The special issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy on the
School-to-Prison Pipeline and the School-to-Deportation Pipeline is
now online. In addition to her printed article, we have also inserted
a video interview with former Washington State Supreme Court Justice
Bobbe Bridge, who started the Center for Children and Youth Justice
after leaving the court. Readers can find the journal at:
http://www.wce.wwu.edu/
Reminder: we are still accepting manuscripts for our upcoming issue on
the topic: “Who Defines the Public in Public Education.” Authors are
asked to respond to the following controversy:
“Our journal published an article recently on the banning of the
Mexican-American curriculum in Arizona’s Tucson Unified School
District. The incident raises many larger questions about what
knowledge is of most worth, whose perspective gains ascendency in the
curriculum, and what public is represented in the public schools.
Controversies have emerged not only over what should be included in
specific areas like the literary canon, historical interpretations,
science curriculum, etc., but also in the larger arena of ideological
frameworks over what it means to be human, what it means to be an
educated person, and what social values should frame a public
education in a society that embeds a fundamental tension between its
capitalist economic system and its democratic egalitarian ideals. Even
the tension between the secular and the religious continues to defy
easy answers in a society that values separation between church and
state. As Warren Nord says about the typical study of economics, it
assumes that “economics is a science, people are essentially
self-interested utility-maximizers, the economic realm is one of
competition for scarce resources, values are personal preferences and
value judgments are matters of cost-benefit analysis.” (Warren A.
Nord, “The Relevance of Religion to the Curriculum,” The School
Administrator, January 1999.) In effect, the so-called secular study
of economics makes a number of assumptions about human nature,
society, and values. What is left out of this study of the economic
domain of life is the theologian’s questions of social justice,
stewardship, poverty and wealth, human dignity and the meaningfulness
of work. To what degree do students understand or are even aware of
these hidden assumptions in their study of economics and other
subjects? To what degree should other perspectives be included? We
invite authors to shed some light on these questions.”
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