The American Dream and the Public Schools

Jennifer Hochschild and Nathan Scovronick S&L 1984
Oxford University Press
New York, NY, 2003

For almost two centuries, public schools in the United States have embodied the nation’s vision of the American dream. Public education, say authors Jennifer Hochschild and Nathan Scovronick in The American Dream and the Public Schools, is at the core of America’s dominant ideology, which asserts that it is the role of government to provide all residents of the United States with the necessary tools to achieve their greatest potential, both as individuals and citizens, and then the jobs of individuals is to make their own way in society.

The development of this ambitious social enterprise, says Hochschild, a lecturer at the Kennedy School, and Scovronick of Princeton University, has been impressive. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the enrollment rate at U.S. elementary schools was roughly double that of every European country except Germany. Today the United States maintains 92,000 public schools, spending more than almost all other European nations in educating students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

But the challenges to this huge public undertaking over the years have been daunting, say the authors, who examine some of the more difficult controversies of the last 50 years, such as desegregation, finance reform, school reform, choice, inclusion, and multiculturalism. They carefully explore these issues within the framework of the dilemmas inherent in the American dream — that of providing individuals with the best possible tools to succeed while at the same time advancing the collective good.

“The deepest dilemma for public schools,” write Hochschild and Scovronick, “lie not within but between the individual and collective goals for the school.” Parents and group advocates can, for the most part, be relied upon to look out for their respective interests, they explain, but there are few whose principal goal is to protect the public good. As a result, they write, “representatives of the government have a special duty to cultivate community goals, both to preserve the ability of government to act and to keep the good of the nation as a whole from being submerged by self-interest and unfairly distributed power.”

The authors conclude by looking at the country’s rapidly changing demographics. In 2000, the Anglo population represented 70 percent of the population. By 2020, in at least 15 states, more than 40 percent of the school-age population will be non-Anglo. This demographic shift, say the authors, makes it more critical than ever for students to learn side by side. “Public education can help make the American dream work for everyone, and that will be more important than ever in our new America.”

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Keeping the Promise

Political scientist and Kennedy School Lecturer Jennifer Hochschild describes the inspiration for her new book, The American Dream and the Public Schools, co-authored with Nathan Scovronick.

“We’re a nation that subscribes to the adage, ‘Give a man a fish and he can eat it for a day. Give a man a fishing pole, he can take care of himself for a lifetime.’ The American dream says we will provide the opportunity, and individuals will provide the efforts and talent to achieve success. That’s a reasonable trade-off,” says Hochschild, also a professor of government and African American studies at Harvard, “if, in fact, we as a nation, do provide the opportunities fairly to all students. If we don’t, we’re falling down on the promise of the American dream.”

Though the book details the many ways in which America is not keeping this promise, it is not intended to be a voice of despair. “It’s meant to sound a very strong warning, which is that things are not as they should be, but they’re fixable, and here are some guidelines to do it — or at least how to think about it.”

Marginal to Mainstream
Alternative Medicine in America

Mary Ruggie
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge, England, 2004

“A social transformation is taking place in American health care,” writes Adjunct Professor Mary Ruggie. “It started as more and more people (now millions) began to spend out-of-pocket dollars (now billions) on what has come to be called complementary and alternative medicine.” Ruggie writes that as interest in alternative medicine in the United States spikes, lots of questions are being asked about the practices and therapies once considered by many to be “quackery.” For example, what exactly is alternative medicine? Why is
it so popular? Is it safe? What is its relationship to mainstream medicine? How is it changing the American health care industry? Ruggie, who teaches courses at the school on comparative health systems, says that it is these types of questions that sparked her interest in writing this book.

Lifting up the Poor
A Dialogue on Religion, Poverty, and Welfare Reform

Mary Jo Bane and Lawrence Mead
Brookings Institution Press
Washington, DC, 2003

Her experience running social service agencies, her Catholic sensibility, and policy analysis inform Professor Mary Jo Bane’s essay in this book that features a moving dialogue on poverty in the United States.

Using Catholic social teaching as her moral framework, Bane presents both an analysis of poverty and welfare in 21st century America and policy recommendations on welfare reform. She also demonstrates that religious language and concepts can enrich public policy analysis. According to Bane, Catholic social teachings focus on the equal dignity of all men and women as creatures of God, a special love and concern for the poor and oppressed members of society, and a commitment to justice.

Bane agrees with her co-discussant, Lawrence Mead, that engagement with religious tradition adds considerable value to a frank debate about poverty, policy choices, and the public purposes of religion.

No Child Left Behind
The Politics and Practice of School Accountability

Paul Peterson and Martin West, editors
Brookings Institution Press
Washington, DC, 2003

Anticipating the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act, the Kennedy School’s Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) brought together a group of scholars in 2002 for a conference to look at the issue of “accountability” in education. The result is this book, considered to be the first comprehensive scholarly assessment of the issues that cities and states are grappling with now that the act is actual law. Co-edited by Kennedy School Professor Paul Peterson, No Child Left Behind looks at the origins of the law; the politics and social forces behind making schools, teachers, and students more accountable for learning; unintended consequences; and the law’s impact on the future of education. Different scholars, including Kennedy School Lecturer Jennifer Hochschild, wrote individual chapters. Two former Kennedy School faculty members, Tom Loveless, now at the Brookings Institution, and Thomas Kane MPP 1988, PhD 1991, now at the University of California, Los Angeles, also contributed chapters.

Soft Power
The Means to Success In World Politics

Joseph S. Nye, Jr.
Perseus Books Group
Cambridge, MA, 2004

Joseph S. Nye, Jr., coined the phrase “soft power, ” the ability to influence through attraction rather than coercion, almost 15 years ago. Since then the concept of soft power has become an integral component of international relations debates. In his new book, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, Nye expands the discussion by providing new data and research and exploring the implications and limits of soft power. The United States, asserts Nye, has yet to establish the correct balance in its use of both hard and soft power. It has a clearer idea of where it is going with its hard power than with soft power, where, says the author, public diplomacy has been woefully inadequate. The United States’s neglect of allies and institutions has “created a sense of illegitimacy and has squandered our attractiveness,” writes Nye. Its success depends upon “developing a deeper understanding of the role of soft power and developing a better balance of hard and soft power in our foreign policy.”