About

Our country’s education system challenges a national sense of community. This episode explores what happens when we limit our obligations to those in our immediate neighborhood and shrink our social contract to a local level. We hear from Marta Tienda, a professor of sociology at Princeton University; James Blacksher, a civil rights attorney from Birmingham, Alabama; Jon East, a Vice President at Step Up for Students, a non-profit that administers Florida's school voucher programs; Tressie McMillan Cottom, an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of Lower Ed; and Wick Sloane, an adjunct professor at Bunker Hill Community College and columnist for Inside Higher Ed.For additional information on the issues we briefly examine, we recommend the following resources:Marta Tienda, Thirteenth Annual Brown Lecture in Education Research: Public Education and the Social Contract: Restoring the Promise in an Age of Diversity and Division, 46 Educ. Res. 271 (2017).I.L v. Alabama, 739 F.3d 1273 (11th Cir. 2014).Beth Kassab, Step Up for Students takes lead on school vouchers, Orlando Sentinel (Dec. 22, 2017) http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/education/school-zone/os-florida-vouchers-step-up-for-students-20171203-story.html.Tressie McMillan Cottom, Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy (The New Press 2017).Wick Sloane, Veterans at Selective Colleges, 2017, Inside Higher Ed (Nov. 10, 2017) https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2017/11/10/wick-sloanes-slightly-depressing-annual-survey-veterans-elite-colleges-opinion.This episode was produced by Mareva Lindo.Thanks to Doctor Turtle for the music:"Lullaby for Democracy" (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Doctor_Turtle/The_Double-Down_Two-Step/lullaby_for_democracy)"Go Tell It On the Molehill" (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Doctor_Turtle/Flush_Your_Rolex_1416/go_tell_it_on_the_molehill_2)