When Schools Become Dead Zones of the Imagination: A Critical Pedagogy Manifesto

This article examines the so-called new school reform movement led by a host of right-wing ideologues, billionaires, and foundations. It argues that instead of being reformers, the latter are part of a counter-revolution in American education to dismantle public schools not because they are failing but because they are public and make a claim, however deficient, to serve the public good. Not only have these non-reformers pushed for classroom practices that are utterly instrumental and reductionistic, they have turned American public schools into disimagination machines divorced from any viable notion of democratic governance and values. They kill the imagination of teachers and students by confusing education with training and teaching with mind-numbing instrumental practices. In opposition to these non-reforms, the article argues for schools as democratic public spheres and develops a theoretical architecture for developing elements of a critical pedagogy that offer a direct challenge to the notion of schools as dead zones engaged in mostly training and testing students.