Rhetoric, Reality, and Politics: The Neoliberal Cul-de-Sac in Education

In Barbara Ferman’s collection, The Fight for America’s Schools, grassroots resistance to neoliberal education reform holds the spotlight. Her geographic lens is the Pennsylvania/New Jersey region. In this article, the geographic focus shifts to Memphis, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C. Experiences in these two cities show how the neoliberal agenda is protected in the face of disappointing results. The Memphis case centers on a state takeover driven by a market ideology. Its experience underscores that reducing local representation to an inconsequential advisory role also diminishes what education policy leaders believe they need to consider. D.C. offers a more complex narrative, one haunted by the corrupted metrics of Campbell’s Law. In both cities, the neoliberal toolbox proved unable to deliver in practice what the drawing board had promised.