ABSTRACT
Much of this book has challenged the pro-corporate neoliberal agenda for education. Such a critique implicitly assumes another vision and rationale for education. In these closing chapters (8 and 9), we make our response explicit. Most Western nations are democracies, and democracy is a functioning political system created with reference to constitutional requirements and to a broad set of ideals. As a result, all U.S. public schools explicitly teach about the operations of democratic institutions and about core democratic principles. Yet, in the public’s view, American education seems to have lost its civic purpose and its sense of mission and commitment to social responsibility. Public democratic values are different from corporate values or private values; and understanding and promoting these values is both a practical matter and an ethical and even a spiritual endeavor. As Berman (1997) quotes the artist and former president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, “Democracy requires citizens who feel responsible for something more than their own well-feathered little corner; citizens who want to participate in society’s affairs, who insist on it; citizens with backbones; citizens who hold their ideas of democracy at the deepest level” (what Pericles meant when he termed inactive citizens “useless”) (p. 36). Ketcham suggests that “the ‘certain kind of citizen’ required for good democratic government is morally grounded in personal character and in concern for the public good, which leads to virtuous, publicspirited conduct at all levels of social discourse, including family, local affairs, national responsibility, and worldwide concern for peace and justice.”
