ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a vision for American education in which evidence, teacher expertise, global context, and knowledge of the unique needs and situations of students fuel the system and coincide with a stronger teaching profession. It asserts that an education system grounded in these new imperatives of educational change and renewed teacher professionalism is critical to transform education and improve democracy in the United States. If education is to be for practice of freedom in this broad sense, then the intention cannot to provide a blueprint, but rather to open up new spaces for public and professional deliberation about a preferred future. Arbitrarily deciding that the arts, or foreign languages, or physical education are expendable does symbolic violence to growing child’s curiosity and legitimate aspirations to excel across a range of disciplines. Democratic education, however, requires minimal thresholds of civility and the capacity to entertain another’s point of view as part of a shared quest for the public good.
