Patricia H. Hinchey

At a moment when brawls are breaking out at school board meetings and state officials are increasingly issuing curricular mandates, it’s possible that this text’s central question is more important than ever: How is it that given good intentions and hard work among education professionals, things in schools can go so very wrong?

As in the first edition, Hinchey and Konkol suggest that unspoken and misleading assumptions can produce choices, decisions and policies with disastrous consequences for kids. They tease out such assumptions on the key issues of school goals, curriculum, education for citizenship, discipline and school reform, inviting readers to question the taken-for-granted in order to better align intentions and outcomes. Such contemporary issues as book banning and parents’ movements are presented not as isolated controversies, but instead in their historical, cultural and political contexts.

Designed for both undergraduate and graduate classrooms, the text applies to a wide range of studies related to public education, including its theory, policy, history and politics. Without proselytizing, the text asks readers to think for themselves and articulate their own commitments guided by end-of-chapter questions, some intended for all readers and some specifically for experienced professionals. Suggested additional readings, websites and videos invite further exploration of the topics under discussion and offer still more food for thought.

Contemporary political and socioeconomic conditions largely characterized by corruption and inequity have added new urgency to recurring calls for reorienting American public schools to their historic purpose: educating a citizenry both equipped and motivated to serve as the ultimate guardians of democracy.

While the Founding Fathers, including Jefferson, as well as the founders of public schools, including Horace Mann, explicitly stated that rationale, perhaps no one has done more than John Dewey to detail the inextricable relationship between education and democratic society. In Moral Principles in Education and My Pedagogic Creed, Dewey reminds readers of public schools’ original purpose, identifying specific educational principles and practices that either promote or undermine their essential democratic goals.

“There cannot be two sets of ethical principles,” he says, “one for life in the school, and the other for life outside of the school.” In these works and through such caveats, Dewey offers readers both the motivation to engage in the struggle for a new emphasis on educating for democratic citizenship and the guidance necessary to translate his theory into effective practice. 

Perfect for courses such as: Philosophy of Education, Teaching Methods, Principles of Teaching and Learning, Education Policy, Education Leadership, Education Foundations, Curriculum Theory and History, Curriculum Design, The Philosophy of John Dewey, and School Change/Reform.

W. E. B. Du Bois’s seminal work, The Souls of Black Folk, not only captures the experience of African Americans in the years following the Civil War but also speaks to contemporary conditions. At a time when American public schools are increasingly re-segregating, are increasingly underfunded, and are perhaps nearly as separate and unequal as they were in earlier decades, this classic can help readers grasp links between a slavery past and a dismal present for too many young people of color. Disagreeing with Booker T. Washington, Du Bois analyzes the restrictiveness of education as a simple tool to prepare for work in pursuit of wealth (a trend still very much alive and well, especially in schools serving economically disadvantaged students). He also, however, demonstrates the challenges racism presents to individuals who embrace education as a tool for liberation. Du Bois’s accounts of how racism affected specific individuals allow readers to see philosophical issues in human terms. It can also help them think deeply about what kind of moral, social, educational and economic changes are necessary to provide all of America’s young people the equal opportunity promised to them inside and outside of schools.

Perfect for courses in: Social Foundations of Education, Political and Social Foundations of Education, Foundations of American Education, Foundations of Education, Introduction to Education Theory and Policy, Philosophy and Education, History of American Education, and African American Education. 

A 2018 AESA Critics' Choice Award Winner
A 2019 SPE Outstanding Book Award Winner

How is it, this text asks, that given such good intentions among education professionals, things in schools can go so very wrong?

The problem, Hinchey and Konkol posit, is that unspoken and misleading assumptions result in choices, decisions and policies with disastrous consequences for kids. They tease out those assumptions on the key issues of school goals, curriculum, education for citizenship, discipline, and school reform, inviting readers to think again, to question the taken-for-granted, in the hope of better aligning intentions and outcomes.

This book is the perfect text for both undergraduate and graduate classrooms devoted to the study of public education. Questions at the end of each chapter point to ways for preservice and inservice teachers, as well as administrators and other education personnel, to advance their thinking about choices in their own contexts. In addition, suggested readings, websites and videos offer more food for thought.

Perfect for courses such as: Social Foundations of Education, Political and Social Foundations of Education, Foundations of American Education, Policy Issues in American Education, Political Issues in American Education, Educational Policy Studies, Foundations of Education, Foundations of Education Policy, Intro to Curriculum Issues/Policy, American Education Policy and Reform, Introduction to American Education, Introduction to Education Theory and Policy, Contemporary Issues in American Education.

Some hundred years after John Dewey worked to illuminate what it means to educate and how public education serves as the bedrock of democracy, his seminal Democracy and Education speaks urgently not only to critical contemporary educational issues but to contemporary political issues as well. As mania for testing forces a steadily narrowing curriculum, Dewey explains why democracy cannot “flourish” if “the chief influences in selecting subject matter of instruction are utilitarian ends narrowly conceived for the masses.” As such utilitarian subject matter is increasingly placed online, isolating individual students and their electronic screens, he insists that education happens not through direct instruction but “indirectly by means of the environment” where members of a community engage in meaningful tasks. As the American population appears increasingly subject to rhetorical manipulation and ideological extremism, Dewey imagines the possibility of education cultivating “habits of mind which secure social changes without introducing disorder.” Insightful and inspiring, Dewey’s classic reintroduces readers to educational and political possibilities hard to remember as political and corporate forces to work reshape American public schools in the service of global profit rather than democratic life.

Myers Education Press’s Timely Classics in Education offer readers the opportunity to return to the original works of giants whose influence on education have persisted through the years. Critical introductions to each work offer information on the context of the original work as well as insights into current relevance. For readers unfamiliar with each text, the introductions provide entrée to the work; for experienced readers, the series offers an opportunity to return to original works untainted by the distortions of decades of interpretation. Unlike poorly produced facsimile editions, Timely Classics are high-quality products. They can be adopted for use in many types of education classes.

Perfect for courses in: Social Foundations of Education, Political and Social Foundations of Education, Foundations of American Education, Foundations of Education, Introduction to Education Theory and Policy, Philosophy and Education, History of American Education, and The Philosophy of John Dewey.