Customer Reviews

Official Knowledge: Democratic Education in a Conservative Age

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This book has changed the way I "read" education. For example, a recent New York Times article raised the seemingly innocuous question of what public schools were doing for their highest achievers in an age of preoccupation with raising overall proficiency. The article cited recent research by the Fordham Institute. Official Knowledge cautions its reader to question the institutions working to shape the debate on education reform, so I looked the Fordham Institute up. Sure enough, it was a conservative nonprofit think tank with an agenda: the reinstatement of large-scale tracking in public schools. Tracking has been abandoned for almost twenty years after an avalanche of research demonstrated that it encouraged de facto segregation. Connecting these dots, I returned to my reading of Official Knowledge, and of how Apple describes the political, cultural, and economic philosophies of the conservative restoration running through the veins of much education research and its conclusions. This book helps you understand the underlying motivations of en vogue education reform, and question their true goals.

Apple attempts to describe a conservative ideological alliance that is actively remaking American public education today. As an example of this, he describes how neoliberal institutions seek to reconceptualize "democracy" to mean the freedom of market-style choice. In such a model, the citizen is reformed as a consumer. Thus, reforming schools means applying the market rules to public education and allowing schools to compete for students. Unsurprisingly, this movement supports voucher and charter movements, and is obsessed with using supposedly objective standardized tests as a means of classifying and stratifying our students into "high" and "low" flyers. In this mechanistic view of school, students are parts to be fashioned for the machinery of the economy; the sooner we can separate the widgets from the lug nuts, the better. He goes on to describe how neoliberal goals align with the values of neoconservatives and authoritarian populists, as well as a new managerial class that serves to carry out the measuring and accountability such a system demands.

The book is not perfect. Apple's goal is construct a grand narrative of how American education arrived at its current state rather than linger too long in the nitty gritty of case studies. When empirical evidence is produced, he focuses on what I would consider to be sideshow targets--the history of state textbook adoption policies, or the rise of Channel 1 for example, rather than, say, examples of how Texas-approved textbooks whitewash curriculum and deskill teachers. In these cases, we're expected to take his word for it.

Nonetheless, the book is remarkable in its prescience. Despite the second edition being written at the turn of the millennium, Apple correctly forecasts the rise of standardized testing as the arbiter of students' "progress" and identifies the conservative alliance advancing an ever-encroaching accountability and market-based "choice" culture that shifts blame for students' performance from socioeconomic conditions to teachers and the students themselves. History has proven many of Apple's theories correct, and makes Official Knowledge well worth reading for anyone interested in education.

"Offical Knowledge" is an incredible book which serves many purposes in the curriculum debate. Teachers who are feeling frustrated at the burgeoning, trivial official standards being dictated by State and Federal Government mandates will take heart to know that they are not alone. Teachers are trained for years to facilitate learning in their classrooms, but official knowledge is becoming a script. The only way for a new teacher to survive is to march lock-step to the dictates of agencies which are driven by political expediency. The capitalist masses (mob) are not interested in providing a relevant education to all children regardless of race, creed, national origin or socio-economic status. Unfortunately, this capitalist way thinking is so entrenched in U.S. society, and the symbolic solutions which Apple offers will never be adopted by the mob.

In the same school as dewey, ira shor and others thinkers who have been able to clearly describe the connections between democracy, access to schooling and the curriculum. A must read for anyone who thinks we have the right to question both the policies and the content of schooling!

After reading this book, I would have to say Michael Apple did a wonderful job using examples to describe how modern public schools in the United States are flawed. He also did a good job introducing ideas, which might have been alien to many people, regarding elements of public education in America. However, it seems he spends too much time on the tautology of blaming Republicans for the misfortunes and pratfalls of present pedagogy. One must remember that Democrats and Republicans are both cut from the same cloth. In addition, if Apple wants to scream bloody murder about how many blemishes that Republicans have caused public education, he needs to remember that Democrats really have not made it any better. The "No Child Left Behind" act is something that both the left and the right support, and after working in public education for over a year, I can tell you this act really does not work.

Apple does explain notions of Channel One and product placement in public schools, which then dictates curriculum. He also goes into detail about how the media influences education and contemporary society. Nevertheless, he spends more time pointing fingers and telling you what is wrong. However, he never expresses any lucid or tangible means to ameliorate this quagmire facing our youth and public education.

There is a fine line between making a wonderful argument and whining like a baby. Apple does a great job performing the latter. Mind you, Republicans are not perfect politicians by any stretch of the imagination. Just look at some of the things that have happened over the past few years. Yet, Apple's diatribe seems more like whimpering, instead of fighting back, or addressing a solution to all the things, he is complaining about. Overall, this is an interesting read, but Apple is nowhere near the philosophical icon of John Dewey.