Resistance to the Common Core isn’t just about suburban soccer moms and their private interests
Somewhere, David Labaree is smiling.
Actually, I have a pretty good idea where this is: Palo Alto, Calif., where Labaree teaches the history and sociology of education at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education. Over the past two decades, Labaree has been one of the nation’s leading analysts of the failures of American school reform.
David Labaree
Central to Labaree’s analysis is the recognition that there are several important goals for American education, which he labels democratic equality, social efficiency, and social mobility. Democratic equality refers to the role that education plays in creating politically equal and engaged citizens of our democracy; social efficiency to how education rationally sorts individuals into the positions in the economy that enable the United States to grow economically and compete on the international playing field; and social mobility to the historic role that education has played as a vehicle for individuals to move up in society, and for those born into privilege to maintain their social and economic advantages.
Labaree describes democratic equality and social efficiency as publicgoods, because they contribute to the well-being of society overall. In contrast, because social mobility is about a competition among individuals to get ahead, it’s a privategood, providing advantages to some members of society at the expense of others. In his books How to
Parents return to school to help children with Common Core-inspired homework
Editor’s note: This is the second in an occasional series looking at how Belle Chasse Primary School, in suburban New Orleans, is adjusting to the Common Core standards that are reshaping teaching in classrooms throughout Louisiana. The first story in the series, done in partnership with The Advocate and New Orleans public radio, can be read here. BELLE CHASSE, La. — When Mike and Camille Chudzins
