An Educator's GPS

Fending Off the Free Market of Schooling for America's Students

Jeff Swensson, John Ellis, Michael Shaffer

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781475850802
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Educational Policy

The time has come to focus on teaching and learning that all American students deserve. Quality instruction that engages all students with thinking skills that create successful intelligence for the future of all students is offered throughout traditional public education in the US. But, an adult-centered perspective about schooling—free market theory—stands in the way of sustaining and improving the comprehensive teaching and learning offered by traditional public education.



Traditional public education in the US is under attack. This book details the effects of this assault by the proponents of free market schooling and uses data-based research to fend off the attack. Key aspects of traditional public education that benefit all of America's students are compared with the adult-centric, exclusionary, intentions of choice schooling or privatization. The critical importance of traditional public education to the future of US democracy is explored. A primary purpose of traditional public education—how to think—and examples of quality day-to-day instruction are shared. On behalf of all US students, this book develops concepts including points of practice, function, and mediated identity. The value of comprehensive traditional public education deserves a vigorous defense and this book is written to provide it.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Introduction
• Free Market Schooling Pushes Traditional Public Education Out on a Limb
• Why Bother with Self-Defense? We’re Busy Enough Already!
• What Are Traditional Public Educators Defending?
• Staking a Claim on the Primary Purpose of Traditional Public Education
• In Defense of Traditional Public Education: Intelligence and Thinking
• In Defense of Traditional Public Education: Function
• What Happens When Educators Teach How to Think ?
• How Do Traditional Public Educators Know That Self-Defense Is Necessary?
• Don’t Say You Weren’t Warned! The Dangers of Free Market Schooling
• Mediated Identity in Windows and Mirrors
• The Context of Free Market Testing Invokes a Culture of Failure
• Tales, Stories, Fables, and Myths in the Free Market
• Policymaking: Is That a Light at the End of the Tunnel?
• The Self-Defense Responsibilities of Traditional Public Educators
• References
• Index
• About the Authors