Deborah Meier is a visionary teacher, author, and founder of successful small schools in New York City and Boston. Harry Boyte, senior scholar at Augsburg College, is founder of the youth civic empowerment initiative Public Achievement and a leader in the movement to democratize higher education. This blog is no longer being updated.
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
Beyond the Melting Pot—The Powers of Citizens
The definition of citizens as co-creators adds dimensions of power beyond voting. It holds potential to challenge the "melting pot" definition of success in America, revitalizing cultural pluralism, the hidden genius of diverse cultural communities, and generating a less materialistic understanding of the American dream. How can we develop assessment practices and norms to evaluate the skills and capacities of cooperative effort and cultural development?
Accountability
Opinion
The Power of Citizens Over Public Education
How much real power do parents, teachers, and students have in public schools? The opt-out movement and privatization may be changing the equation in different ways, writes Deborah Meier.
College & Workforce Readiness
Opinion
Signs of Hope in Discouraged Times—a New Citizenship Movement?
In a discouraging time, stirrings of a new movement for citizenship and civic education are signs of hope. The youth civic empowerment and civic education initiative Public Achievement illustrates, as does the new field of Civic Studies, centered on citizens as co-creators, and new congressional legislation.
Teaching
Opinion
Sticking to Democracy Is Hard
It would be odd indeed if schools to prepare cooks never did any cooking. It's equally odd that schools to prepare the young to assume the obligations of running their society have no opportunity to rule anything.
Social Studies
Opinion
Building Democracy in Schools: The Larger Strategy
Building democracy in schools is best thought of as a strand of a larger strategy to resist the rising authoritarian dangers of our time. Such a strategy calls for cross-partisan politics, organizing that sees the democratic potential in every kind of community, and a commitment to defending democracy and also deepening democracy.
Teaching
Opinion
Do Democracy Schools Depend on Homogeneity?
Deborah Meier questions whether it's natural for democracy to depend on a heterogeneous population base, where the country's mainstream is not ready to embrace the idea of equality in its fullest sense.
College & Workforce Readiness
Opinion
How Can We Create Schools of the People?
America's history of collective action around schools—schools created by people's public work—is vital to remember in this election season because it is a story of the strength of the people, not the strength of elites. It includes largely unknown stories like the vast citizenship school movement of the civil rights movement, in which people found their strength. This election is all about the strength of celebrity candidates, not the people. We badly need a different public narrative of America.
Teaching
Opinion
Preparing Students for the Political Fray
Where do pre-adults have a chance "to learn democracy," much less get in the habit of expecting it?
Social Studies
Opinion
Rethinking Elections and Assessments Can Lead to a Democratic Awakening
Focus on the "structures" of democracy brings to mind the role of elections and assessment in a democratic way of life. How do we think about elections if "we the people" are at the center? How do we avoid another "Southern strategy" like Nixon's, which divided working people by race? How do we assess civic agency?
School & District Management
Opinion
4 Lessons Small School Communities Can Teach Us
School communities need a balance of "formal" democracy and civic agency.
Teaching
Opinion
Democratic Decisions and Civic Agency
Is democracy "who decides"? Or is it civic agency, co-creative, collaborative power to shape the world developed through public work? Or is it both? This is a crucial discussion and debate. Here Boyte argues the civic agency side, though not dismissing decision making. He uses examples from Africa.
School & District Management
Opinion
The Roles of Direct Versus Indirect Power in School Communities
Who has the right to change the rules of the game to initiate public work? Who chooses its so-called leaders who speak for the whole?
Teaching
Opinion
The Work and Workers of Democracy Schools
To gain public support for democracy schools we need to emphasize the work of building such schools, and also how such schools can prepare students who build democracy through their work. The Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s and early 1940s has lessons.
Social Studies
Opinion
What Does It Mean to Teach 'Civic Virtues'?
Only by valuing civic virtues can we begin to explore what it might mean to make K-12 public education democratic.