16 INVITED CHAPTERS
curriculum design, teaching, learning and thinking in American education, following her work
with Ralph Tyler and the Eight Year Study (Taba, 1936).
My former “boss” at UCLA, John Goodlad (1984; 1997; 2004), has taken up the cause of
the common school among other notable topics in one of the most productive careers in
education that I have witnessed. His earlier work about public schools emphasized
collaboration, non-graded schools, individualization, personalization, school renewal and
teacher and leadership preparation. His 1997 book, In Praise of Education, defines education
as a basic right in democratic societies, essential to developing individual and collective
democratic intelligence. It received the “Outstanding Book of The Year” Award from AERA
and the “Distinguished book of the Year” from Kappa Delta Pi. Along with Jefferson, Mann,
Taba, Dewey, Apple, Giroux, Kohl, and many other educators, Goodlad gives us all a strong
experiential and scholarly base for the strong and venerated American value of the “common
school”, open and available to all citizens, regardless of their backgrounds.
While an advocate of alternative or magnet schools as a part of our democratic tradition, I
am troubled by what I see as emerging elitism and classicism, whereby affluent members of
our society think their children should be educated in isolation from all the “others”. For
example, In Selma, Alabama where a superior superintendent is leading a strong group of
quality schools to excellence, fewer than 1% of the white community take this opportunity to
learn with their fellow black students, within the same community, and this story is being
replicated throughout the US, and recently reinforced by the recent Supreme Court decision
on school desegregation.
In Education for Everyone, Goodlad (2004), discusses the need to restore a shared
humanity to the education process and the need to: “make caring, compassion, freedom,
dignity and responsibility central to the mission of schooling. It is about taking excellence,
democracy and faith in people, to do what is right, just and honorable.” Great words, great
educator.
Joyce Epstein’s work influenced my thinking about the importance of substantive home,
school and community partnerships, well beyond the PTA and helping with homework. Her
research at Johns Hopkins is indicating that if student achievement is to improve, and greater
equity is to be achieved in schools, then there must be strong and meaningful partnerships in
the overall school community (rather than mere “involvement”). She and her colleagues are
clearly on the right track with this notion of collaboration of all stakeholders in the education
enterprise to achieve greater student accomplishment (1996; 1992).
In thinking about democracy in our schools, the notion of “social justice” fits in here quite
appropriately... Kohl, Apple, Kozol, Giroux and others have advocated that justice and
equity for all learners in all education settings is a must for a democratic society to thrive. It
should be across all grade levels, in all academic settings, and well beyond slogans and the
latest “theme of the day”. Dewey was one of the first advocates for it and Counts also
advocated a democratically inclusive education model. W.E.B. Du Bois (1935) and Paulo
Freire (1971) also taught that teaching is a political act and that educators should focus on
creating equity and changing any policies or rule that foster “oppression” in schools or
society. Kozol (1991, 2007), Kohl (2000), and Kohn (2000), among others, are heroes of
mine on this topic.... their focus on the importance of quality peer and teacher relationships,
intrinsic rather than extrinsic rewards, along with acknowledging the dangers of inequity and
the powerlessness of poverty, are to be commended for study by future school leaders and our
children, if we are not to repeat the errors of the past generation, not to mention past centuries.
It is what the “achievement gap” is truly about.