[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-590615-105":59,"doc-detail-590615-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","to-strengthen-democracy-invest-in-our-public-schools","To Strengthen Democracy, Invest in Our Public Schools","","Argues that public education, designed to strengthen democracy through common schooling, is currently being undermined by closures, privatization, and voucher-driven school choice agendas. Cites Horace Mann’s vision of education as an equalizer and uses W. E. B. Du Bois’s 1905 warning to show how schooling has often served unequal ruling-class interests. Explains ongoing segregation and inequity as rooted in systemic racism and in confusion between free-market ideology and democratic purposes.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/to-strengthen-democracy-invest-in-our-public-schools/590615/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/to-strengthen-democracy-invest-in-our-public-schools/590615.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Stanley","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-06","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":29},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why do the authors connect public schooling to democracy?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"They argue that threats to public education are threats to democracy itself, since schools are meant to prepare all students for competent participation in a society governed by and for the people.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What do the authors say is happening to public schools under current reforms?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"They describe an alarming wave of public school closures and pressures for unregulated privatization through for-profit charter management and voucher programs.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What causes do the authors identify for persistent segregation and inequality?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"They point to systemic racism and to the tendency to merge free-market ideology with democratic ideals, which distorts how schools serve civic and democratic purposes.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},590615,1792894675,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":29,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":81,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":39,"preview_page_count":4},2336477405376,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_29158cc5080c5b710cf443261637dec0","To Strengthen Democracy, Invest in Our Public Schools  \nBy Emily Gasoi and Deborah Meier  \nW  \nho could have imagined that, more than 150 years into this bold project of preparing successive gen-  \nerations for informed citizenship, our system of universal education would be as imperiled as itis today? One of the original ideas behind establishing a system of“common schools”—as one of the early advocates for public education, Horace Mann, referred to them—was not that they would all be mediocre, but that children from different backgrounds, the children of  \nEmily Gasoi, a cofounder of the consulting firm Artful Education, teaches in the education, inquiry, and justice program at Georgetown University. She was a founding teacher atMission Hill School in Boston. Deborah Meier is a former senior scholar at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development and the author of numerous books and articles about public education. A former teacher and principal, she is also a MacArthur Foundation award winner.  \nworkers and the children of factory owners, would be educated together. As Mann wrote in 1848, “Education ... beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men—the balancewheel of the social machinery.”1  \nOf course, Mann’s own understanding of equality and citizenship was surely limited, ashe wrote these words at a time when only white men had the vote, the Emancipation Proclamation was yet to be signed, and the children of workers were more likely to be working in factories themselves than they were to be attending school. And while schools have historically mirrored society’sinequities as much as they have inoculated against them, our public institutions nevertheless have at their foundation the ideals set forth in Mann’s quote and in our most soaring rhetoric about individual freedom and the common good.  \nAnd yet, in our current reform climate, our system of public education is often referred to as a “monopoly” rather than a public good. As such, in districts around the country, public schools are being shuttered at an alarming rate, with more than 1,700  \nschools closed nationwide in 2013 alone.2  \nNowhere is this trend more dramatically played out than in Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s home state of Michigan, where entire school districts are losing the battle against unregulated privatization through for-profit charter management entities and voucher programs. And while there is no evidence that school choice alone helps to create more equitable educational opportunities, DeVos seems determined to make Michigan a model for therest of the country.3  \nWith the very existence of our system of free, universal education hanging in the balance, there has not been muchofa frame of reference for discussing the need to make our schools more democratic. However, in our recent book, These Schools Belong to You and Me: Why We Can’t Afford to Abandon Our Public Schools, we argue that the threat facing public education is a threat to our democracy writ large. Thus, if we areto take seriously our nation’s founding ideals, schools must remain grounded in the humanistic values underlying the original purpose of a system of education that aims  \n36 AMERICAN EDUCATOR | SPRING 2018  \nto prepare all comers for competent participationin a country governed of, by, and for the people.  \n* * *  \nW. E. B. Du Bois laid claim to this original purpose in 1905 when he declared in a Niagara Movement speech:“When we call for education we mean real education   Education is the development of power and ideal. We want our children trained as intelligent human beings should be, and we will fight for all time against any proposal to educate black boys and girls simply as servants and underlings, or simply for the use of other people.”4 All societies educate a ruling class to make important decisions in their own interests, as well as for the society over which they rule. The h","cbCaidbzj9gOc4r4","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaidbzj9gOc4r4","pdf",358739,"English","# Call to strengthen democratic public education\n## Historical ideals and foundational purpose\n## Privatization, closures, and policy pressures\n## Du Bois’s critique and the promise of democratic schooling\n## Causes of segregation and inequality\n### Systemic racism and school culture\n### Free-market ideology vs democratic ideals","[{\"question\":\"Why do the authors connect public schooling to democracy?\",\"answer\":\"They argue that threats to public education are threats to democracy itself, since schools are meant to prepare all students for competent participation in a society governed by and for the people.\"},{\"question\":\"What do the authors say is happening to public schools under current reforms?\",\"answer\":\"They describe an alarming wave of public school closures and pressures for unregulated privatization through for-profit charter management and voucher programs.\"},{\"question\":\"What causes do the authors identify for persistent segregation and inequality?\",\"answer\":\"They point to systemic racism and to the tendency to merge free-market ideology with democratic ideals, which distorts how schools serve civic and democratic purposes.\"}]","To Strengthen Democracy, Invest in Our Public Schools | PDF",1792070045]