Societal stories about school do not just reflect our current views and values, they also shape our political preferences and the realities that result from them. In recent decades, stories of the traditional common school and its more collectivist, shared culture have given way to newer stories oriented around competition and choice. Sarah Stitzlein and Kathleen Knight Abowitz suggest that telling new stories that foreground the public or shared purposes of public education may lead people to choose candidates and back policies that better serve our children and our communities.
AbowitzK.K. (2014). Publics for public schools: Legitimacy, democracy, and leadership. New York, NY: Routledge.
2.
AbowitzK.K.StitzleinS.M. (2018). Public schools, public goods, and public work. Phi Delta Kappan, 100 (3), 33–37.
3.
Ben-PorathS. (2013). Education for shared fate citizenship. In AllenD.ReichR. (Eds.), Education, justice, and democracy (pp. 80–100). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
4.
DoepkeM.ZilibottiF. (2019). The economic roots of helicopter parenting. Phi Delta Kappan, 100 (7), 22–27.
5.
EriksonA.T. (2011). The rhetoric of choice: Segregation, desegregation, and charter schools. Dissent (Fall), 41–46.
6.
EzrahiY. (2012) Imagined democracies: Necessary political fictions. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
7.
KiryloJ.D. (2018). The opt-out movement and the power of parents. Phi Delta Kappan, 99 (8), 36–40.
8.
LabareeD.F. (2007). Education, markets, and the public good: The selected works of David F. Labaree. New York, NY: Routledge.
9.
LabareeD.F. (2018). Public schools for private gain: The declining American commitment to serving the public good. Phi Delta Kappan, 100 (3), 8–13.
10.
OrfieldG.FrankenbergE. (2013). Educational delusions? Why choice can deepen inequity and how to make schools fair. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
11.
RussoA. (2014). How Waiting for Superman (almost) changed the world. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute.
12.
SchneiderJ. (2018, October15). How are America’s public schools really doing?The Washington Post.
13.
StitzleinS.M. (2017). American public education and the responsibility of its citizens: Supporting democracy in the age of accountability. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
14.
TarciciA. (2017, September23). The people who pledge allegiance to the U.S. Constitution. The Atlantic.
15.
WoodlyD. (2018). The importance of public meaning for political persuasion. Perspectives on Politics16 (1), 22–35.
