to Urban Classrooms	71	(22)
Teacher Inquiry	73	(6)
Teaching to Change LA	79	(14)
Building Power: What Grassroots Organizing Offers Equity Reformers	93	(18)
Social Movements	97	(1)
Grassroots Organizing	97	(4)
The Roots of Contemporary Organizing	101	(4)
Participatory Social Inquiry and Organizing	105	(2)
Lessons for School Reform	107	(2)
Alliances for Equity	109	(2)
Parent-U-Turn: Parents Organized for Inquiry and Action	111	(20)
Organized Parents as a Site for Participatory Social Inquiry	114	(7)
Power to Hold the Powerful Accountable	121	(3)
Taking Collective Action	124	(4)
What Has Parent-U-Turn Accomplished?	128	(3)
The Educational Justice Collaborative: Activist Groups Working Together for Equitable Schools	131	(26)
The Development of the Educational Justice Collaborative	134	(3)
Organizing as a Site for Participatory Social Inquiry	137	(8)
Adopting a Critical Stance	145	(1)
Constructing a Transformative Goal	146	(1)
Building Relational Power and Identity	147	(2)
Taking Collective Action	149	(2)
What Has the Educational Justice Collaborative Achieved?	151	(2)
Beyond Williams	153	(4)
Making Schools and Society Just: The Power of Inquiry and Organizing	157	(23)
Inequality and the Logic of Schooling	158	(5)
Revitalizing the Public's Democratic Imagination	163	(10)
What Constitutes Evidence of Successful Inquiry and Organizing?	173	(3)
Optimism and Considerable Caution	176	(2)
Taking ``Many and Long Steps''	178	(2)
Notes	180	(10)
References	190	(9)
Index	199	(7)
About the Authors	206