Race and Democracy in Urban Education Policy

This course will provide a broad introduction to contemporary education policy centered on issues of race/ethnicity and ideas of democracy. Students will begin by engaging theories of democracy and theories of race. The course will then transition to analyzing major education policy debates such as: school desegregation, school finance, teacher evaluation, curriculum development standards, accountability, educator policies (collective bargaining, certification), special education, and the current policy landscape. The course will include final group projects where students apply the theoretical concepts to strategies for school reform, with the neighboring school districts as cases.