What I Believe:
Making Sense of Education Reform
presentation by Jack Dougherty for
Educ 300: Education Reform Past & Present
Trinity College, Hartford CT
Updated April 2019
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What did I believe in my early 20s?
Don’t let others define the value of your own education
Strange but true: I read all my professor’s comments, but never looked at final grades until after college (knowing they weren’t good)
What did I believe in my early 20s?
Don’t let others define the value of your own education
Home ownership increases ties to community & political power
Looking back, this blended my Republican upbringing with my Leftward adulthood. Note absence of ed reform.
What did I believe in my early 20s?
Don’t let others define the value of your own education
Home ownership increases ties to community & political power
To challenge a system, work on both the inside and the outside
I earned traditional teacher certification while interning for NJ alternate route certification (pre-TFA)
What did I believe in my early 20s?
Don’t let others define the value of your own education
Home ownership increases ties to community & political power
To challenge a system, work on both the inside and the outside
Stand with the people, not the politicians or the intellectuals
Living and working with community in Nicaragua on
construction, not schools.
What did I believe in my early 20s?
Don’t let others define the value of your own education
Home ownership increases ties to community & political power
To challenge a system, work on both the inside and the outside
Stand with the people, not the politicians or the intellectuals
Find creative ways to teach youth to explore/change world
Taught urban journalism as part of 10th grade social studies-English-bio team
What do I still believe in my early 50s?
Teach how to make sense of education reform through hands-on experience in Hartford, and by asking deep questions about change.
Best education is good bullshit detector - see Neil Postman 1969
What do I still believe in my early 50s?
Teach how to make sense of education reform through hands-on experience in Hartford, and by asking deep questions about change.
Best education is good bullshit detector - see Neil Postman 1969
Collaborate on projects with community partners that follow different reform strategies:
So Why Is Education Reform So Hard?
Consider thesis by Christensen & Karp (2003):
"This dual character of schooling . . . invariably generates contradictory impulses when it comes to reform."
Explain both aspects of this "dual character":
- the democratic promise of schooling
- schooling as an instrument for reproducing class and race privilege as it exists in larger society