B&B: Commodification of higher education | Against human capital | Shareholder Value kills innovation | History of consumer credit | Crowdfunding is about community | Austerity leads to polarisation – Economic Sociology & Political Economy

What you discuss filters down through the whole education system!

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

The neoconservative global system has failed our children and the true purpose of education. Our society reaps what it sows! We set them up to fail, we give them little to no purpose, we reward an elite few, we continually blame the victims.

We embrace Free market ideology, the abandonment, and alienation of working people in our country,“every man for himself” and then we want people to cooperate. As larger and larger segments of society are forced because of declining economies to become outsiders, the use of coercion, under our current model, will probably become more widespread.

Neoliberalism is one of the greatest threats to the future of progressive education, it is data-driven it works against the development of a student’s ability to think critically, thereby undermining the formative culture and values necessary for a democratic society. If we keep looking at educational policy and practice through the lens of market-based values, there is little hope that progressive education, with its aim of educating students for critical citizenship and social and economic justice, will survive.

Education is not only about knowledge. It is about inspiration. It is about passion. It is about the belief that what we do in life matters. It is about moral choice. It is about taking nothing for granted. It is about challenging assumptions and suppositions. It is about truth and justice. It is about learning how to think. It is about, as
James Baldwin wrote, the ability to drive “to the heart of every matter and expose the question the answer hides.” And, as Baldwin further noted, it is about making the world “a more human dwelling place.”