Every month, Paul Chase in the Penn Press Journals department invites our blog readers to download a complimentary article from one of our many scholarly journals.
Paul's Pick for April is "Hired Guns on Astroturf: How to Buy and Sell School Reform" by Joanne Barkan. The article appears in the Spring 2012 issue of Dissent.
Barkan writes:
Ed reformers spend at least a half-billion dollars a year in private money, whereas government expenditures on K–12 schooling are about $525 billion a year. Nevertheless, a half-billion dollars in discretionary money yields great leverage when budgets are consumed by ordinary expenses. But the reformers—even titanic Bill and Melinda Gates—see themselves as competing with too little against existing government policies. Hence, to revolutionize public education, which is largely under state and local jurisdiction, reformers must get state and local governments to adopt their agenda as basic policy; they must counter the teachers’ unions’ political clout. To this end, ed reformers are shifting major resources—staff and money—into state and local campaigns for candidates and legislation.
To download this free article and learn more about Dissent, click here.
Check the Penn Press Log on May 15 for Paul's next pick.