ABSTRACT
Necks chained, making it impossible to see the reality behind them, dwellers in Plato’s cave sit and analyze the meaning of reality’s shadows cast on the wall in front of them.1 The heavy chains reach to the rocky floor, sometimes clanging against it when wearers take a deep breath or gasp at the profundity of their analysis of the passing shadows. Gazing at the shadows, school leaders spend endless years fruitlessly debating how schools can contribute to economic growth, provide equality of economic opportunity, and eliminate poverty. Clusters of conservatives, liberals, critical theorists, Freireians, Marxists, libertarians, constructivists, ethnographers, sociologists, policymakers, philosophers, learning theorists, developmentalists, curriculum planners, pedagogues, and statisticians drag their chains into the cave’s nooks and corners, debating how schools can more equitably process students for the global economy. The noise is often deafening as learned educators shout their solutions and clank their chains on the cave’s floors while wandering between groups trying to decide if they are liberal statisticians, conservative ethnographers, or adherents to some other combination of academic discourse. Sparks fly off dragging chains as school people rush with hands out to gather research funds that occasionally fall from the cave’s ceiling as governments and businesses shove their largesse through the cracks in the ground above. A drought in the rain of research money causes waves of discussion about how to better serve the masters above.
