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Public higher education in the postwar era was a key economic and
social driver in American life, making college available to
millions of working men and women. Since the 1980s, however,
government austerity policies and politics have severely reduced
public investment in higher education, exacerbating inequality
among poor and working-class students of color, as well as
part-time faculty. In Austerity Blues, Michael Fabricant and
Stephen Brier examine these devastating fiscal retrenchments
nationally, focusing closely on New York and California, both of
which were leaders in the historic expansion of public higher
education in the postwar years and now are at the forefront of
austerity measures. Fabricant and Brier describe the extraordinary
growth of public higher education after 1945, thanks largely to
state investment, the alternative intellectual and political
traditions that defined the 1960s, and the social and economic
forces that produced austerity policies and inequality beginning in
the late 1970s and 1980s. A provocative indictment of the negative
impact neoliberal policies have visited on the public university,
especially the growth of class, racial, and gender inequalities,
Austerity Blues also analyzes the many changes currently sweeping
public higher education, including the growing use of educational
technology, online learning, and privatization, while exploring how
these developments hurt students and teachers. In its final
section, the book offers examples of oppositional and emancipatory
struggles and practices that can help reimagine public higher
education in the future. The ways in which factors as diverse as
online learning, privatization, and disinvestment cohere into a
single powerful force driving deepening inequality is the central
theme of the book. Incorporating the differing perspectives of
students, faculty members, and administrators, the book reveals how
public education has been redefined as a private benefit, often
outsourced to for-profit vendors who "sell" education back to
indebted undergraduates. Over the past twenty years, tuition and
related student debt have climbed precipitously and degree
completion rates have dropped. Not only has this new austerity
threatened public universities' ability to educate students,
Fabricant and Brier argue, but it also threatens to undermine the
very meaning and purpose of public higher education in offering
poor and working-class students access to a quality education in a
democracy. Synthesizing historical sources, social science
research, and contemporary reportage, Austerity Blues will be of
interest to readers concerned about rising inequality and the
decline of public higher education.
This book has emerged in response to social service workers' vivid
descriptions of changes in the practice of their craft during the
past 15 years and to the scanty literature that addressed their
concerns. Few works have attempted to explore the interplay between
the recent broader changes affecting the welfare state (fiscal
crisis, cost containment, privatization, etc) and the restructuring
of social service work. Yet, it is clear that the fiscal decisions
of the 1980s profoundly affected both the context and content of
social service practice. "The Welfare State Crisis and the
Transformation of Social Service Work" explores how these larger
forces have created significant changes for the line practitioner.
The greater push for caseload volume in the face of resource
scarcity is redefining service encounters in ways that are more
likely to meet the fiscal needs of the agency rather than the
service needs of clients and the professional concerns of the
worker. In short, the fiscal crisis of the past two decades has
placed the enterprise of social services at risk. After empirically
documenting the seriousness of the risk, "The Welfare State Crisis
and the Transformation of Social Service Work" concludes with an
exploration of new social service practice strategies that have the
potential to integrate the individual, organization, communal, and
social changes necessary for effective service interventions.
This book has emerged in response to social service workers' vivid
descriptions of changes in the practice of their craft during the
past 15 years and to the scanty literature that addressed their
concerns. Few works have attempted to explore the interplay between
the recent broader changes affecting the welfare state (fiscal
crisis, cost containment, privatization, etc) and the restructuring
of social service work. Yet, it is clear that the fiscal decisions
of the 1980s profoundly affected both the context and content of
social service practice. "The Welfare State Crisis and the
Transformation of Social Service Work" explores how these larger
forces have created significant changes for the line practitioner.
The greater push for caseload volume in the face of resource
scarcity is redefining service encounters in ways that are more
likely to meet the fiscal needs of the agency rather than the
service needs of clients and the professional concerns of the
worker. In short, the fiscal crisis of the past two decades has
placed the enterprise of social services at risk. After empirically
documenting the seriousness of the risk, "The Welfare State Crisis
and the Transformation of Social Service Work" concludes with an
exploration of new social service practice strategies that have the
potential to integrate the individual, organization, communal, and
social changes necessary for effective service interventions.
The authors persuasively argue that the present cascade of reforms
to public education is a consequence of a larger intention to
shrink government. The startling result is that more of public
education's assets and resources are moving to the private sector
and to the prison industrial complex. Drawing on various forms of
evidence-structural, economic, narrative, and youth-generated
participatory research-the authors reveal new structures and
circuits of dispossession and privilege that amount to a clear
failure of present policy. Policymaking is at war with the
interests of the vast majority of citizens, and especially with
urban youth of color. In the final chapter the authors explore
democratic principles and offer examples essential to mobilizing,
in solidarity with educators, youth, communities, labor, and allied
social movements, the kind of power necessary to contest the
present direction of public education reform.
The authors persuasively argue that the present cascade of reforms
to public education is a consequence of a larger intention to
shrink government. The startling result is that more of public
education's assets and resources are moving to the private sector
and to the prison industrial complex. Drawing on various forms of
evidence-structural, economic, narrative, and youth-generated
participatory research-the authors reveal new structures and
circuits of dispossession and privilege that amount to a clear
failure of present policy. Policymaking is at war with the
interests of the vast majority of citizens, and especially with
urban youth of color. In the final chapter the authors explore
democratic principles and offer examples essential to mobilizing,
in solidarity with educators, youth, communities, labor, and allied
social movements, the kind of power necessary to contest the
present direction of public education reform.
This book will reset the discourse on charter schooling by
systematically exploring the gap between the promise and the
performance of charter schools. The authors do not defend the
public school system, which for decades has failed primarily poor
children of color. Instead, they use empirical evidence to
determine whether charter schooling offers an authentic alternative
for these children. In concise chapters, they address a series of
important questions related to the recent ascent of charter schools
and the radical restructuring of public education. This essential
introduction includes a detailed history of the charter movement,
an analysis of the politics and economics driving the movement,
documentation of actual student outcomes, and alternative images of
transforming public education to serve all children. Book Features:
An overview of the key issues surrounding the charter school
movement. A reframing of the recent discourse on public school
reform A comprehensive comparison examining the promises of charter
schooling against the empirical evidence. An examination of how
charter schools impact communities of color and larger public
school systems in poor urban areas. An exploration of the
relationships among the rapid ascendance of charter reform,
economic decline, and fiscal austerity.
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