Dewey and Democracy

From: Mike Cole (mcole@weber.ucsd.edu)
Date: Tue Dec 23 2003 - 08:56:05 PST


Dewey is almost always rewarding to read, Bill. Thanks. The only place
where I really have trouble with his ideas is in *The Public and Its Problems*
where his notion of poltical representation seems extraordinarily naive
about the role of money in politics. It been a very long time since I
have read Education and Democracy, but I assume the same issue arises there
with respect to the savage inequalities of schooling.

James Taub had a really rotten piece in the Sunday Times Mag where he
argues that the only place where increased money would help education
is in teacher salaries tied to increased teacher knowledge and expertise,
entirely overlooking the issue of infrastructure, unequal distributions
of expertise by neighborhood, etc.

Thanks for the work on the chsig. Maybe we should adopt some version
of Dewey's notions of representation there! :-)
mike



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