The Educational Theory Summer Institute 2010
What Makes a Public School Public?
This question was the focus of the Second Educational Theory Summer Institute (ETSI), held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from August 16-18, 2011. The journal Educational Theory was pleased to acknowledge The Forum for the Future of Public Education as co-sponsor of this event.
Educational Theory commissioned a team of outstanding scholars, from a range of disciplinary perspectives, to produce fresh and substantive statements on these pressing issues. Their papers appear as a special issue of Educational Theory Volume 61, no. 4. The 2010 participants were:
- Kathleen Knight Abowitz, Miami University (co-director)
- Greg Anderson, University of Denver
- Deron Boyles, Georgia State University
- Chris Higgins, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (co-director)
- Kevin Kumashiro, University of Illinois at Chicago
- David Labaree, Stanford University
- Walter Parker, University of Washington
- Aaron Schutz, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
- Yael Tamir, Shenkar College, Israel
During the first two days of the institute, participants workshopped each other's papers in internal sessions with Educational Theory staff. The institute culminated, on Wednesday, August 18th, with an all-day open conference, featuring the scholars above and other area scholars. This event was sponsored by the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The ever-important question of the public nature of schooling seems especially pressing given the current educational climate: trends toward re-segregation; charter schools and homeschooling; choice and voucher schemes; the commercialization of schooling; a new rhetoric of, but narrow metrics for, public accountability; increased federalization and standardization. There can be no doubt that such trends represent a significant threat to the project of the common school as it was originally conceived. The landscape of common schooling is shifting and traditional government-run schools are evolving in form and function. We believe that there is now a need and an opportunity to articulate anew what it is that makes a school public, not simply in name but in substance. |
