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This article examines how a particular set of critical pedagogical strategies was used in a critical service-learning course to shift student perspectives and serve community partners. A self-study of a critical service-learning course that asked university students at a predominantly White institution to serve in urban schools was performed to ascertain how effectively critical service-learning may have addressed the weaknesses in traditional service-learning by (1) dismantling hegemonic discourses White students bring to the classroom and (2) engaging in service that would address inequities present in urban schools. By examining 2 years of data from student assignments, interviews with community partners, and course evaluations, this article argues for the efficacity of several pedagogical tools that can contribute to shifting the perspectives of White students as well as students of color. more...

This article expands upon and problematizes the practice of community-engaged research (CES) through the lens of school closings. Rather than employ a one-dimensional view of CES that portrays university researchers and community partners as collaborating equally on all stages of the research, we suggest a broader, more flexible understanding that incorporates various contextual factors. Drawing on local examples, from New York City and Baltimore, and one national effort to resist school closings, we present three forms of CES: participatory action research (PAR), in which university researchers and community partners collaboratively engaged in almost all aspects of the process; the engaged learner, in which the researcher documented a community organizing campaign with the full support of the campaign organizers; and a grassroots listening project implemented without university partners. In each case, participants had to navigate the thorny issues of power differentials, race and racism, ownership and voice, and presentation and representation. Difficulties notwithstanding, CES has made important contributions to both the literature on and practice of school closings. We conclude the article with a discussion of some of the lingering tensions that characterize community - engaged scholarship. more...

Public school teachers around the country are engaged in strikes. They walked out of their classrooms and schools to gain attention from state legislators, and not just for better salaries and benefits for themselves (although most Americans agree that teachers need better pay). Teachers are calling attention to a sticky problem in American public education funding: long-term inequitable distribution of funding that predictably falls along racial lines. Maryland, just like every other state, faces this kind of inequity. For example, the state has consistently underfunded Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPSS) in violation of their constitutional definition of adequacy, upheld by the courts multiple times. The funding inequity dates back to the Jim Crow period, during which Blacks paid taxes in Maryland but received nothing in return to fund their schools. For many years, the Baltimore Teachers Union (BTU) argued for more funding and increased salaries for its members. It was so committed to the latter that it negotiated a contract that included merit pay. Neoliberal school reform advocates across the country hailed the 2010 contract that promoted school choice as "progressive." However, many teachers were unhappy with this contract negotiation and thought it ignored many of the issues that were important to teachers. This discontent was not lost on a small group of teachers who decided to come together informally. They began by learning. They read common texts, visited union caucuses in other cities (e.g., Caucus of Rank and File Educators in Chicago), and regularly discussed their vision for Baltimore schools. Through this process, they built durable relationships with each other, reached out to others, and began to identify leaders among them. This group called themselves BMORE (Baltimore Movement of Rank and File Educators). [Co-written with the BMORE Caucus.] more...

The goal of this article is to describe a university-community partnership sponsored by a university office of civic engagement. University-community partnerships are common, but many collaborations are fraught with challenges because of power inequities or differing goals and ways of operating. Aware of the potential pitfalls, the university-community partnership described moved through these issues together, making differences explicit, yet still remaining committed to a larger project and their collaboration. more...

This article describes the work of a civic education program in New York City schools called Youthbuilders, which existed from 1938 to 1948. Youthbuilders' aim was to engage youth in civic education projects and teach them about their place in a democracy and worked with them to support racial and social equality. Shortly after World War II, they were attacked by a conservative Catholic organization that was working to eliminate groups associated with so-called Communist beliefs like social justice and racial equality. Youthbuilders shut their doors by 1948. The story is one that helps us understand the fragility of working for democracy and race equity in times of social anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The latest wave of reform in urban schools, led by the venture philanthropists, has made a great deal of change, without much progress. Foundations with a venture philanthropy bent, like the Walton Family Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and the Broad Foundation, say market principles, such as choice and competition, will improve schools. If parents and students have choices, the theory goes, schools will be forced to compete for customers. That will school quality, according to these philanthropists. While they have made changes to urban districts, there is more enthusiasm than evidence for the venture philanthropists' market-based approach. more...

This interview describes the way in which a paraeducator working in Baltimore City Schools and member of the Baltimore Movement for Rank-and-File Educators (BMORE) went from staff member who knew nothing of the union to become a union leader. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Through mainstream mass media, neoliberal discourse has come to dominate all social policy realms in the United States. In education, the result has been a commodification of schools and teachers. Social media, however, has allowed individuals to speak back to neoliberal discourses by providing a space to critique media and to present a counter-narrative to what media has presented. Through an analysis of teacher-authored blogs specifically, this paper uses virtual ethnographic and critical discourse methods to analyze how teachers have been able to challenge the dominant frames about the quality of their own profession, challenge the urge to reduce teaching to improved test scores, and to dismiss the privatization of teacher preparation. In so doing, use social media as a tool for resistance and are able to re-frame teacher quality to the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...