Archival issues of the ATA Magazine can be just as relevant now as they were when originally published, or they can remind us how far we’ve come. You decide.
Check out these items from the Fall 2004 issue of the ATA Magazine, which took a look at the importance and meaning of — and threats to — a “good” public education.
"The peak of per-student spending in Alberta was reached in 1987 when in constant dollars it reached $5,229. From that year the funding has declined in real terms by $1,306. It is not surprising then that despite government's constant assertion that it is re-investing in education every year, that ‘re-investment’ has not even compensated for the effects of increasing enrolment and inflation."
— David Flower,
“Public Education as a Trojan Horse: The Alberta Case”
"The number of people who do, in fact, confuse the possession of a storehouse of knowledge with being ‘smart’—the latter being a disconcertingly common designation for those who fare well on quiz shows—is testament to the naïve appeal that such a model holds. But there are also political implications to be considered here. To emphasize the importance of absorbing a pile of information is to support a larger world view that sees the primary purpose of education as reproducing our current culture. […] defining the notion of educational mastery in terms of the number of facts one can recall is well suited to the task of preserving the status quo."
— Alfie Kohn,
“What Does It Mean to Be Well Educated?”
"Is this notion of a collectivity still valid or relevant in this age of increasing fragmentation and individualism? Is it in danger, and if so, is it still salvageable? If we can define the notion and determine that we can save it, how, then, do we nurture and strengthen the understanding that, as a society, our survival depends on being able to embrace the collectivity implied by the term public?—that in order to defend a notion of the public good, we must first identify ourselves as part of a public."
— Ricardo Acuña,
“Visions of the Public Good”
