Conflict of Interests: The Politics of American Education

by Joel Spring

Book Overview

Providing a critical understanding of the political and social forces shaping educational politics in the United States, this concise text describes and analyzes how policy is made for American schools and its effect on all of our lives and thinking. Joel Spring argues that the politics of Education is driven by a complex interrelationship between politicians, private foundations and think tanks, teachers'unions, special-interest groups, educational...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0070605793
• ISBN13: 9780070605794
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 207 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Who Controls Schools? Read this to find out.

Joel Spring paints a rather disturbing picture of American education by asking the often overlooked question, Who controls our schools? (hint: not classroom teachers) According to him, it's not necessarily school administrators or superintendents--it's special interest groups. Past efforts to take schools out of politics have ultimately failed because behind every bureaucrat in the public school system is a long trail of puppeteers that ultimately leads back to corporate powerhouses. Spring has obviously read across disciplines, and although he makes his liberal bias very transparent, he renders a very compelling argument. One of his more interesting claims lies in his critique of site-based management (SBM) as an ostensibly democratic reform model that instead reflects the conservative power structures of hierarchy in local, state, and federal policymaking. "Management" is essentially an Orwellian term, and the function it actually serves is to devolve a very rigid package of curriculum and instruction to teachers, students, and community members. In this sense, there is nothing "local" about local control. Spring argues that if these street-level bureaucrats were actually given the freedom to negotiate the distribution of specific kinds of knowledge, then the practice of SBM would actually reflect the rhetoric it has been built upon. Reading this book has revealed rather poignantly the minimal amount of control certain policy figures actually have in negotiating the distribution of knowledge within schools. Aside from addressing the political economy of textbook publishing and the test-producing industry, Spring also dissects the processes involved in the federalist system of policymaking. I, personally, never realized how weak our superintendents can tend to be, especially in factional communities, as they often teeter-totter between attempting to appease various board members/powerful interest groups and maintaining tenure in office. Spring does not shortchange readers on vivid examples that help bring clarity to his description of the complex policy matrix; especially enjoyable was the reference to a superintendent who "could barley light a cigarette at board meetings and was rapidly developing ulcers" (p. 144). More importantly, he is consistently cautious in stressing the fluidity in many of the models he uses in his analysis: In this particular case, he warns that the political power of educational bureaucracies and teachers' unions often tempers the effect of community power structures. It's amazing to realize how the practice of using schools as political battlefields simply goes back to the fundamental divide between social reconstructionists and administrative progressives (Spring draws heavily from Tyack's The One Best System). Spring argues that the former group sees the eradication of poverty being contingent upon educating "active citizens" who will work to change the unequal distribution of resources in society

Brilliant!!!

Something told me I should've saved this book for retirement. Joel Spring paints a rather disturbing picture of American education by asking the often overlooked question, Who controls our schools? (hint: not classroom teachers) According to him, it's not necessarily school administrators or superintendents--it's special interest groups. Past efforts to take schools out of politics have ultimately failed because behind every bureaucrat in the public school system is a long trail of puppeteers that ultimately leads back to corporate powerhouses. Spring has obviously read across disciplines, and although he makes his liberal bias very transparent, he renders a very compelling argument. One of his more interesting claims lies in his critique of site-based management (SBM) as an ostensibly democratic reform model that instead reflects the conservative power structures of hierarchy in local, state, and federal policymaking. "Management" is a essentially an Orwellian term, and the function it actually serves is to devolve a very rigid package of curriculum and instruction to teachers, students, and community members. In this sense, there is nothing "local" about local control. Spring argues that if these street-level bureaucrats were actually given the freedom to negotiate the distribution of specific kinds of knowledge, then the practice of SBM would actually reflect the rhetoric it has been built upon. Reading this book has revealed rather poignantly the minimal amount of control certain policy figures actually have in negotiating the distribution of knowledge within schools. Aside from addressing the political economy of textbook publishing and the test-producing industry, Spring also dissects the processes involved in the federalist system of policymaking. I, personally, never realized how weak our superintendents can tend to be, especially in factional communities, as they often teeter-totter between attempting to appease various board members/powerful interest groups and maintaining tenure in office. Spring does not shortchange readers on vivid examples that help bring clarity to his description of the complex policy matrix; especially enjoyable was the reference to a superintendent who "could barley light a cigarette at board meetings and was rapidly developing ulcers" (p. 144). More importantly, he is consistently cautious in stressing the fluidity in many of the models he uses in his analysis: In this particular case, he warns that the political power of educational bureaucracies and teachers' unions often tempers the effect of community power structures. It's amazing to realize how the practice of using schools as political battlefields simply goes back to the fundamental divide between social reconstructionists and administrative progressives (Spring draws heavily from Tyack's The One Best System, which I will be reading in a few weeks). Spring argues that the former group sees the eradication of poverty being contingent

A Native American Critique of State Schooling

The author is the son of a full-blooded American from the Choctaw nation and earned his PhD at the Univ of Wisconsin where he imbibed Progressive perspectives on political conflict. His resulting keen eye for mapping out the various factions in competition for control of state schooling is commendable. The survival instincts of educational bureaucrats lead them to go to great lengths to frustrate, thwart, and defeat any faction trying to reduce their power over their turf. The teacher unions fight to push education policies reflecting their economic interests, politicians work to impose their ideologies on the district curriculi, and taxpayers fight for fiscal responsiblity. The result is that parents have virtually no control over what happens to their children in state schools that they are forced to pay for. No matter who wins, the losers continue to be education and students caught in the middle. The solution seems to lie in the area of independent alternatives free of the choking effect of government, although Joel Spring has not taken a good look at what is going on in alterntive and independent schooling. Remaining wedded to his Progressive perspective, he still clings to the idea that somehow government can be the solution when in reality it is government that is the problem. He believes that state schooling performs poorly because there needs to be MORE government, not less. He envisions a "fourth branch" of the federal government, which would be state schooling. His unfamiliarity with Britain, where the "fouth branch" was the government's Church of England and the government's network of state schools established during the mid-1800s, no doubt makes it easier for him to advocate reforms for a system that continually fails to satisfy consumers. His proposals for state schooling reforms will not work and therefore keep this book from receiving a "5" rating from this review, which otherwise would have been deserved because of the author's ability to identify the various competing factions from the local, state, and national levels and the debilitating effects their fighting has on education.

Joel Spring's work illuminating

Joel Spring gives a thorough explanation on not only education in the United States today, but the problems surrounding it in a democratic society. He discusses the political nature of education, as well as controversies surrounding the adoption of textbooks within the United States. But, as the other reviewer clearly missed, Spring asserts that education is never neutral, but is instead shaped by forces outside of the realm of school walls. If you call his explanation "socialist", fine. But, what Spring is arguing, as many educational theorists do, is that education is never neutral, but is instead tied to larger forces that exist in society today. His policy analysis is also very interesting, although it can be very tedious at times. This is an excellent read for anyone who is really interested in how problematic education is within the United States today.