This post is a piece I published in Kappan in November, 2018. Here’s a link to the original. Public schools for private gain: The declining American commitment to serving the public good When schooling comes to be viewed mainly as a source of private benefit, both schools and society pay the consequences. By David F. Labaree … Continue reading Public Schools for Private Gain
This post is a piece by Meira Levinson and Daniel Markovitz that was published recently in Atlantic. Here's a link to the original. It's an astute analysis of the harmful effects of the pandemic on American schooling. They argue that only part of the damage was done by school closures. A lot of the harm … Continue reading Levinson and Markovitz — The Biggest Disruption in the History of American Education
This is an op-ed I published in the Detroit News way back in 1998. It captures a key part of the argument about educational consumerism that I developed in my second book, How to Succeed in Schools Without Really Learning. Educational Consumerism: Bad for Schools by David F. Labaree We hear a lot these days … Continue reading Educational Consumerism: Bad for Schools
on Are Students Consumers? This post is a piece I published in Education Week way back in 1997. It’s a much shorter and more accessible version of the most cited paper I ever published, “Public Goods, Private Goods: The American Struggle over Educational Goals.” Drawing on the latter, it lays out a case for three competing educational … Continue reading Are Students Consumers?
This post is a piece I published in Kappan in November, 2018. Here’s a link to the original. Public schools for private gain: The declining American commitment to serving the public good When schooling comes to be viewed mainly as a source of private benefit, both schools and society suffer grave consequences. By David F. Labaree … Continue reading Public Schools for Private Gain
This post is a piece I originally published in a 2000 book honoring David Tyack, Reconstructing the Good in Education: Coping with Intractable American Dilemmas. which was edited by Larry Cuban and Dorothy Shipps. Here's a link to a PDF of the chapter. On August 30 I did a short post about about Albert Hirschman's … Continue reading No Exit: Public Education as an Inescapably Public Good
This post is an essay by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, which explores the difference between the old and new American elite. A key difference is that the old elite had a tradition of public service that is lacking today. In part this may have been a case of noblesse oblige, the responsibility of the leading families … Continue reading What the Old Establishment Can Teach the New Tech Elite
This post is a follow-up to a piece I posted three weeks ago, which was Michael Katz's 2020 essay, Public Education as Welfare. Below is my own take on this subject, which I wrote for a book that will be published in recognition of the hundredth anniversary of the Horace Mann League. The tentative title … Continue reading Public Schooling as Social Welfare
This post is a piece I published today in the Chronicle Review. It's about an issue that has been gnawing at me for years. How can you justify the existence of institutions of the sort I taught at for the last two decades -- rich private research universities? These institutions obviously benefit their students and faculty, … Continue reading How NOT to Defend the Private Research University
David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing 