The Future of Public Education in the United States
About this experience
Tuesdays, 10:00 – 11:30 am
August 26 – October 14
Online via Zoom
The genesis of public education in the United States has been fraught with conflict over the face and nature of a few of the following consequential questions: a) who has the “right” to a public education; b) what is its purpose? c) what should be taught? c) which political identity should finance it in a wide and varied Republic? d) how does it co-exist with private institutions?
These and other issues noted below will be examined with the main pedagogical question in each session being: Where is public education heading in the future and will it eventually collapse and, if so, what structure(s) will replace it, if any?
- The Genesis of Public Education from the Colonial Era to the Present. (Common to Comprehensive Schools)
- The Evolution of Testing, Assessment and Evaluation of Public-School Students (Stephen J Gould, The Mismeasure of Man)
- Local, State and Federal Funding of Public Schools (and, the impact of Corporate Sponsors in Public Education)
- Vocational and Pre-Professional Schooling (from colonial apprenticeships to present day artisan schools)
- Class Struggle (or how uneven tax structures promote inequality: (Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities)
- Academic Tracking in Public Schools (Jeannie Oakes, Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality)
- Critical Race Theory and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: (How Public Education has viewed living with our deepest difference)
- School Choice: Charters, Magnets and Science and Math State Supported Academies and Governor’s Schools: Final class—WHERE ARE WE HEADED?
Refund Policy
To receive a refund, a written request must be received 3 business days before the first class. A $25 processing fee will be deducted from the refund. Cancellation requests received less than 3 business days before the first class but before the second meeting will receive a 50% refund. ALL written requests should be emailed to emeritus@spartanstrategiesinc.org or mailed to the address below.
Spartan Strategies, Inc.
Attn: Emeritus Society
5900 Summit Avenue, #201
Browns Summit, NC 27214
Your Host
Dr. Louis B. Gallien, Jr. is a recently retired Dean, Chair of the Faculty and Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Appalachian State University. He is an interdisciplinary scholar who taught courses in their Honors College. His teaching and administrative career has spanned from teaching in high school to graduate programs in public and private colleges and universities across the United States. His main areas of research centers on African American history, culture, religion, afro Pentecostalism, slavery, and music. His secondary research is on diverse themes in religion (faith and reason).