Worth Striking For: Why Education Policy is Every Teacher's Concern (Lessons from Chicago)

by Isabel Nunez, Gregory Michie, Pamela Konkol

Overview

Written by activist educators, Worth Striking For speaks to teachers and teachers-to-be about the drastic changes in the landscape of public education in recent decades and focuses on what they need to know about the debates and complex issues of reform affecting their lives and professions.

The book identifies the most significant shifts in education policy, including how policy has helped or hindered the broader educational purposes of schools. Using the 2012 Chicago teachers strike as a framing device, the authors demonstrate how each of the policy areas addressed is critically important to teachers’ lives and work. Each chapter describes one of the Chicago teachers’ demands, and then explores a related policy arena through the lens of an associated philosophical purpose of education. The text features individually authored vignettes that juxtapose the authors’ personal experiences with the issues, bringing policy and policy activism to life. This hopeful book will inspire and empower teachers to take action in their schools, communities, districts, and states.

"Grounded in Chicago-based education activism, Nuñez, Michie, and Konkol provide compelling lessons for urban education across the country. From union reform to diversifying the teaching force to challenging school closings, the analyses and narratives of these Chicago activist-scholars are a much needed guide for the rest of us. Spread the word!"
—Gary Anderson, New York University

"As a future teacher, I am so thankful that this book exists. Worth Striking For's empowering lessons are rarely taught to preservice teachers like myself. Reading this book has reminded me that impacting our students' lives is not limited to what we do inside the classroom, but what we fight for outside of it, too. It's a must read for anyone who believes the future of education and our youth are worth fighting for." 
—Stephanie Rivera, future teacher and graduate student, Rutgers University

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807773635
Publisher:	Teachers College Press
Publication date:	03/30/2015
Series:	Teaching for Social Justice
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	359 KB

About the Author

Isabel Nuñez is an associate professor in the Center for Policy Studies and Social Justice at Concordia University Chicago, coeditor of Diving In: Bill Ayers and the Art of Teaching into the Contradiction, and an associate editor for Multicultural Perspectives. Gregory Michie is a public school teacher in Chicago, senior research associate at the Center for Policy Studies and Social Justice at Concordia University Chicago, and author of Holler if You Hear Me, Second Edition. Pamela Konkol is an associate professor of educational foundations and social policy and director of the Center for Policy Studies and Social Justice at Concordia University Chicago.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword vii

Foreword Pedro Noguera xiii

1 Introduction: Keep a Place for Policy 1

The Chicago Teachers' Strike of 2012 2

The Policy Implications 4

When Teachers Take a Stand 9

3 Chicago Teachers United 11

The Story of the Strike 12

The Purposes of Education 20

Suggested Reading List 31

3 Students, Teachers, and Schools 34

Schooling for Democracy 36

Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners 38

School Integration 41

Diversity of the Teaching Force 45

Reclaiming an Inclusive Vision 47

Suggested Reading List 51

4 Curriculum and Pedagogy 54

Schooling for a Shared Culture 55

Testing 57

Common Core 60

Teacher Deskilling 64

Enriching the Educational Experience 68

Suggested Reading List 73

5 Funding and Governance 76

Schooling for Efficacy and Efficiency 78

School Funding 79

School Accountability 82

Top-Down Control 84

Beyond the Economic 87

Suggested Reading List 92

6 The Vocation of Teaching 95

Schooling for Social Change 96

Value-Added Measures in Teacher Evaluation 98

Union Busting 104

Privatization of Schooling 107

Defending Our Profession 110

Suggested Reading List 116

7 Conclusion: The Need for a Politically Engaged Teaching Force 119

References 124

Index 136

About the Authors 144

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"This book, written by teachers who have been at the forefront of the battle to stop market-based reform, is yet another step in the effort to reclaim the reform agenda.
It goes beyond the strike to explore teacher perspectives on a broader set of education policy issues, and in so doing it elevates the voices of teachers in a way that few publications or arenas have allowed"
—From the Foreword by Pedro Noguera, New York University

"Grounded in Chicago-based education activism, Nuñez, Michie, and Konkol provide compelling lessons for urban education across the country. From union reform to diversifying the teaching force to challenging school closings, the analyses and narratives of these Chicago activist-scholars are a much needed guide for the rest of us. Spread the word!"
—Gary Anderson, New York University

"As a future teacher, I am so thankful that this book exists. Worth Striking For's empowering lessons are rarely taught to preservice teachers like myself. Reading this book has reminded me that impacting our students' lives is not limited to what we do inside the classroom, but what we fight for outside of it, too. It's a must read for anyone who believes the future of education and our youth are worth fighting for. "
—Stephanie Rivera, future teacher and graduate student, Rutgers University