Volume 3, Number 1, Winter 2008:  Schooling as if Democracy Matters

EDITORIAL
Schooling as if Democracy Matters
Lorraine Kasprisin
Editor

PROLOGUE
Editor: On November 1, 2006, John Goodlad was invited to speak as the Third Annual Distinguished Speaker at the Woodring College of Education.  Readers can view the video of the lecture or listen to the audio of the lecture. His lecture provided the impetus for the theme of this issue and the journal is dedicating this issue to John Goodlad's lifetime work in helping us to think about the kind of education that is required to sustain a vital democracy.  John Goodlad has written a special prologue for this issue.  The journal is also providing a special section on some of the schools that are part of the League of Democratic Schools, a project that was started by Dr. Goodlad.  Woodring College of Education partners with one of these schools, the Whatcom Day Academy, in an effort to create a model school that is a laboratory for democratic practices. 

Agenda for Education in a Democracy
John Goodlad
University of Washington

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY - A LOOK BACK AT JOHN DEWEY ON EDUCATION AND DEMOCRACY
Speculation on a Missing Link: Dewey's Democracy and Schools

Lynda Stone

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY - A LOOK AT THE CURRENT STATE OF CONTROVERSY ON CIVIL LIBERTIES IN U. S. DEMOCRACY
Are We Targeting Our Fellow Countrymen?
The Consequences of the USA PATRIOT Act
Brett Rubio, University of Washington
Bridget K. Baker, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy 

Closed Borders and Closed Minds: Immigration Policy Changes after 9/11 and U.S. Higher Education
M. Allison Witt
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

Controversy Addressed in this Issue
In this issue, we consider how we are to fulfill the traditional moral imperative of our schools -- to create a public capable of sustaining the life of a democracy.  How do we do this in an age of the Patriot Act and similar anti-terrorism legislation in other countries, NSA surveillance, extraordinary rendition, preemptive wars, enemy combatants -- all likely to involve violations of civil rights and liberties and a curtain of government secrecy?  What story do we tell our young about who we are, who we have been, and who we are becoming?  How do we educate children about their identity in this global world?  What sense are they to make of the "imperial" democracy they are inheriting?  Is our new political environment a fundamental break with the past or an extension of longstanding trends?   What are the implications of these forces for the education of the young on the foundations of our democracy and our collective identity?   

ARTICLES IN RESPONSE TO CONTROVERSY  

Teaching For Democratic Values Under Political Duress
Walter Feinberg
The University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana  

The Best Democracy Money Can Buy:  NCLB in Bush's Neo-liberal Marketplace (a.k.a., Revisioning History: The Discourses of Equality, Justice and Democracy Surrounding NCLB)
Rebecca A. Goldstein
Montclair State University
Andrew R. Beutel
Ramapo Ridge Middle School, Mahwah, NJ

Educator Roundtable: Working to Create a World Where Teachers Can School as if Democracy Matters
Philip Kovacs
University of Alabama in Huntsville

Immigrants into Citizens: a UK case study for the classroom
Patricia White
London Institute of Education
England

Teaching The Levees: An Exercise in Democratic Dialogue
Margaret Smith Crocco and Maureen Grolnick
Teachers College, Columbia University 

Teaching a 'Racist and Outdated Text': A Journey into my own Heart of Darkness
Melody Wong
United World College Costa Rica

Ways of Seeing (and of Being Seen): Visibility in Schools
Sam Chaltain
Executive Director, Five Freedoms Project
Former Director, First Amendment Schools

 
A LOOK INSIDE THE CLASSROOMS OF THE LEAGUE OF DEMOCRATIC SCHOOLS

The Editor invited teachers and principals whose schools participate in John Goodlad's League of Democratic Schools to talk about their schools and classrooms. Readers will see a variety of ways teachers have interpreted their democratic mission in schools from Washington, Oregon, and Ohio. We invite teachers from around the nation and the world to respond in our Rejoinder page. We plan to provide a more informal discussion section for a sustained interaction among educators as well as space for more formal responses. We invite you to respond to the authors' accounts, share what you think is helpful or problematic in their practices, provide an account of what your schools and classrooms are doing, describe what you see as the obstacles to a truly democratic education, make recommendations for new directions and new initiatives, etc. We will keep publishing responses as long as the conversation continues.

The Elementary Classroom: A Key Dimension of a Child's Democratic World
Vale Hartley
Teacher, Whatcom Day Academy, Washington  

Finding Our Voice: One School's Commitment to Community
Dianne C. Suiter
Principal, Central Academy, Ohio 

Article (forthcoming)
Wendy Winchel
Principal, Westside Village Magnet School, Oregon 

 
SPECIAL SECTION ON THE U. S. SUPREME COURT'S MOST RECENT DECISION ON STUDENT RIGHTS

Visions of Public Education In Morse v. Frederick
Aaron H. Caplan
Former Staff Attorney, American Civil Liberties Union - Washington
Loyola Law School in Los Angeles 

“Bong Hits 4 Jesus”:  Have students' First Amendment rights to free speech been changed after Morse v. Frederick?
Nathan M. Roberts
University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Read the U.S. Supreme Court decision, MORSE et al. v. FREDERICK, at: http://laws.findlaw.com/us/000/06-278.html
  

BOOK REVIEWS 

	What Schools are For by John Goodlad Reviewed by Antony Smith, University of Washington
	Pedagogy and Praxis in the Age of Empire: Toward a New Humanism by Peter McLaren and Nathalia Jaramillo Reviewed by Richard Kahn, University of North Dakota
	Capitalizing on Disaster: Taking and Breaking Public Schools by Kenneth J. Saltman Reviewed by Christopher Robbins, Eastern Michigan University
	Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way: Lessons from an Urban Classroom by Brian D. Schultz Reviewed by Carl A. Grant, University of Wisconsin-Madison Reviewed by Paula Johnson, Western Washington University

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

See the REJOINDERS SECTION to read reactions to the articles in this issue.

See the “TALKING WITH THE AUTHORS” VIDEO SERIES for videotaped interviews with some of the authors.

See a video from the 10th Annual Educational Law and Social Justice Forum on the theme of this issue, "Schooling as if Democracy Matters.