ABSTRACT
Since the appearance of A Nation at Risk in 1983, and several subsequent reports, public schools have been viewed as being in “crisis.” Neoconservatives see a moral crisis and the collapse of traditional views of family, religion, and individual character. Neoliberals link the crisis to human capital theory, arguing that our schools have failed to provide U.S. corporations with a competitive workforce-an argument more compelling in 1983 than today. Others, including the editors of this book, see the real crisis as a system that reflects and reproduces the savage inequalities of our society (Berliner & Biddle, 1995; Kozol, 1991). While I welcome this shift in the current discourse of crisis from moralizing and human capital theory to equity, I believe that education professionals who, like these authors, work under an equity umbrella need to be more explicit about both the substantive and strategic issues entailed in achieving social justice for poor and minority children and their families.
