The Journal’s latest issue on “The University in the Crossfire: Quandaries over Neutrality, Moral Responsibility, Corporatization, and the Protection of Free Speech in Difficult Times” is now Online

 

I am pleased to announce that our special issue on “The University in the Crossfire: Quandaries over Neutrality, Moral Responsibility, Corporatization, and the Protection of Free Speech in Difficult Times,” is now online at the Journal of Educational Controversy.  Here is a direct link:    https://cedar.wwu.edu/jec/

Authors responded to the following controversial scenario:

Is institutional neutrality enough? Caught between students and donors, our institutions of higher learning have sought refuge from hard moral choices by moving to a role as neutral observers, facilitating the expressions of their individual members but not of the institutions themselves. Is this position adequate? Are there no universal principles the university should advocate? There are particular reasons underlying the existence of universities that differentiate them from corporations of other kinds. Have we lost our understanding of how we are distinct? Are we of such neutrality that we cannot articulate our distinct societal identity? In that identity may lie our reason for being.

We invite authors to bring clarity and understanding to this issue that again has found itself in the public debate with the recent student protests and testimony of university presidents at a contentious hearing before the U.S. Congress on the balance between neutrality, moral responsibility, and protecting free speech.   We welcome papers that will elevate the public discussion of this issue.

Below is the table of contents from the journal:

Editorial

PDF

The University in the Crossfire: Quandaries over Neutrality, Moral Responsibility, Corporatization, and the Protection of Free Speech in Difficult Times
Lorraine Kasprisin
Vol. 17, Iss. 1

Theme: The University in the Crossfire: Quandaries over Neutrality, Moral Responsibility, Corporatization, and the Protection of Free Speech in Difficult Times

Articles in Response to Controversy

PDF

Caught in the Crossfire: Navigating Institutional Neutrality Amidst Campus Controversy & Competing Demands
Jamie Herman and Sally Moore
Vol. 17, Iss. 1

Theme: The University in the Crossfire: Quandaries over Neutrality, Moral Responsibility, Corporatization, and the Protection of Free Speech in Difficult Times

PDF

Advancing Conservative Agendas Under the Guise of Neutrality: An Analysis of Utah’s Higher Education System
Brianne Kramer
Vol. 17, Iss. 1

Theme: The University in the Crossfire: Quandaries over Neutrality, Moral Responsibility, Corporatization, and the Protection of Free Speech in Difficult Times

PDF

Freedoms and Rights of Academic Citizenship are Essential. Reflections on the Situation at Universities in Denmark
Asger Sørensen
Vol. 17, Iss. 1

Theme: The University in the Crossfire: Quandaries over Neutrality, Moral Responsibility, Corporatization, and the Protection of Free Speech in Difficult Times

PDF

Student Activism in the Age of Deportability: Toward the Coalition Between Immigrant and International Students Beyond Divisive Rhetoric
Akira Sawata
Vol. 17, Iss. 1

Theme: The University in the Crossfire: Quandaries over Neutrality, Moral Responsibility, Corporatization, and the Protection of Free Speech in Difficult Times

About the Authors

PDF

About the Authors

Vol. 17, Iss. 1

Theme: The University in the Crossfire: Quandaries over Neutrality, Moral Responsibility, Corporatization, and the Protection of Free Speech in Difficult Times

Editorial Board Member Paul Englesberg Receives Award for Best Article of the Year on the Bellingham Riot of 1907

 

Editorial Board Member Paul Englesberg Receives Award for Best Article of the Year on the Bellingham Riot of 1907

 

The Journal of Educational Controversy would like to announce that our editorial board member, Paul Englesberg, will be receiving the John McClelland, Jr. Award from the Washington State Historical Society on May 4th.  The award was made in recognition of his article, "The Bellingham Riot of 1907," selected as the best article of the year published in Columbia, The Magazine of Northwest History, Winter, 2023, pp. 26-33.  I have heard Paul speak about this event on a number of occasions.  His work is very significant, especially at this historical moment of public debate and controversy on what history should be taught in our public schools, the topic we explore in our upcoming issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy.

Here is an abstract of the article:

The rapid development of racial prejudice and labor animosity directed at new Asian immigrants in Bellingham led to one of the largest anti-immigrant riots in early 20^th century United States. Several thousand men from Punjab, India, most of whom were Sikhs, immigrated to British Columbia, Canada and the United States Northwest in 1905 to 1908 seeking work, and many found jobs as laborers, mostly in the many lumber mills.  With its large mills and proximity to the Canadian border, Bellingham, Washington attracted hundreds of these Punjabi immigrants, which quickly led to racial and labor tensions.  On September 4, 1907 a large mob gathered and attacked the Punjabis, seeking to drive them out of the mills and the city.  Hundreds fled and others were held overnight in the city jail for protection.  In a matter of days almost all the immigrants had left, never to return to the Bellingham area.

Decades later a thriving Sikh community began to form in Bellingham and Whatcom County, and public educational programs recognized the ugly history of racism and forced expulsions of immigrants from China, India, and Japan.  In recognition of this legacy of intolerance, an impressive monument, the Arch of Healing and Reconciliation, was erected in the city center and dedicated in 2018.  In 2020 voters elected Satpal Sidhu, a Sikh leader, to the highest elected position of County Executive. ("The Bellingham Riot of 1907" in Columbia, Winter, 2023, pp. 26-33.)

The Journal of Educational Controversy Announces a New Call for Papers: Facilitating Discussions of Controversial Issues in Difficult Times

The Journal of Educational Controversy announces a new call for papers for Volume 16.

Theme: Facilitating Discussions of Controversial Issues in Difficult Times

Controversy Addressed:

Controlling speech in classrooms has been an issue for as long as there have been schools. Who gets to speak, what they are allowed to say, what counts as a legitimate topic for discussion, and what constitutes “truth” have always been determined by the economic and political processes that control education. Recently, these processes have become the subject of public debate and political controversy.  From both the putative right and the putative left, morally inflected demands for control of classroom conversation have made headlines and have played a role in funding, legislation, lawsuits, campaigning, and voting choices. Bans on certain words, trigger warnings, a shift from politics to psychology, a focus on trauma, fear of certain theories (usually those with “critical” in their title), the struggle for control of historical narratives, the censorship of invited speakers, and the framing of identities have all become part of the discussion of what can and cannot be said in a classroom, what will and won’t get funded, and who can be fired for speech.

We invite authors to bring clarity and illumination to these issues from a conceptual, philosophical, historical, and political perspective and to offer ideas about actual classroom practices.

 ·       What do we mean by a controversy? Do all differences of opinion count as legitimate controversies? What purpose does the discussion of controversies play in the education of democratic citizens?

·       What are some effective practices in the teaching for complexity through the classroom discussion of controversial issues in the different disciplines—literature, science, social studies, history, environmental studies, mathematics, political science, economics, psychology, the arts and theater, etc.

·       What is the legitimate scope of decision-making by teachers and librarians based on professional knowledge, by the democratic control of education through state legislatures and governors, by local vs. state authority, by the rights and concerns of parents.

 Deadline for Manuscripts: October 15, 2023

https://cedar.wwu.edu/jec/

The Journal’s latest issue on “Teaching for Social Justice in a Highly Politicized Historical Moment” is now Online

I am pleased to announce that our special issue on “Teaching for Social Justice in a Highly Politicized Historical Moment” is now online at the Journal of Educational Controversy.  Here is a direct link:    https://cedar.wwu.edu/jec/vol15/iss1/   Please consider continuing the conversation by contributing a rejoinder.

Authors responded to the following controversial scenario:

As the nation begins to reckon with its racial past, it is now experiencing a backlash by some states that are implementing laws and policies that will target how civics education, controversial topics, and divisive issues will be discussed from kindergarten through higher education.  From restrictions on the teaching of academic theories that analyze systemic racism to limiting other race-related discussions in the classroom, actions by these states pose not only a challenge and a danger to traditional academic freedom but also to the very definition of the role of education in a democratic society.

 This issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy asks authors to contribute their thoughts on issues such as:

 1.            How should racism be appropriately addressed at different age levels and the college classroom?  What social, historical, political, and cultural understandings should be brought to bear on the conversation?  How do we defend the educational significance for the choices we make?  How do we act in proactive ways to engage in such work so that we are not forced to be reactive?

2.            How are we to understand the political nature of the attacks against theories like Critical Race Theory and other current political actions by states to restrict and censor discussions on race in order for us to counter them more effectively?  What political dynamics and historical precedents are at play?  Can incidents from the past illuminate a response today?

3.            How should university professors prepare the next generation of teachers in confronting these issues?

4.           What would it look like if a college of education took on the work of dismantling structural racism?

Below is the table of contents from the journal:

 

Editorial

PDF

Teaching for Social Justice in a Highly Politicized Historical Moment
Lorraine Kasprisin
Vol. 15, Iss. 1

Theme: Teaching for Social Justice in a Highly Politicized Historical Moment

Articles in Response to Controversy

PDF

The Sociohistorically Situated and Structurally Central Nature of Race: Toward an Analytic of Research regarding Race and Racism
Rolf Straubhaar
Vol. 15, Iss. 1

Theme: Teaching for Social Justice in a Highly Politicized Historical Moment

PDF

A critically conscious analysis of institutionalized racism in teacher education: Imagining anti-racist teacher preparation spaces
Tatiana Joseph, Jennifer Brownson, Kristine Lize, Elizabeth Drame, and Laura Owens
Vol. 15, Iss. 1

Theme: Teaching for Social Justice in a Highly Politicized Historical Moment

PDF

“Teaching in a War Zone”: A Collective Reflection on Learning from a Diversity Course in Contentious Times
Elena Aydarova, Jacob Kelley, and Kristen Daugherty
Vol. 15, Iss. 1

Theme: Teaching for Social Justice in a Highly Politicized Historical Moment

PDF

Dissonance as an Educational Tool for Coping with Students’ Racist Attitudes
Adar Cohen
Vol. 15, Iss. 1

Theme: Teaching for Social Justice in a Highly Politicized Historical Moment

PDF

Stories Read and Told in an Antiracist Teaching Book Club
Jennifer Ervin and Madison Gannon
Vol. 15, Iss. 1

Theme: Teaching for Social Justice in a Highly Politicized Historical Moment

PDF

Troubling the Null Curriculum through a Multiple-Perspectives Pedagogy: A Critical Dialogue Between Two Equity-Minded Teacher Educators
Rachel Endo and Deb Sheffer
Vol. 15, Iss. 1

Theme: Teaching for Social Justice in a Highly Politicized Historical Moment

PDF

On the continuity of learning, teaching, schooling: Mead’s educational proposal, from the perspective of decolonization and Land/place-based education
Cary Campbell Dr.
Vol. 15, Iss. 1

Theme: Teaching for Social Justice in a Highly Politicized Historical Moment

About the Authors

PDF

About the Authors

Vol. 15, Iss. 1

Theme: Teaching for Social Justice in a Highly Politicized Historical Moment

The Journal of Educational Controversy Announces a New Call for Papers: Teaching for Social Justice in a Highly Politicized Historical Moment

 

The Journal of Educational Controversy announces a new call for papers for Volume 15.

Theme: Teaching for Social Justice in a Highly Politicized Historical Moment

Controversy Addressed:

As the nation begins to reckon with its racial past, it is now experiencing a backlash by some states implementing laws and policies that will target how civics education, controversial topics, and divisive issues will be discussed from kindergarten through higher education.  From restrictions on the teaching of academic theories that analyze systemic racism to limiting other race-related discussions in the classroom, actions by these states pose not only a challenge and a danger to traditional academic freedom but also to the very definition of the role of education in a democratic society.

 This issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy asks authors to contribute their thoughts on issues such as:

 1.            How should racism be appropriately addressed at different age levels and the college classroom?  What social, historical, political, and cultural understandings should be brought to bear on the conversation?  How do we defend the educational significance for the choices we make?  How do we act in proactive ways to engage in such work so that we are not forced to be reactive?

2.            How are we to understand the political nature of the attacks against theories like Critical Race Theory and other current political actions by states to restrict and censor discussions on race in order for us to counter them more effectively?  What political dynamics and historical precedents are at play?  Can incidents from the past illuminate a response today?

3.            How should university professors prepare the next generation of teachers in confronting these issues?  

4.           What would it look like if a college of education took on the work of dismantling structural racism?

Deadline for manuscripts: February 15, 2022

Journal of Educational Controversy Website: https://cedar.wwu.edu/jec/

For questions, contact Lorraine.Kasprisin@wwu.edu

 

What Constitutes Effective Civic Education?

What Constitutes Effective Civic Education?  An Invitation to our Readers.

As we work toward future issues of the Journal of Educational Controversy, we have been thinking about an issue on what constitutes an adequate and effective civic education for students growing up in a new world of social media.    In addition to the development of rational deliberative arguments, what do students need to understand about things like coded language, gaslighting, the role of historical narratives, etc., in their civic education.  We invite our readers to contribute to the structuring of our controversial scenario for the issue.  What must our students know and understand?

New Call for Papers: The Ethics of Memory: What Does it Mean to Apologize for Historical Wrongs

We are pleased to announce the theme for the 2019 issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy.

NEW CALL FOR PAPERS

Volume 14, 2019

Theme: The Ethics of Memory: What Does it Mean to Apologize for Historical Wrongs

To apologize for a wrong committed can imply any number of things: that one has committed a wrong against another, that the wrong was done intentionally, that one committed the wrong with malice, that one is consciously aware of doing the wrong, that one has remorse, that one is seeking to right the wrong, that one feels a sense of guilt over committing the wrong,  and/or that one is seeking redemption and reconciliation.  But what does it mean for a state to apologize for an historical wrong that was committed long before its present members were born, but who may still continue to derive benefits from that wrong? Recently, a university chancellor apologized for her university's role in past racial injustices and acknowledged the “profound injustices of slavery” as she sought to reconcile the past with the present and the future. College protests around confederate statues stir conflicts between arguments over historical injustices and historical heritage.   Historical figures who laid the foundation for the enlightenment principles embedded in the founding documents are found wanting in the ethics of historical memory and identity. And the Supreme Court’s current reconsideration of affirmative action brings the issues back into the legal domain, as courts grapple with how to redress the effects of slavery and Jim Crow on educational opportunity. Alternatively, authors may find that the conceptual framework that embeds our question carries certain assumptions that ignores a framework that would center experiences like the Japanese-American internment camps or the Native American Boarding Schools rather than foregrounding them.  Would placing the experiences of those who have been wronged central to our inquiry change the very way we pose the problem.  How does the very notion of apology even look from the perspective of those who have suffered these wrongs? Words and their meanings have histories and continue through lived experiences that are named and experienced differently.  For instance, racialized and other marginalized communities often refer to ‘wronged’ as historically and generationally traumatic—perhaps a different metaphor that communicates suffering is needed?   In the midst of what is often highly contentious confrontations, this issue of the journal is seeking articles that can bring moral clarification and rigorous discernment to the topic.

Deadline for Manuscripts: June 30, 2019

Journal's "Black Lives Matter and the Education Industrial Complex" Issue now Online

I am pleased to announce that our special issue on “Black Lives Matter and the Education Industrial Complex”  is now online at the Journal of Educational Controversy.  Here is a direct link:  https://cedar.wwu.edu/jec/vol12/iss1/   Please consider continuing the conversation by contributing a rejoinder.

The co-editors for this issue are Bill Lyne, Professor of English, Western Washington University, and president of the United Faculty of Washington State and Teri McMurtry-Chubb, Professor of Law, Mercer University Walter F. George School of Law.  

Our annual Educational Law and Social Justice Forum in the spring will feature this issue.

Authors responded to the following controversial scenario:

Along with drawing attention to the police as occupying armies in Black American communities, the Black Lives Matter movement has highlighted the deep roots of institutionalized racism in the United States.  Starting with the fundamental question, Do Black Lives Matter in the U.S. Education Industrial Complex?, this issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy seeks to explore the various questions raised by Black Lives Matter in relation to U.S. educational institutions, policies, and practices as they impact men, women, and children of color intersectionally, with respect to gender, gender identity, and class.  These questions could include the status of schools as institutions of control and sites of reproduction of racist ideology; the possibility of schools as sites of liberationist  transformation; the institutional history of schools alongside the development of institutional racism; the institutional response of schools to incidents of racial violence; the history of black studies programs in relation to black liberation movements, and the appropriation and sanitizing of terms like diversity and multiculturalism.

Below is the table of contents from the journal:

Editorial

Black Lives Matter and the Education Industrial Complex: A Special Issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy

Teri A. McMurtry-Chubb and William Lyne

Articles in Response to Controversy

A Critical Race Theory Analysis of Post-Ferguson Critical Incidents Across Ecological Levels of Academia

Aurora Chang, Sabina Neugebauer, and Daniel Birmingham

Cocaine and College: How Black Lives Matter in U.S. Public Higher Education

Bill Lyne

The Revolution Will Be Live: Examining Educational (In)Justice through the Lens of Black Lives Matter

Amy Jo Samuels, Gregory L. Samuels, and Brandon Haas

Practical Representation and the Multiracial Social Movement

Vernon D. Johnson and Kelsie Benslimane

The Intersection of White Supremacy and the Education Industrial Complex: An Analysis of #BlackLivesMatter and the Criminalization of People with Disabilities

Brittany A. Aronson and Mildred Boveda

Exclusionary Discipline In New Jersey: The Relationship Between Black Teachers And Black Students

Randy Rakeem Miller Sr.

Stories of Social Justice Educators and Raising Children in the Face of Injustice

James Wright and Amanda U. Potterton

Going to College: Why Black Lives Matter Too

Raquel Farmer-Hinton

Post-Trayvon stress disorder (PTSD): A theoretical analysis of the criminalization of African American students in U.S. schools

Marcia J. Watson-Vandiver

Schools and the No-Prison Phenomenon: Anti-Blackness and Secondary Policing in the Black Lives Matter Era

Lynette Parker

Magical Black Girls in the Education Industrial Complex: Making Visible the Wounds of Invisibility

Teri A. McMurtry-Chubb

About the Authors

About the Authors

Kathryn Merwin

New Issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy Now Online

Volume 11 of the Journal of Educational Controversy is now online with a focus on the question:  Is “Best Practices” Research in Education Insufficient or even Misdirected?

This invited issue is dedicated to the life and scholarly work of John G. Richardson.  Dr. Richardson is professor emeritus at Western Washington University and the associate editor of the Journal of Educational Controversy since its beginning in 2006.  He has conceptualized the theme for this issue and has written an introductory essay that places the invited articles within a conceptual framework that raises deeper questions about what it means to make claims to understand something.

 As one of authors wrote about Dr. Richardson’s legacy, “In the 21st century changes are occurring so rapidly that the educational field barely has time to process what has already come down the pike, let alone what is coming. It takes a scholar of courage, with both historical awareness and foresight, to raise important, salient and far-reaching questions about what has come, is on the horizon and might be on the way. This is especially the case in an academic context that appears to be narrowing in its toleration for asking difficult questions and generating meaningful dialogue around them.”

 We hope that this issue will initiate a wide discussion around some pivotal and fundamental questions about the ways we conduct the research that shapes our understanding of schooling in America.

 The controversy addressed in the issue is:

For decades the research agenda for identifying “best practices” for reforming education has been structured around testing hypotheses of either effectiveness or prediction of outcomes.  Within the quantitative approach researchers have used a variety of traditional causal and correlational designs to examine relationships between specific measurable variables. Researchers have also used qualitative approaches to examine implementation of such practices in more depth through observations in the field, interviews with students and educators, and content analysis of curriculum and student work.

However, educational research seeking the best practices can often ignore or minimize the mechanisms that generate the phenomenon studied.  From school-to-prison and mass incarceration, racial-gender disproportionality in special and vocational education, to school dropout rates, correlations abound, but they don't by themselves explain the phenomenon.  Good intentions frame much educational research, but can over-dramatize correlations at the expense of deeper explanation.

This volume seeks papers that exemplify the "paradoxical" nature of educational research.   Submissions should focus on two things: the intentions or motivations that (often) inform educational research, but where the results or outcomes are unintended or unanticipated.  We seek papers that go beyond descriptions of educational issues, however detailed, as well as beyond explanations that repeat initial intentions or motivations.  Papers should reveal and discuss the specific forces and mechanisms that generate the topic of analysis, be it educational practices (teaching, assessment), outcomes (achievement, court decisions, enrollments) or events (protests and emergent social movements, school shootings, drop outs) that are the subject of the paper.

18th Annual Educational Law and Social Justice Forum: A 10 Year Anniversary Retrospective of Educational Controversies

18^th Annual Educational Law and Social Justice Forum

A 10 Year Retrospective of Educational Controversies: Come and Celebrate the Anniversary of the Journal of Educational Controversy

Thursday, April 21, 2016

4:00pm to 6:00pm

Western Washington University, Center for Education, Equity and Diversity (CEED) Miller Hall 005

 

The 18^th Annual Educational Law and Social Justice Forum will celebrate the anniversary of the 10^th year of the Journal of Educational Controversy.  As part of the celebration and continued discussion, the Journal in collaboration with the Center for Education, Equity and Diversity will be hosting a retrospective look at the controversies covered over the past ten years of the Journal. Now in its 18th year, the forum will host authors who have contributed to the Journal and who will share their current thinking and research about some of our most pressing educational challenges. 

 Following the presentations, the audience will have opportunities to interact with the authors and share educational controversies that they would like to see as topics for future issues of the journal.  The audience is invited to think about the links between the past and the present pursuit of social justice in both the k-12 system as well as in higher education.  How can we articulate these issues in a way that brings greater depth to our understanding of the conflict of values and the complexity of ideas that characterize our pluralistic society, and that opens up new ways of imagining a more just, inclusive, and democratic educational environment for the future.

 Topics and presenters for this year’s forum include:

In Person:

 Dr. Maria Timmons Flores’ paper helped school professionals understand the experiences and challenges students who are undocumented face, and offered tangible roles schools can play in rethinking policies and practices to counter everyday injustices. The paper was informed by a legal context, current political realities, and critical race theory.

Dr. Daniel Larner co-edited the issue on the school-to-prison pipeline.  His papers covered conflicts over censorship, and the education of politicians as playwrights who can work with and through difference to construct civil laws and protections.

Dr. Bill Lyne’s paper, “Beautiful Losers” addressed the theme of our 2008 issue that asked how are we to “fulfill the traditional moral imperative of our schools to create a public capable of sustaining the life of a democracy . . . .in an age of the Patriot Act and similar antiterrorism legislation . . . all likely to involve violations of civil rights and liberties” by problematizing the question against the historical realities of our nation’s history.  Dr. Lyne is the co-editor of our upcoming issue on “Black Lives Matter and the Education Industrial Complex.”

 By Video:

 Dr. Alice Ginsberg – “No Excuses Charter Schools” and a critique of the film Waiting for Superman

 Dr. John Covaleskie – Religion and Public Schools

Dr. Leslie Locke and Dr. Ann Blankenship – The Banning of the Mexican American curriculum in Tucson, AZ.

 The forum is free and open to the public.

17th Annual Educational Law and Social Justice Forum will Highlight Ways Families and Communities Can be Brought into the Life of the School

The 17th Annual Educational Law and Social Justice Forum will be held on Wednesday, May 6 at 5:30-7:30 pm in the Miller Hall Collaborative Space on the Western Washington University campus.

The forum is free and open to the public and is sponsored by the Journal of Educational Controversy and the Center for Education, Equity and Diversity.

The theme of the forum is: “Bringing Family and Community Strengths into the Life of the School: the Parent Action Team,” and will feature authors of the article, “Everyone Should Feel so Connected and Safe: Using Parent Action Teams to Reach all Families” that was published in our Winter 2015 issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy. The work of the Parent Action Team is a collaborative project between the Woodring College of Education and the Mt. Vernon Washington Elementary School that resulted from a 1.5 million dollar grant by the Washington State Legislature.  The grant, Collaborative Schools for Innovation & Success, aims to develop models for enhancing student learning and closing the achievement gap and for better educating teachers who are prepared to teach more effectively in today’s diverse classrooms.

The partnership has been able to create a number of innovative practices.  One such practice is the forming of a Parent Action Team as part of a research project that advised schools on ways to engage often marginalized and hard-to-reach parents  --- parents and families that have often felt alienated in the past and who often face language, poverty and other barriers that prevented them from advocating for their children or feeling a part of the school.

Bringing the strengths and assets of the family and community into the life of school is an extension of the theme of our current issue of the journal that focused on moving us away from thinking in deficits terms and instead seeing the student as a person who brings strengths and resiliency to the learning experience. 

The theme of our current issue is “Challenging the Deficit Model and the Pathologizing of Children: Envisioning Alternative Models,” and so it was just a small leap to start to think about the assets and strengths that families and communities also bring to the life of the school.

The Parent Action Team members that make up the panel include:

John Korsmo is an Associate Professor and Director of Human Services at Western Washington University.

Miguel Camarena is a parent of a Washington School student.

Andrea Clancy is Washington School CSIS co-coordinator and Reading Specialist.

Ann Eco is a parent of a Washington School student.

Ann Jones is the ESL/Family Coordinator for Mt. Vernon School District.

Bill Nutting is the Principal at Washington School.

Basilia Quiroz is a parent of two children at Washington School.

Azucena Ramirez is a Migrant Family Liaison at Washington School.

Veronica Villa-Mondragon is a parent of two children at Washington School.

Stacy Youngquist, is a parent of two children at Washington School.

Panelists will share their experiences and discuss the process and method that was used accompanied by videos, posters, pictures and a powerpoint presentation. A Q&A session with the audience will follow.

Location: Western Washington University, Miller Hall Collaborative Space

Date: Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Time: 5:30-7:30pm

New Issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy Now Online and Upcoming Seminar

The new issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy, on the theme "Who Defines the Public in Public Education?," can be found here. The idea for this issue's theme was sparked by the ruthless and seemingly politically motivated ban on Mexican American Studies in the Tucson, Arizona school district, after years of the MAS curriculum being taught in Tucson without controversy. All of the authors included in this issue speak to the questions, both pedagogical and philosophical, arising in the wake of the Mexican American Studies ban in Tucson. The article in the new issue by former Tucson MAS teacher Curtis Acosta addresses the root of this controversy and Mr. Acosta will be joining the Western Washington University community in a discussion of his article, via webcam, on May 14th, 4-6pm. The upcoming seminar is sponsored by Western's Center for Education, Equity and Diversity, as well as the Journal of Educational Controversy and the Woodring College of Education. (Watch an interview with Curtis Acosta conducted last fall by JEC editor Lorraine Kasprisin and associate editor John Richardson here.)

The article titles, authors, and affiliations of the authors for this volume of the Journal of Educational Controversy are:

"Ask Not Only Who Defines the Curriculum: Rather Ask Too What the Curriculum Aim Should Be"

Walter Feinberg

Charles Hardie Professor, Emeritus

The University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana

"Religious Citizens in a Secular Public: Separate, Equal?"

John F. Covaleskie

University of Oklahoma

"Reading NCLB as a Form of Structural Violence"

Kerry Burch

Northern Illinois University

"Critical Study of the Concept of 'Public Identity' as Manifested in Postmodernist Versions of Critical Pedagogy"

Boaz Tsabar

Hebrew University, Israel

"The Public and Its Problem: Dewey, Habermas, and Levinas"

Guoping Zhao

Oklahoma State University

"Attack of the Cyborgs: 'Economic Imperialism' and the Human Deficit in Educational Policy-Making and Research"

Scott Ellison

University of Tennessee

"Middle School Students, Slam Poetry and the Notion of Citizenship"

Anthony M. Pellegrino, George Mason University

Kristien Zenkov, George Mason Univeristy

Gerardo Aponte-Martinez, Michigan State University

"Dangerous Minds in Tucson: The Banning of Mexican American Studies and Critical Thinking in Arizona"

Curtis Acosta

Former Teacher of Mexican American Studies in the Tucson Unified School District

Editorial: "Who Defines the Public in Pubic Education"

Lorraine Kasprisin

Editor of the Journal of Educational Controversy

Western Washington University

"Interview with Ari Palos, Film Director of Precious Knowledge" 

Celina Meza

JEC Editorial Staff

Western Washington University

New "Call for Papers" for 10th Anniversary Features an Open Issue

10th YEAR ANNIVERSARY ISSUE OF THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL CONTROVERSY FEATURES AN OPEN ISSUE

CALL FOR PAPERS

In previous issues of the Journal of Educational Controversy, we have defined a contemporary controversy and asked our authors to examine the issue. For our 10th year anniversary issue, we have decided to have an open issue where authors can define their own controversy. We ask authors to consider these points in developing their ideas:

1. Define an educational controversy – formal or informal education, K-12, college or university, adult education, secular or religious education, or larger philosophical issues in the educational ethos of a society or a culture. The issue can be a contemporary one or a perennial one that is revisited.

2. Explain the significance of the problem.

3. Provide an historical and philosophical framework for the controversy.

4. Lay out the different arguments surrounding the controversy.

5. Examine the underlying assumptions and resulting implications of the different positions.

6. Provide suggestions to resolve the issues raised and provide supporting arguments.

We remind authors that we publish controversies that are deeply embedded in our conceptual frameworks. The journal tries to distinguish between surface controversies and latent or depth controversies.

For example, schools engage students in controversies all the time and are embedded themselves in controversies. Most of these controversies engage us in disagreements on a surface level. That is not to say that these discussions are unimportant – only that they take place with assumptions that remain unstated and beliefs that remain largely hidden or submerged. And so we talk about learning outcomes, required competencies, and the kind of rubrics we should be using to assess student outcomes. The journal tries to go deeper by examining the very frameworks in which all these surface controversies arose – to get at our underlying assumptions and beliefs.

Here is our statement from the journal's introductory page:

The purpose of this peer reviewed journal is to provide a national and international forum for examining the dilemmas and controversies that arise in teaching and learning in a pluralistic, democratic society. Because many of the tensions in public school and university policies and practices are deeply rooted in the tensions inherent in the philosophy of a liberal democratic state, many of the value conflicts in public schools and universities can only be understood within the context of this larger public philosophy. In effect, the conflicting assumptions underlying our public philosophy frame our questions, define our problems and construct the solutions that shape our practices, policies, and research agendas. This journal will try to help clarify that public debate and deepen an understanding of its moral significance.

PUBLICATION DATE: FALL 2015
DEADLINE FOR MANUSCRIPTS: JANUARY 1, 2015