There are alternative perspectives to the human capital view of education according to the passage: - The Green Party perspective values education's role in cultivating artistic expression, wisdom about nature, and exposure to diverse cultures rather than focusing on standardized testing and viewing students as future consumers. It challenges tying education's worth solely to economic growth and material consumption. - The Green Party sees education as developing more than just job skills but also non-material aspects of quality of life like community well-being. This presents an alternative to strictly measuring education's value based on income and consumption. So in summary, the Green Party perspective outlined in the passage provides an alternative ideological framework that does not define education's purpose as fueling economic growth or preparing students

1. Chapter 5: Politicians
and Educational
Ideologies Ashley Foster
Niurka Garcia
Yanela Iribar
Ashley Hoist

2. Ideologies of Republicans and Democrats
Democrats
● Protect pluralism and
multicultural values
● Believe that the government
has a positive role to play in
ensuring equality of
opportunity.
● Believe that poverty is the
result of social conditions that
impede equality of opportunity
and that government
programs help eliminate
poverty.
● Protect the secular nature of
the American government.
Republicans
● Protect traditional American
values
● Protect religious faith and
values
● Consider poverty to be the
result of poor character and
that every American has the
chance to be financially
successful through hard work
● Protect the free market and
rely on the “invisible hand” of
the market.

3. Cultural Conservatism and American
Exceptionalism.
Central to conservative cultural
values is a belief in what is called
American “exceptionalism” which
means that the history of the
United States has been guided by
a Christian God and that the
country’s superior set of
Republican values should be
spread around the world.

4. Politics determine which interpretation
of History should or should not be
taught in schools. They do not worry
about what interpretation is correct.
Both historical interpretations can
create an image of American life in
students’ minds.
Through education we ensure
culture, a set of values and
citizenship in a free society.
Conservative support for teaching
exceptionalism continued to the
2008 unsuccessful campaign of
John Mccain. The “culture wars”
over the U.S. history was one that
highlights the negative aspects of
the drive to create state and
national curriculum standards.

5. Liberal Cultural Values and Multiculturalism
https://youtu.be/Lu-O8isLOd8● Liberal refers to support for particular cultural
values an economic vision that includes
government regulation of the economy.
● Liberals accept the capital paradigm for
education.
● In the 1960’s Liberal Democrats supported
protection of minority language for Native
Americans, Mexican Americans, and Puerto
Ricans.
● In 1968, the Bilingual Education Act passed on
promising Native Americans, Mexicans, and
Puerto Ricans that their cultures and languages
would be preserved by public schools

6. Liberal Cultural Values and Multiculturalism
Cont.● Liberals supported bilingual and cultural education en conservative Republicans argued that
Bilingual education might somehow be against American traditions.
● Cultural conservatives support the idea of American exceptionalism, liberals project an image of
patriotism bounded by communitarianism and mutual responsibility.
● Liberals link patriotism to religious and secular values.
● Cultural conservatives and Liberals agree that equality of opportunity and social mobility are both
part of the traditional American culture.

7. Cultural Conservatives, Moral instruction,
and Evolution
Conservatives: those holding conservative cultural values and a belief that the free market
is the best economic system.
Religious-oriented conservatives believe:
● Any attack on the role of religion in government is an attack on the very foundation
of American life.
● Conducting school prayer and teaching abstinence sex education.

8. Three important U.S. Supreme court decisions galvanized
some religious groups into political action.
1. Engel v. Vitale: denied the official use of prayer in
public schools.
2. Abington School district v. Schempp: (Pennsylvania law)
permitted the reading of ten verses from the Bible at the
opening of each public school day.
3. Roe v. Wade,: legalizing abortion
As a result, Christians viewed public schools as an enemy of
Christianity and send their children to private Christian
Academies.

9. Cultural Liberals and Moral Values
Cultural Liberals have a secular view towards schools. They believe schools should :
● Teach about birth control
● women’s right to an abortion
● gay marriage

10. Free Markets and School Choice
Free Market: Parents can chose to send students to private, religious, public, charter and
for-profit schools.
Quick Facts:
● The free market will create competition.
● Competition “will improve schools and teaching by causing failing schools to close and the best schools
to survive and influence other schools” (Spring, p.132).
● In a free market prices or social values are determined by individual choice.
● Conservatives prefer Hayek’s concept of the free market.
● Schools operating for a profit will be more attuned to balancing cost with quality school instruction and
appeal to parents.
● An education institution that is for-profit, will want to market their product (school) the best way they
can.
● Conservatives believe that the ‘invisible hand of the marketplace” will ensure the “best” schools will
win the competition (Spring, p.134).

11. Liberals and Regulated Markets
● Liberals support public education and
resist efforts to publicly fund private and
religious schools.
● Any support liberals have expressed for
choice has been limited to choice between
public schools and not choice between
public, religious, or private schools.
● Liberals do not support the free market
ideology and believe that the free market
cannot exist without government
intervention.
● In the 1990’s liberals accepted
competition in government services as
part of “reinventing the government.”
● In this case government services could be
improved if competition were introduced
such as that between public schools and
public charter schools.
● In the twenty-first century, liberal
democrats continue to campaign for
public school choice and public charter
school choice while condemning the idea
of giving money to private and religious
schools.

12. Cultural Conservatives: Poverty is a Matter of
Character in a Free Market
● What you need to know:
○ Both Democrats and Republicans link poverty to schooling and economic opportunity. Both
support equality of opportunity to compete for jobs and wealth. However there are sharp
differences between cultural liberals and conservatives about the causes of poverty and how
schooling contributes to equality of opportunity.
○ Many conservatives believe that the free market system gives everyone an equal opportunity
to escape from poverty. In this model, poverty is not a result of growing up in poor economic
and social conditions but is the result of the failure of the individual to take advantage of the
economic opportunities.

13. Cultural Conservatives: Poverty is a Matter of
Character in a Free Market continued.
● What you need to know:
○ Myron Magnet argues that American values declined with the 1960’s cultural revolution. This
overturned traditional American values that supported the idea that hard work and family
values were the basis of success and good living.
○ Sexual revolution increased divorce, illegitimacy, and female-lead families. The 1960’s
counterculture also rejected the idea of equality of opportunity being based on hard work.
○ These conservative arguments stress that the liberal failure to end poverty is because of a
reliance on changing the economic system rather than changing the values of the poor.
○ For conservatives character education is important in schools for preparing students for
success.

14. Cultural Liberals: Poverty and Equal Educational Opportunity.
● Liberals put more emphasis on providing equality of educational opportunity
through government-financed programs.
● Believe that public education is necessary to ensure equal opportunity to
compete in the economic system.
● Public education will only be successful if all students receive an equal
education.
● In 2008 the Democratic party identified education as a remedy to poverty.

15. “How can a country like this allow it?”
Addressing a group of students Bobby Kennedy
discusses humanity and how we need change
to continue moving forward.
“We will provide all of our children a world class
education, from early childhood through
college”
● Since these remarks, liberals pushed an
agenda of preschool and compensatory
education as the remedy for social and
economic conditions of poverty
● It left children poorly prepared to do
schoolwork

16. 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act
● Contained funding for compensatory
education programs designed to help
students who were labeled “culturally
disadvantaged”.
● The emphasis on compensatory
education was dropped when Title 1 was
reauthorized as No Child Left Behind
● This created state-mandated curriculum
and standards and tests, and closed or
restructured failing schools.

17. Liberal
● 21st century liberals define equality of education as opportunity as all
students, including rich and poor, being taught the same curriculum and
being assessed by the same tests
● Goal of equality achieved by reducing the achievement gap between the
dominant and minority cultures and the rich and the poor.
● Preschool is also a liberal remedy for poverty
● Lyndon B. Johnson started the Head Start program for children from low
income families

18. The Audacity of Hope
● Barack Obama supported universal preschool
because it would have the highest impact on reducing
the “achievement gap”
● Economist James J. Heckman found that children are
more likely to score higher in math and reading,
graduate from high school and attend college, more
likely to hold a job and earn more in that job.
● In summary, the liberal education antidote for poverty
is equality to exposure of all students to the same
curriculum standards and assessments and preschool
education.

19. Conclusion: Human Capital and Alternative Ideologies
● Both culturally liberal and conservative Democrats and Republicans espouse
the goals of human capital, with variations in their educational platforms
reflecting their differing cultural values.
● Green party challenge that economic growth is based on acquiring material
goods.
● “The green party strongly believes that the quality of life is determined not
only by material aspects that can be measured and counted but also by
elements that cannot be quantified. We believe that artistic expression and a
thriving structure of art institutions are key to community well being.

20. Green Party cont.
● We should introduce children to the wonders of Nature, and cultivate the
wisdom of eco-education, eco-economics, eco-politics, and eco-culture.
● Protect children from the “corrosive” effects of mass culture that trains them
to regard themselves first and foremost as consumers.
● Greens support educational diversity
○ Diverse curricula
○ Exposure to arts of various various cultures and stylistic traditions
○ Experience

21. An attack
● Green Party reference to children being trained as consumers is an indirect
attack on the human capital model.
● The human capital model values a mass consumption society where
economic growth is spurred on by the desire of citizens to purchase more and
more products
● Success in a mass consumption society is measured by the material good
that can be purchased from earned income.
● The better the pay, the more goods a person can consume.
● Value of education is placed on personal income and consumption.

22. Cont.
● The anti-materialist and environmental ideology of the
green party offers a vision of education that does not
focus on standardized curriculum and tests, or on
measuring the worth of teachers or on measuring the
worth of teachers, principals, and students according to
test results.

23. Question:
Is there any alternative to the set of
ideas that see the value of education in
its contribution to economic growth
and preparation for work in a global
economy?