[Marxism] good essay on education

[Louis Proyect]

On 7/10/11 11:52 AM, mckenna193 at aol.com wrote:
> As Gramsci noted, we have to make these fights count. As a gracious
> editor, John Bellamy Foster should invite Henry to write a piece for
> Monthly Review.
>

Good luck with that. Foster is about as gracious as a scorpion.

More to the point, MR has never really covered education in any kind of 
depth so it is a good thing that this issue appeared. (There is an MR 
book on the problem of adjunct professors, but that is a bit different 
from the big debate about public school "reform").

Yes, Giroux might have been slighted but I am sure he will get over 
that. Most tenured professors have pretty thick skins. It goes with the 
territory. Furthermore, I doubt that Foster has really delved into this 
literature in any kind of depth even though his article is excellent. 
(And that takes into account his wife's struggle as a teacher.)

Foster is rather good at bracketing out literature that is not of 
immediate relevance to his scholarly pursuits. I would bet $100 that he 
has never read a book on Iran in his life based on his foolish decision 
not to publish an important article by a radical critic of the Islamic 
Republic in the magazine. (My guess is that if it had been submitted to 
MRZine, it would have been burned).

For all I know, Foster might answer "respected restaurant critic" when 
queried "Who is Henry Giroux".

I should add that this field generates a puzzling amount of acrimony. I 
am not sure if Peter McClaren is still subbed to Marxmail but he is 
about as respected an authority as Giroux who he has collaborated with 
in the past.

I know for a fact that McClaren views Bill Ayers, one of the 
contributors to the issue, as a real jerk for having written a hostile 
review of one of his books. I am not familiar with the controversy but I 
think Ayers is a jerk from the get-go.

http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/04/18/who-is-bill-ayers/