Rethinking Schools: enacting a vision for social justice within US education

Abstract

Founded and edited by K-12 classroom teachers, for over 25 years the nonprofit journal and publishing house Rethinking Schools has provided critical analyses of US educational policy and offered models of teaching for social justice grounded in classroom practice. Rethinking Schools has become a focal point for teachers interested in challenging inequality in their classrooms, schools, and communities; an organizational tool for activists and members of the media seeking a trusted, critical perspective on education in the United States; and an educational tool for teacher educators hoping to shape the practices of future teachers. Taking up a politics of equality and social justice vis-à-vis education analysis and curriculum, Rethinking Schools has been a beacon of hope within, and signal of resistance to, the forces of inequality that lay at the heart of neoliberal globalization. In this article, Levine and Au discuss the history, mission, and impact of Rethinking Schools in the United States. This analysis includes a broad perspective on where Rethinking Schools fits within the context of educational activism in the United States as well as more fine-grained discussions of specific campaigns in which Rethinking Schools has taken leadership in challenging neoliberalism.

Keywords:

• curriculum
• education activist
• education policy
• grassroots education organizing
• justice
• Rethinking Schools
• teaching for social

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Bill Bigelow, Linda Christensen, Ruth Colker, Helen Gym, Stan Karp, Barbara Miner, Kristin Bourdage Reninger, Jody Sokolower, and Melissa Bollow Tempel for advice on this article.

Notes

1. For a full list of our publications and compilations about special topics, please see www.rethinkingschools.org.

2. Charter schools' are operated by private, nonprofit, or public entities usually granted a charter by the authorization of district, state, or university officials. Charter schools are part of a push to deregulate public education in the United States consistent with free market ideology, and upwards of 85% of US charter schools operate with a nonunionized teaching force.