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NEW FRONTIERS IN EDUCATION, CULTURE, AND POLITICS
NEOLIBERAL
EDUCATION AND
THE REDEFINITION
OF DEMOCRATIC
PRACTICE IN
CHICAGO
KENDALL A. TAYLOR
New Frontiers in Education, Culture, and Politics
Series Editor
Kenneth J. Saltman
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
North Dartmouth, MA, USA
New Frontiers in Education, Culture, and Politics focuses on both topi-
cal educational issues and highly original works of educational policy and
theory that are critical, publicly engaged, and interdisciplinary, drawing
on contemporary philosophy and social theory. The books in the series
aim to push the bounds of academic and public educational discourse
while remaining largely accessible to an educated reading public. New
Frontiers aims to contribute to thinking beyond the increasingly unified
view of public education for narrow economic ends (economic mobil-
ity for the individual and global economic competition for the society)
and in terms of efficacious delivery of education as akin to a consuma-
ble commodity. Books in the series provide both innovative and original
criticism and offer visions for imagining educational theory, policy, and
practice for radically different, egalitarian, and just social transformation.
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14741
Kendall A. Taylor
Neoliberal Education
and the Redefinition
of Democratic Practice
in Chicago
Kendall A. Taylor
Hubert Humphrey Elementary School
Albuquerque, NM, USA
New Frontiers in Education, Culture, and Politics

ISBN 978-3-319-98949-5 ISBN 978-3-319-98950-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98950-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018952638
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

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Acknowledgements
This book owes a great deal to the support and generosity of many peo-
ple. I want to start by thanking Pauline Lipman. She has served as a con-
stant source of inspiration and encouragement throughout my education.
Her insights into academic and intellectual activism have been invalua-
ble and the support provided during her supervision of my Ph.D. cannot
be overstated. Ken Saltman also deserves my gratitude. He has been a
constant source of encouragement throughout this process and has pro-
vided me with sage advice. This project has been influenced greatly by
my discussions and interactions with many scholars. I would like to thank
Steve Tozer, Kevin Kumashiro, Michael Dumas, Alex Means, Rhoda Rae
Guiterrez, Diane Ui Thonnaigh, Bryan Hoekstra, Josh Shepard, and
Aisha El-Amin. Special thanks are also due to my parents and my in-laws
who have provided emotional support throughout the process. My son,
Oliver, was instrumental in ensuring that I did not take myself too seri-
ously by reminding me constantly of what is important in life. Last, but
most importantly, I want to thank my wife, Erika Robers. Her wisdom,
intelligence, patience, and encouragement have been instrumental and
her love and friendship mean everything.
v
Contents
1 Democracy and the Doubling-Down of Neoliberal

Reform Failure 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 The Failure of Neoliberal Education Reform 3
1.3 The Rise of Bizzaro Democracy 7
1.4 Neoliberal Rationality 12
1.5 Methodology 14
1.6 Book Preview 18
Bibliography 21
2 Shifting Rationalities and Multiple Democracies:

The New Meanings of Neoliberal Democracy 27
2.1 Introduction 27
2.2 Parsing Democracy 29
2.3 Shifting Rationalities, Shifting Democracies 31
2.4 Closing Down Schools, Closing Down Democracy 35
2.5 The Future of Democratic Education 41
Bibliography 43
3 Differential Citizenship in Neoliberal Chicago: School

Reform and the Production of Antidemocratic Space 47
3.1 Introduction 47
3.2 Defining Neoliberal Citizenship 51
vii
viii Contents
3.3 Urban Spatiality and Neoliberal Citizenship in Chicago 54

3.4 School Reform as a Million Tiny Cuts 59
Bibliography 64
4 A Strike by Any Other Name…: Democratic Education

and the Language of Hegemony 69
4.1 Introduction 69
4.2 Critical Discourse Analysis and Strike as Discourse 73
4.3 The Discourses of the Strike 75
4.4 Floating Signifiers and the Language of Hegemony 81
4.5 Bilingual Hegemony 84
Bibliography 86
5 The Dissolution of Trust: Coercion and Chicago’s

Integral State 89
5.1 Introduction 89
5.2 Coercion and the Integral State 94
5.3 Chicago’s Integral State 97
5.4 The Dissolution of Trust and Coercion’s Feedback Loop 99
5.5 Coercion’s Vulnerability and the Way Forward 102
Bibliography 104
6 The Antidemocratic Dialectic: Democratic Practices

Within Antagonistic Space and the Never-Ending Way
Forward 107
6.1 Introduction 107
6.2 Democracy as Technology of Control and Consent 112
6.3 Democracy, the Public, and Path Dependency 114
6.4 The Chicago Public Sphere and Demands on Education 118
6.5 Democratic Action and the Never-Ending Way Forward 123
Bibliography 127
7 Coda: DeVos and the Future of Neoliberal Education

Reform and Resistance in Chicago 131
7.1 Introduction 131
7.2 The Show Must Go On-The Continuation of Neoliberal
Reform in Chicago 133
Contents ix
7.3 The Emancipatory Rhetoric of DeVos 140

7.4 The Metaphysics of School Reform 144
7.5 The Very Short Road from Tragedy to Farce 151
7.6 Reclaiming the Concept-Education Reform
and Democracy 153
Bibliography 160
Index 165
CHAPTER 1
Democracy and the Doubling-Down

of Neoliberal Reform Failure
1.1 Introduction
In 2012, the movie “Won’t Back Down” arrived in theaters. It told the
story of a Pittsburg working-class mother, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal,
willing to buck the leviathan of the public school system to ensure a bet-
ter education for her children. She teams up with the only teacher at her
children’s school, played by Viola Davis, willing to give up her cushy
union protection and do what is right for the community and its stu-
dents. Together they wage a grassroots fight against intractable unions,
uncaring administration, and lazy teachers to take advantage of a “par-
ent trigger” law. In the end, they encourage the community to vote for
a charter organization to run their school and, hopefully, improve the
educational opportunity for everyone in the school. Of course, the pro-
tagonists are successful in their endeavor and the movie ends with a shot
of the school halls, bathed in sunlight and adorned with student artwork.
The filmmaker and its actors presented the movie as a classic David
and Goliath story. Daniel Barnz, the film’s director, claimed “The movie
is about how parents come together with teachers to transform a school
for the sake of the kids” (Sperling 2012). In a likewise fashion, Maggie
Gyllenhaal focuses on the growth of her character from a single mother,
alone and afraid, into a political activist. She states, “Jamie [her character
in the film] begins really not thinking of herself as a political person at
© The Author(s) 2018 1

K. A. Taylor, Neoliberal Education and the Redefinition
of Democratic Practice in Chicago, New Frontiers
in Education, Culture, and Politics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98950-1_1
2 K. A. TAYLOR
all. Or a hero or an activist. Her actions are just based on her own need
and her daughter’s need. That’s what’s particularly heroic about her. It’s
not even about herself; it’s about her daughter. She gets activated and
politicized and becomes… a hero” (Gensler 2012). The focus of the
movie, say those involved, is on parents doing their best for their chil-
dren against all odds. It is not about school reform in general; rather it is
about a particular situation in which parents and teachers come together
to do what is right for a particular group of students. It is meant to be an
uplifting story premised on a small-scale vision of social justice and the
democratic principles of inclusion and empowerment.
Signed into law in 2010, the parent trigger laws allow for a parent
vote to alter the governance of a public school. Under the law, parents
can vote to replace the staff and principal, close the school completely, or
bring in a charter operator to manage the school (National Conference
of State Legislatures). Although similar laws are on the books in seven
states, only California parents have implemented the law to date. In
each case, Parent Revolution, an organization started by Ben Austin,
a former operative in the Democratic Party who served in the Clinton
Administration, was instrumental in facilitating the law’s implementa-
tion. The organization sees the parent trigger law as a means toward the
empowerment and democratization of public education. According to
their mission statement, Parent Revolution works “to empower parents
striving to improve their children’s organization” (Parent Revolution).
They see themselves, then, as a social justice proponent, striving to
release the stranglehold on education and return it to the rightful hands
of parents and community.
The reality of the parent trigger laws, however, is quite different. The
first school to implement the parent trigger was Desert Trails Elementary
School in Adelanto California during the 2012–2013 school year.1 Its
experience is instructive. The law is framed around a voting mechanism.
A petition was sent around Desert Trails seeking support to implement
the trigger law. In a school of 600 students, 286 parents signed the peti-
tion which met the simple majority required. The next step was a vote
between the governance options. However, only parents who signed the
petition were allowed to vote, immediately disenfranchising a large por-
tion of parents. Disagreement and disillusionment with the process led
many parents to ask for their petition signature to be removed. Parent
Revolution took the issue to court, which decided that petition signa-
tures are the same as a vote and cannot be rescinded (Watanabe 2012).
1 DEMOCRACY AND THE DOUBLING-DOWN OF NEOLIBERAL REFORM FAILURE 3
After the discord which led to parents leaving or abstaining from the
process, only 180 of the parents who signed the petition could be cer-
tified to vote and of those only 53 voted for a charter organization to
take over the school. Although it is too early to determine if opening
as a charter improved student education, the disruption to the commu-
nity is evident. Chrissy Guzman, a parent at Desert Trails and president
of Desert Trails Parent Teacher Association, reported that “the parent
trigger process has left deep wounds in the Desert Trails community”
and that “no one talks to each other now, no one wants to be associated
with each other” (Ravitch 2013). She recalled strong-arm tactics, intru-
sive advertising and organizing by proponents of the law, and confusion
surrounding the process. Similar complaints were numerous enough that
the Los Angeles School Board is considering a proposal to seek and dis-
seminate more information on the law for parents and community mem-
bers so that these problems will not be repeated in the future (Watanabe
2013). In the end, the parent trigger law was implemented and a charter
organization did take over the school, but the consequences of doing so
were dire, destroying the parent solidarity which existed at the school. In
short, the only winner was the charter organization whereas the school
culture and parent community were the losers.2
1.2 The Failure of Neoliberal Education Reform

In the case of Desert Trails, the promise of increased parent control and
involvement led directly to the dissolution of the parent community.
This contradiction between the promises of neoliberal education reform
and the outcomes are not isolated to this school, but rather form an
overarching storyline within education reform over the last two decades.3
These reforms are exemplified by punitive accountability measures based
on ever-increasing amounts of testing, merit-pay schemes and evaluation
rubrics designed to increase competition between and within schools, a
drive toward privatization based on school closings and ever more leni-
ent charter school laws and the inclusion of greater numbers of charter
school operators, shifts in governance as the business community and
philanthropic organizations are sought for public/private ventures, the
replacement of publicly elected boards of education by either city admin-
istration or business interests, and concerted union-busting measures
designed to reduce resistance. Reforms based on neoliberal logic seek to
redefine both the purpose and provision of education through a focus
4 K. A. TAYLOR
on structural rather than pedagogic issues. In short, they reposition the

historical goals of education under a single economic rubric and, at the
same time, facilitate a shift from government to governance in the school
system (Ball 1994; Lipman 2011).
These reforms operate within a strikingly a-historical framework
which ignores past failures and the lessons which these failures might
teach.4 This a-historicity presents itself in two ways. First, proponents
of neoliberalism ignore the dismal track record of reform, continually
doubling-down on the same reform calculus. Take school closings for
example. School closings involve the loss of institutional knowledge as
well as sites of community identity and solidarity. In addition, for stu-
dents, hard-won relationships with teachers, administrators, staff, and
other students are disrupted as students are displaced to other institu-
tions of learning. Even so, the policy of closing failing schools is grow-
ing. Cities across the nation are using the policy in ever greater numbers
and consulting firms specializing in closings schools now shop their ser-
vices to districts across the country (see, for example, Boston Consulting
Group). Or look at the accountability craze. While accountability itself is
a noble goal, coupling accountability with a fanatical focus on testing has
done nothing but make schools who were already struggling ever more
vulnerable. Faced with punitive mandates for testing failure, schools
and districts have truncated the curriculum to focus on tested subjects
to the detriment of science, social studies, art, music, and language
courses (David 2011). The net result is that a multitude of students are
provided with an education which is both limited and of limited value
(Saltman 2012). Yet, school districts and the federal government are
continuing to subject students to more and more tests, all in the name
of accountability. Yet another example is the creation of charter schools.
Although research has shown that charter schools offer no statistically
significant benefit over public schools in terms of education achievement
(Cremeta et al. 2013), charter schools continue to be a popular avenue
toward reform. Charter schools do not significantly alter the ‘grammar
of schooling’ for their students and faculty but when they do, it tends
to be focused on discipline, playing on the worst stereotypes of youth in
need of control and containment, leading to much higher suspensions,
expulsions, dropouts, and ‘pushouts’ (Ahmed-Ullah and Richards 2014).
Beyond individual schools, partnerships with Educational Management
Organizations (EMOs), the corporate arms of the charter movement
which oversee large numbers of schools, have proved disastrous for
school districts (Saltman 2005). Still, however, school districts and leg-
islatures across the country push for and accept new charter applications
and relationships with EMOs, as if this time it will be different. This list
is by no means exhaustive. Public/private partnerships, shifts in govern-
ance, the inclusion of philanthropy in policy decisions (Lipman 2011)
and rabid antiunionism (Compton and Weiner 2008) all follow the same
pattern of failing as reform policies and still holding on to their cache as
viable options for districts.
Second, in addition to ignoring its own track record, neoliberalism
operates as if in a vacuum, ignoring the historical residue of past poli-
cies which have led to the very problems neoliberal proponents seek to
solve. School failure has a very specific history in the US which is tied
directly to previous policy choices. The system of education in the US
is a conservative one. Historically education has been positioned stra-
tegically, allowing for the continuation of whichever set of social rela-
tions was existent at the time. Put more accurately, the education system
has historically served systems of both patriarchy and white supremacy.
Jefferson proposed an education system designed to both search out the
best qualified (that is the best qualified among white land-owning men)
to run the country while providing just enough learning for the citizenry
to make reasonable choices in their leaders (Spring 2010a). The com-
mon school movement positioned education as a binding agent based
on cultural acculturation, thus seeking to smooth over the discordance
of increased immigration (Spring 2010a). Education was denied those
held in slavery and used as an acculturation tool to control the native
populations (Spring 2010a, b). The administrative progressive move-
ment sought to solidify the control over school districts and curriculum
through centralization, reliance on “expert” knowledge, and bureau-
cracy (Tyack 1974). Vocational education sutured the education system
to the needs of the economy (Labaree 1997), and neoliberal education
introduces competition, hyper-individualism, and punitive measures to
ensure that educators, parents, and students alike behave in an acceptable
manner (Dean 2010). In each case, the schools adjusted their curricu-
lar offerings and provision structure in an effort to support the condi-
tions of production, both socially and economically. Of course, these
conditions of production were (and remain) dependent on a differential
treatment of minority populations. This means that the populations who
were excluded from society at a given time, such as African Americans,
women, Native populations, and immigrants, were also excluded from
6 K. A. TAYLOR
schooling. The inevitable effect of this exclusion is populations with less

education, leading directly to less economic power and wealth accumu-
lation, which in turn leads to educational struggles for students; in other
words, they suffer from the effects of an education debt (Ladson-Billings
2006), the effects of which are felt across the national school system.
National and district level education provision is not the only residue
which neoliberal policy ignores. Social, economic, development, hous-
ing, and transportation policies also have a profound effect on education
as well and need to be taken into account when understanding the ways
in which schools struggle. These “policy ensembles”, groups of policies
which, while not necessarily focused on the same thing, influence a par-
ticular area from several different directions simultaneously, have severely
delimited educational options and achievements for large populations.
Redlining policies which excluded minorities from attaining housing, the
loss of jobs in core urban areas, transportation policy focused on highway
and road construction rather than public transportation, the suburban-
ization of urban areas, and the disinvestment of inner-city spaces have
all led to communities, mostly of color, being isolated in impoverished
neighborhoods with few economic prospects (Anyon 2005; Schnieder
2008). Research has shown that socioeconomic status plays a large role
in educational attainment (Anyon 2005) and these policies have served
to ensure that those left in urban spaces have both not shared in previous
economic gains and that they have suffered the most in the recent reces-
sion. More recently, neoliberal influenced policies have wreaked their
own havoc; the same rubric of accountability, competition, privatization,
and public/private partnerships found in education is implemented in
policy arenas as diverse as housing, transportation, social services, and
health provision. As public and assisted housing falls prey to the mar-
ket, as mental health and clinic services are closed due to profitability or
privatization, as transportation policy focused on downtown and busi-
ness areas of the city, and as gentrification spurred by competition for
highly-skilled workers and corporate headquarters raises property value
and tax rates, these same communities which have suffered for decades
are once again being displaced and excluded (Smith 1996, 2002). What
we are left with in many urban areas are “dual cities” (Lipman 2004),
with one space for the wealthy and educated, and another space for the
impoverished and mis/undereducated.
Education policy, and the ensembles of which they form a part, cre-
ate conditions in which schools will likely fail. It is into these spaces
of disinvestment (economic, social, and cultural) that neoliberal reform

efforts are focused. In fact, while it is accurate to say that neoliberal
policies ignore the residue of the past, it may be more accurate to say
that these policies seek out spaces of disinvestment as targets of their
a-historical policies. Saltman, in reference to neoliberal economic pol-
icy, has called this process of seeking out spaces weakened by previous
policy ensembles as targets of neoliberal policy “disaster capitalism”
(Saltman 2007; Klein 2008). Crisis makes for fertile ground indeed.
The same can be said of education reform in the US. Policies target
particular areas, almost exclusively impoverished communities of color,
who have taken the brunt of previous policy ensembles. Charter schools
are predominately focused on the education of minority students.
Accountability measures fall most harshly on schools which have strug-
gled in the past. Philanthropic organizations, as well as public/private
partnerships, seek to strengthen the tenuous connections in historically
excluded and disinvested communities. Part of the productive power of
disaster capitalism is the ability of these groups to leverage the very real
failures of the Keynesian Welfare State to ameliorate the disparate and
damaging outcomes of racial and economic division. Minority and poor
communities rightly understand their educational options as being lim-
ited and inequitable. As such, the neoliberal education policies make a
certain amount of sense for these communities, a fact which provides
them with a certain amount of desperate legitimacy (see Dumas 2013).
At the same time, as seen above, these policies tend to cement the
social problems in place rather than ameliorate them. In other words,
“disaster education” forms a feedback loop of sorts in which commu-
nities, already weakened by decades of poor policy, are subjected to
reforms which do nothing to alleviate conditions but rather cement
social conditions in place. These policies exacerbate the problems they
seek to solve.
1.3 The Rise of Bizzaro Democracy

Interestingly, and tellingly, reformers come to these spaces of exclusion
with promises of empowerment, of emancipation, and of democratic ide-
als and social justice. They use the language of democracy, with all its
connotations of righting wrongs and building solidarity, to legitimate
their efforts and ultimately their promises of inclusion and exclusion.
8 K. A. TAYLOR
Arne Duncan, in his role as both CEO of Chicago Public Schools (CPS)
and as Secretary of Education, is fairly indicative of this.
On May 29, 2009, he gave a speech to the National Press Club out-
lining the new president’s educational agenda. It was not an important
speech, simply one of the many “get out the message” speeches that
Cabinet members are called on to give whenever the Administration
changes hands. In the speech, Duncan outlined several problems with
our educational system and outlined possible policy solutions. He argued
that educational standards have been dumbed down and called for a
“common, career-ready internationally benchmarked standard”. He said
that “good ideas are always going to come from great educators in local
communities… We want to continue to empower them”. Later in the
speech, speaking again about the poor standards our schools uphold, he
asserted that “we have to stop lying to children. We have to tell them
the truth” that the education they have been receiving to date is inade-
quate to their needs”. “We need”, he suggested, “a dramatic overhaul.
We need to fundamentally turn those schools around” (Duncan 2009b).
The speech is more interesting for what it does not say than what it
does. First, there is an inherent logical contradiction between the call
for a centralized curriculum focused on the needs of the economy and
recognition of local control of the schools and curriculum planning.
Historically, national (or state) goals have not paralleled localized com-
munity concerns about education. Omitting recognition of this diver-
gence relegates local expertise to technical support while intimating
support of the national education plan by local school communities and
educators. Second, the language of respectful honesty connotes a con-
cern for students and their needs, dreams, and desires while once again
suffering from an act of omission. Suggestions of honesty regarding
the disinvestment of urban schools, inequitable funding mechanisms of
the deleterious effects of testing schemes are noticeably absent. Lastly,
Duncan suggests a dramatic turnaround of schools (clearly a reference
to neoliberal reform policies discussed above) without any mention of
whose schools are to be turned around, what this entails, or the already
known negative outcomes of the policies he supports. These omissions
all serve to paint the national education plan with a patina of democratic
legitimacy, calling to mind social justice movements throughout history
with their concern for community input and student needs.
In another speech given at the University of Virginia in 2009, Arne
Duncan addressed students from the Curry School of Education. He
began his remarks by explaining the competition that children will face
for jobs after graduation, not just with their fellow students, but with
students from across the globe. He contrasted this reality with the abys-
mal drop-out rate of students in the US to suggest that we, as a nation,
have not “achieved the dream of educational opportunity”. He then
said, “I believe that education is the civil rights issue of our generation.
And if you care about promoting opportunity and reducing inequality,
the classroom is the place to start. Great teaching is about so much more
than education; it is a daily fight for social justice” (Duncan 2009b). In
order to make his point, Duncan recalled the education work of Thomas
Jefferson, of whom he said, “It was Jefferson who thought that Virginia
should support impoverished students whose talents were ‘sown as lib-
erally among the poor as the rich, but which perish without use if not
sought for and cultivated’. And it was Jefferson who thought that teach-
ing, an educated citizenry, and public service were the essential corner-
stones of democratic government”. Teachers, he argued, were central to
fulfilling Jefferson’s vision but that schools of education could not do it
all. Strangely, at a speech given to pre-service teachers in the education
department, Duncan drew his speech to a close by praising the work of
alternative teacher certification programs such as Teach for America, a
program whose goal is to convince the “brightest and best” of gradu-
ates to serve a two-year stint in a public school after receiving a five-week
summer training course.
Here again there are contradictions between Duncan’s message
of social justice and the content of his speech. Duncan’s reference to
Jeffersonian educational policy is a misreading of history at best and a
blatant revision at worst. Jefferson’s Bill for the More General Diffusion
of Knowledge did call for a common education (at least for white men
who owned land), but one designed to seek out and instill the “natu-
ral aristocracy” into the government, for it was they and they alone who
possessed the intellect, morality, and fortitude to guide the country.
Likewise, the purpose of education for the rest of the population was to
allow them just enough learning so that they could recognize the superi-
ority in others and vote responsibly for them to rule (Spring 2010a). In
a similar vein, and quite bizarrely for a speech at a college of education,
Duncan praised the Teach for America (TFA) program as evidence that
the school was fulfilling its social justice role. TFA is a program, begun
in 1994 by Wendy Knopff, designed to place the top students from Ivy
League schools into the classroom for two years. It is seen as a domestic
10 K. A. TAYLOR
service position, similar to Peace Corps, but with the added elitist view-
point that the salvation of schools lies in the superior intellect, rigor, and
commitment of top students. This implies a subtle inherent critique of
those who go into the teaching profession who do not have the same
credentials. It ties nicely into Jefferson’s notion of aristocracy; we need
the brightest and the best to lead us out of our educational morass.5 The
viewpoints Duncan referenced in his speech are diametrically opposed to
the history of social justice, the building of solidarity, and the respect for
difference he uses to justify his remarks.
In yet a third speech in 2008 while Duncan was still serving as the
CEO of Chicago Public Schools, he spoke at a symposium entitled “Free
to Choose, Free to Succeed: The New Market in Public Education”.
The symposium was organized and hosted by the Renaissance Schools
Fund, the financial element of the Renaissance 2010 plan, a policy
designed to close public schools and replace them with charter schools.
The symposium was attended by Chicago business elites, charter school
advocates, and management organizations, as well as representatives
of think tanks and philanthropic organizations already involved in the
policy. During his speech, Duncan referred to Renaissance 2010 as a
“movement for social justice” and “invoked corporate investment terms
to describe reforms, explaining that the 100 new schools would leverage
influence on the other 500 schools in Chicago” (Giroux and Saltman
2008). He referred to himself, using language better suited for a sym-
posium on stock market investments than education, as a portfolio man-
ager of 600 schools who is simply trying to improve the worth of his
investments. He explained that the primary focus of schools should be
on the creation of good workers and he argued that the primary goals of
school reform is to blur the lines between public and private by enlist-
ing the private sector to play an increasingly large role in school change
through monetary and intellectual support. He concluded by arguing
that teacher unions are the largest roadblock to business-led reform
(Giroux and Saltman 2008).
Here, once again, the contradiction between the language of democ-
racy and the content of the speech stands out. Renaissance 2010 has
been responsible for the displacement of countless students and fami-
lies as schools are closed, has weakened the democratic gains made in
Chicago in 1988 through the exclusion of Local School Councils
(LSCs), democratically elected bodies made up of parents, community
members and faculty, from charter schools, and has been the spearhead
of an antiunion movement in Chicago. In addition, Renaissance 2010

has targeted the poorest and most vulnerable communities in the city,
focused almost entirely on the historic ‘black belt’ of Chicago. By doing
so, the power and voice in reform policy is removed from the community
and placed in the hands of others, in this case, the corporate commu-
nity and business interests. In this way, Renaissance 2010 is exemplary
of disaster education. Once again, the content of the speech is in direct
contradiction to the reality of the democratic ideals which are used as
legitimation.
What we are witnessing in Duncan’s speeches is what I am call-
ing “Bizarro Democracy”, democratic concepts used to promote their
antithesis.6 Neoliberal reforms are profoundly antidemocratic. The
reforms produce outcomes which disrupt solidarity and community, prey
on those least able to resist, make invisible the voices of those they seek
to empower, and ensure the continuation and intensification of historical
societal problems and inequalities. Yet, these same reforms are being held
up as democracy in action, as social justice policies implemented in good
faith. It is tempting to say that Duncan is simply being cynical and using
democratic connotations to placate those antagonistic to his reform
efforts. However, the ubiquity of Bizzaro Democracy argues against this.
Taking Duncan as an example, he justified his reform efforts using dem-
ocratic concepts with every group with whom he spoke, including the
business communities which are predisposed to agree with his prescrip-
tions and should not need convincing in this manner. Something more is
happening here.
In this book, I argue that the logics of neoliberalism are shifting
the meanings and practices of democracy and that this new democratic
understanding, connected as it is to the creation of antidemocratic
spaces and practices, is losing its historic anti-hegemonic power as a tool
for emancipation and resistance. This is not to suggest that neoliberal-
ism is somehow mutilating the “pure and true” democracy; democracy
has always been a fluid concept, shifting as social realities shift and often
at the epicenter of struggles for social practices of inclusion and exclu-
sion. Rather, it is to say that in the current neoliberal moment, demo-
cratic ideals are becoming subsumed under the neoliberal rationality and,
as such, operate as a scaffold for legitimating neoliberal reforms. In the
process, the ideals of democracy as exemplified by its central concepts of
equality, fairness, participation, and solidarity, are being bent to fit the
rationality they legitimize.
12 K. A. TAYLOR
It is important to recognize that democratic ideals are being sutured

onto neoliberal logics, but this does not merely represent a cynical use of
strategy by those who reference democracy in their support of reforms.
Rather, this suturing is representative of the power and ubiquity of neo-
liberal rationality. The transformation of democracy is part of a fluid,
albeit completely unnatural, shift in the practices of government and
governance. As such, understanding the rise of, and central concepts of,
neoliberalism is central to understanding this transformation. The new
understandings of democracy are being produced; they are not a natural
outcome but instead the result of particular social, economic and gov-
ernmental processes.
1.4 Neoliberal Rationality
Neoliberalism needs to be understood as a new governance rationality.
Foucault’s work on discourse and power are applicable to understand-
ing the idea of rationality. Power, for Foucault, is a productive force
(Foucault 1977, 1978, 1980, 1994) which is not held by some and used
against others, but rather constitutes the reality through which we live
and only exists in its use (Gordon 1991; Foucault 1980). Power has as
its goal the formation of “truth” and “knowledge” through discourse.
Stephen Ball eloquently describes discourse as being about ‘what can be
said and thought, but also about who can speak, when, where, and with
what authority. Discourses embody the meaning and use of propositions
and words. Thus, “certain possibilities for thought are constructed” (Ball
1994, pp. 21–22). Discourses produce conceptual frameworks through
which we interact with our world by giving legitimation to particular
fields of knowledge and particular truths. At the level of government,
these discourses form the rationality, or overarching logic, of govern-
ment. Of rationalities, Rose writes “they have a distinctive moral form,
in that they embody conceptions of the nature and scope of legitimate
authority, the distribution of authorities across zones or spheres—polit-
ical, military, pedagogic, familial and the ideal principles that should
guide the exercise of authority; freedom, justice, equality, responsibility,
citizenship, autonomy, and the like. They have an epistemological char-
acter, in that … they are articulated in relation to some understanding
of the spaces, persons, problems, and objects to be governed. And they
have a distinctive idiom or language (Rose 1999, pp. 26–27; see also
Barry et al. 1996). In this sense, discourses operate on a macro-level of
influence. The introduction of scientific technologies, such as sociol-

ogy, biology, psychiatry, and psychology allowed for novel methods of
discourse dissemination. Foucault referred to the use of these new tech-
nologies as bio-power. In essence, bio-power generalized discipline as a
regulatory project and allows the government to exercise control over
the population as a whole through the indirect methods of counting,
sorting, comparing, and normalizing in an indirect manner (Foucault
1977, 1978; see also Burchell et al. 1991; Dean 2010; Lemke 2001;
Rose 1999). It is through bio-power that the individual comes to play a
role in the disciplining of the self by taking actions to fit within the new
rationality.
As hinted at above, rationalities are not permanent; they shift over
time, the result of a multitude of small-scale critiques, interventions in
local practice, and particularized solutions specific to particular problems.
Over time, the multitude of critiques and interventions become merged
across locales and scales to form a coherent conceptual landscape and a
new rationality is born (Rose 1999). Within a new rationality, contested
concepts take on new meanings and new connotations. Such is the case
with democracy. Discourses of accountability, individualism, the suprem-
acy of the private over the public, and the all-encompassing power of the
economic form a matrix in which communal concepts, such as democ-
racy, are reimagined to apply to individual cases only. The sign and refer-
ent are altered such that it is the individual vote, the process allowing for
individual choice, which becomes the goal of democracy rather than the
good of the community. At the same time, increased competition, ine-
quality, and consequences of inequitable education form a bio-political
pressure mechanism influencing people to make choices that serve them-
selves rather than the larger group. The promises of democracy, based
upon an earlier rationality, don’t measure up to the consequences of a
democracy based on neoliberal rationality.
Understood in this light, the Bizzaro Democracy touted by Duncan
in his speeches begins to make sense. His references to social justice and
democracy can only be properly understood through the lens of neo-
liberal rationality. Although the language is similar, he is referencing a
completely different understanding of governance. It is not a case of
Duncan cynically using the language of democracy to implement policy
designed to increase capital accumulation or to insert public education
into the realm of the economic, but rather it is a case of democracy being
subsumed under a new way of seeing the purposes of government. It is
14 K. A. TAYLOR
therefore no surprise that the outcomes of the policies he proposes do

not match up with our previous understandings of what democracy can
and should do for us as a community. His policies, based as they are on
neoliberal logic, can only produce outcomes concomitant with this logic.
1.5 Methodology
It is this process, the subsumption of democratic ideals under neolib-
eral rationality that I want to examine in this book. Specifically, I want
to use education reform policy as the fulcrum with which to understand
the ways in which democracy is being redefined and newly understood.
Chicago will serve as the target of this paper for several reasons. First,
Chicago is an ideal site in that it has an extensive history of education
reform, both pre-neoliberal and post. In fact, Chicago has played an
important role in the reform trajectory of the nation, serving as one of
the foundations for the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 as
well as providing the proving ground and informing the policies of Arnie
Duncan and the Obama Administration. As such, educational reform in
Chicago serves as a stand-in for reforms across the nation, allowing for
me to examine the specificity of reform in one place while providing the
ability to generalize to the larger reform movement. Second, Chicago is
a city with a historical background of segregation and community dis-
investment. This has led directly to the creation of a dual city in which
some citizens are treated to the good life while others struggle for sur-
vival. This duality provides a multitude of spaces into which neoliberal
reforms can be implanted using the rationales I am examining. Lastly,
education policy is felt most intimately at the urban or community level.
Chicago’s density and the spatial juxtaposition of communities allows for
policy outcomes to be readily visible through comparison.
In order to do this, I draw upon the work of Critical Discourse
Analysis. CDA is both a theory and a methodology (Chourliaraki and
Fairclough 1999). Theoretically, CDA positions discourse in relation to
other elements of the social process (Fairclough 2010) such that dis-
course becomes a key element in the production of social and cultural
meaning (Fairclough 2001, 2010; Wodak 2001). Wodak explains CDA’s
goals as aiming to “investigate critically the social inequality as it is
expressed, signaled, constituted, and legitimated and so on by language
use (or in discourse)” (Wodak 2001, p. 2). CDA defines discourses as
having three elements. It is simultaneously a written or spoken text, an
instance of practice involving the production and interpretation of the

text, and it is an element of social practice (Fairclough 2010; Wodak
2001). These are reflexively related in that discursive meaning is pro-
duced from the context in which it is used while at the same time help-
ing to make meaning of the context used to understand the discourse
in the first place (Gee and Green 1998). In this way, language is a social
phenomenon and is understood as being used no only by individuals
but also by institutions and social groups (Wodak 2001). Because dis-
course is a tool in this conception, the users of discourse are not mere
passive recipients of language, but are active participants in the crea-
tion of meaning. In short, CDA is a theory of meaning-making and the
construction of social space, understood as context, through discursive
practices.
There is a strong critical element to CDA. Theorists argue that there
is nothing intrinsically interesting in language; it only becomes interest-
ing when it is put to use (Jager 2001; Wodak 2001). Its use is impli-
cated in the workings of hegemonic power relations. CDA postulates
a connection between discursive practices and the construction of the
subject (Fairclough 2010). It is a regulating mechanism in that it con-
structs consciousness (Jager 2001), although it is not deterministic and
has an element of mediation involved (Meyer 2001). Hegemonic powers
seek to stabilize discursive practices and conventions. To the extent they
are able to do this, the construction of subjects remains constant and
becomes normative and disciplinary. Changes in discourse are impor-
tant elements (although by no means the only important elements) in
social change. Resistance involves, among other things, denaturalizing
the discursive practices and attempts to replace them with other discur-
sive practices which dislodge the subject and reposition it in relation to
ideological propositions (Fairclough 2001, 2010; Wodak 2001). In this
way, CDA takes a critical realist stance (Fairclough 2010). Here, there is
an objective reality which is independent from humans, but which is only
realized through perception. This perception is not homogenous and so
reality appears to us in different ways which are dependent on our loca-
tion within power relations operationalized as discursive practices. The
critical aspects of CDA are understood as focusing on discovering the
discursive practices which sustain power relations, understanding their
operation, and nurturing more equalizing discourses and relations.
Jager (2001) methodologically suggests identifying a theme (such
as school reform or globalization) which has discursive elements. Texts
16 K. A. TAYLOR
related to this theme are analyzed with an eye toward the relationship
between the plane of the discourse and the theme. Key texts are selected
from those gathered for linguistic analysis, the results of which are used
to understand the theme/plane relationship further. The real work is
in the detailed linguistic analyses of the selected texts as it provides the
embedded and implied workings of power.
In addition to Critical Discourse Analysis, I draw upon the insights
provided by the field of Citizenship Studies. Citizenship is as much a
process as a fixed political status (Isin 2002; Smith-Carrier and Bhuyan
2010). It is about comparison, relational definitions, the construction of
identity, and conduct based on that identity (Isin 2002; Jopke 2008).
These are not simply conferred but rather actively pursued such that the
struggles, negotiations, and contests in creating these definitions are
as much what citizenship is as is the outcome of these processes (Isin
2002). In other words, citizenship is not given but must be taken. In
addition, these processes of identification and definition are not binary;
there are not just citizen and noncitizen. Rather these distinctions are
constructed together rather than existing a priori of their use and they
are multiple as they are created through the interplay of status and a
multitude of systems, such as the market, neighborhoods, communities,
schools, cities, and regions (Isin 2002; Smith-Carrier and Bhuyan 2010).
This complexity means that citizenship is not consistent across all aspects
of society and one can have effective citizenship status in one area of life
and yet not in another. “Citizenship is the entire mode of incorporation
of a particular individual or group into society” (Shafir, quoted in Lake
and Newman 2002, p. 110). Therefore, citizenship is not contained in
the individual or group, but rather in the inclusionary and exclusionary
practices of state institutions (Lake and Newman 2002). This also means
that citizenship can change over time as these practices are changed
through social struggle, political debate, or legal ruling. At any given
moment, then, what citizenship looks like both formally and normatively
is a snapshot of the state of equity and power relations within society.
Citizenship is an empirical reality and, because it is a process, it exists
only in its use.
Citizenship is operationalized through the logics of inclusion/exclu-
sion, which in turn leads to its erosion in some cases and expansion in
others cases. The criteria for recognizing the boundaries of inclusion
and exclusion are not natural but rather are the historically contingent
outcome of social practice (Isin 2002; Somers 2008) negotiated and
struggled over within particular governmental logics. In other words,

the differences underlying citizenship are social, culturally, and politically
produced (Benhabib 2008; Lister 2008). This has a few implications for
an exploration of inclusory and exclusory logic.
First, the differences inherent in citizenship are relational in nature. It
is not a case of an ontological “other” existing a priori and the category
of citizen being defined against it. Instead, the categories of citizen and
other are co-produced, coming into existence as a result of each other.
There is only an inside because there is an outside and there is only a
citizen because there is a noncitizen. This demarcation is not simply
binary, however, as internal differences are produced through the idea
of the immanent rather than the opposite, on those who are within soci-
ety but still different. Second, these internal differences are articulated
through group identity and formation (Isin 2002). While it is true that
individuals interact with one another, “they do not necessarily interact
with each other as individuals, but as members of either well-defined, or
in the process of being defined, social groups” (Isin 2002, p. 32; see also
Dewey 1916, 1927). Membership in groups allows for the construction
of identities, allegiances, and solidarities which become resources for the
utilization and activation of difference. The formation of groups is a site
of social struggle. Symbolic power (Bourdieu 1977, 1997; Bourdieu
and Waquant 1992) is important here because it is the power to make
groups and institutionalize them formally. It is the power to make
something exist in a formal and therefore politically powerful way (Isin
2002). Third, there is a spatial component to these logics. The strug-
gle over inclusion and exclusion is also a battle over the production of
space in the Lefebvrian sense of constituting both symbolic and material
space (Lefebvre 1991). Material space, the spaces of lived experience, is
an arrangement which allows for individuals to form solidarities and alle-
giances through their interaction with one another. Symbolic space, or
representational space in the words of Lefebvre, is the space of cultural
meaning. This space is made important through the meanings, associa-
tions, and contexts through which it is understood. This is the space in
which the discursive meanings of group identity, in other words, inclu-
sion and exclusion, are struggled over. Understanding inclusory and exc-
lusory logic is implicated in the project to locate the boundary between
the state and society. The discipline of the state and the democracy of
society are not two sides of a wall, but instead are ideological instantia-
tions of a set of strategies toward a specific end. Together they produce
18 K. A. TAYLOR
the disciplinary space through which the state operates and the social
sphere through which groups negotiate for, against, and with the state.
In short, Citizenship Theory allows for us to locate the practices through
which we experience our inclusion or exclusion and focus our attention
on how these scaffold neoliberal relations of power.
Taking both theories together, I suggest that the meaning of “text”
should be expanded to include both linguistic elements as well as policy
design and implementation, administrative practices, spatial organization,
and any other material or symbolic action which implicates the popula-
tion in the relations of power. These instances, then, become the “texts”
through which power relations can be explored ala CDA. As such, each
chapter will in this dissertation will begin with a “text”, a material out-
come of the discourses through which our understanding and practice of
democracy is (re)defined, which will serve as the avenue for analysis and
understanding.
1.6 Book Preview
I focus on the years between 2011 and 2014 for the book. This was a
time of particularly energetic reform efforts and equally energetic resist-
ance. These years saw the closure of a record number of schools, the
appointment of several CEOs of Chicago Public Schools, a mayoral elec-
tion which led to a historic run-off election, increasing coalescence of
community organizations, and the first teacher strike in 25 years. While
neoliberal education reform efforts, and the Bizarro Democracy that
underpins them, has been a permanent fixture of the Chicago education
landscape since the mid-1990s, this time period was particularly fertile
in both the gains made by the education reform movement and in the
increasing strength of those antagonistic to Chicago’s education policy
ensemble (Ball 1994). As such, these years are indicative of the continual
struggle for the meaning of public education in Chicago and our altered
understandings of democratic practice in urban settings.
Chapter 2 of this book takes a closer look at democracy as an ideal,
locating it more deeply in the concepts of governmentality, security, and
rationality. I argue that neoliberal rationalities have operated to redirect
the focus of democracy on the institutional inputs rather than on the
outcomes of democratic practice as experienced by citizens. This focus
on the institutional practices of democracy has served to remove the ide-
als upon which democracy has historically been based, instead replac-
ing them with a technocratic understanding which both individualizes
instances in which democratic processes are called for and dislocates

these processes from their outcomes.
Chapter 3 examines the spatiality of neoliberal democracy as experi-
enced through school reform initiatives. Drawing largely on the work
of Henri Lefebvre and his typology of space composed of concrete lived
reality, strategic uses of space and ideological understandings of space,
I argue that neoliberal education reform is part of a production process
through which citizens are differentially treated to either inclusionary or
exclusionary policies. The space which is created, and the interplay of the
three conceptions of space, comprises the driving force behind the con-
tinued expansion of neoliberal rationality and the redefinition of democ-
racy in urban settings.
Chapter 4 takes a look at the language of both proponents and antag-
onists of neoliberal education policy. In many cases, both groups are
using the same language, although they are using the same referents to
call forth different signs. I explore the ways in which language is being
used by reform proponents and the ways in which it undercuts the his-
torical power of democratic concepts to be used as anti-hegemonic tools.
Chapter 5 takes a leave from the analysis of Foucaultian soft power to
examine the Gramscian concept of the integral state. I argue that many
of the instances of democratic alteration in the name of education reform
are in fact evidence of coercive state actions designed to tamp down on
antagonistic responses to reform. As such, these demographically differ-
entiated policy actions serve to sever the bonds of trust upon which an
active and healthy democracy depends.
Chapter 6 takes stock of the state of democracy in the current
moment. However, rather than wallow in the muck that neoliberalism
has made of democratic practice, I suggest that the current redefinition
of democracy serves as a fertile space in which the process can be over-
taken by those who have borne the brunt of neoliberal policies. As such,
I highlight positive examples of anti-hegemonic democratic actions, con-
necting them to the antidemocratic processes they seek to avert. In the
end, I argue that while democracy is definitely under attack from the
forces of neoliberal education reform and the rationality is supports, the
present time can be seen as hopeful and full of promise if only we realize
what is happening and stand in its way.
The final chapter of this book serves as a coda. I, like many others
across the country, expected Clinton would win the 2016 Presidential
Election. Her presidency was expected to simply further entrench
the neoliberal governance rationality across all aspects of the federal
20 K. A. TAYLOR
government’s reach, including the field of education. Trump’s elec-

tion was a curve ball in this prediction. I examine one possible relation-
ship between Trump’s education agenda, as advocated by Secretary of
Education Betsy DeVos, and the neoliberal reformers who have con-
trolled Chicago’s reform agenda for decades. I argue that, contrary to
the claims of Duncan and his supporters, the education agenda under
DeVos is not fundamentally different than the neoliberal agenda being
implemented currently in Chicago. As such, this time represents an
opportunity to shine a light on the destruction and immorality of neo-
liberal education reform through a juxtaposition with an administration
quickly becoming known for its destructive tendencies.
For the last thirty years, at least, education reform (and urban gov-
ernance in general) has been shifting into ever deeper neoliberal waters.
What began as an intellectual challenge to the workings of modern liber-
alism and a position of the far right has evolved into the de facto govern-
ment position on education, community, and all issues urban. Neoliberal
logic is no longer the purview of a particular party or ideological bent;
rather it has transformed into “common sense”, even as the cracks
in its logic are showing. This moment represents a chance for change,
for a new direction, and a new understanding of our common need for
democracy. I hope that this book, in whatever small way, aids in taking
advantage of this opportunity.
Notes
1. Since then, two other schools have implemented the parent trigger law.
24th Street Elementary in Los Angeles voted for a public/charter hybrid
in which the public-school system would run grades K-4 while a charter
organization would run grades 5–8 in the same building. Weigand Avenue
Elementary School, in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, voted to
reopen their school with a new principal and several new teachers. In each
instance, Parent Revolution was the organizing force behind the law’s
execution.
2. The choice made to turn the school over to a charter organization was, in
fact, incredibly contentious. In this it was not unique however. For exam-
ple, the bilingual movement has engendered much disagreement as well
with some pushing for rapid assimilation into the English language, others
advocating the maintenance of the home language, and others demanding
any number of positions in between. I tell the parent trigger story not to
claim it is uniqueness but rather to highlight an example of the ways in
which neoliberal education reform both exacerbates difference and in fact

is reliant upon it.
3. Of course, the influence of neoliberalism on school reforms began prior
to 1994. For example, the 1983 Nation at Risk report codified the cur-
rent drive to redefine education as an extension of the economy over and
above any of its other historical purposes while today’s hyper-testing and
accountability framework is the evolutionary outcome of previous national
policies, beginning with the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education
Act and ending with the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act. In each of these
cases, elements of reform found in the current reform movement can be
indentified, either in a mature form (as with testing and the NCLB) or in
its nascent form (as with the push for vouchers by Conservative leaders in
the 1980s and 1990s, which later melded with calls for charter conversions
by politicians across the aisle today) I locate the mid-1990s as a time in
which the neoliberal influences on reform coalesced into broader national
reform goals at local levels, through such measures as mayoral control over
school districts, the creation and support of charter school laws, coordi-
nated attacks on unions and the now ubiquitous intrusion into educational
policies by philanthropic and business organizations through so called pub-
lic/private partnerships.
4. It is not my intention to play into the discourse of failed education per se.
I believe the work that parents, teachers, and youth do every day is noth-
ing short of miraculous. While problems do still exist (achievement gaps,
drop-out rates, inequitable educational outcomes), the longer view of edu-
cation in the US is one of success. The failures I highlight are those of
the current reform movement and not located in the field of education in
general.
5. For a critique of the efficacy of TFA, see Heilig and Jez (2010).
6. Bizzaro is character added to the DC Comics world and represents an
opposite doppelganger to Superman. Bizzaro has become “somewhat well
known in popular culture, and the term Bizarro is used to describe any-
thing that utilizes twisted logic or that is the opposite of something else”
(Superman.wikia.com/wiki/Bizarro).
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CHAPTER 2
Shifting Rationalities and Multiple

Democracies: The New Meanings
of Neoliberal Democracy
2.1 Introduction
Early in 2012, during the very contentious protests surrounding the
annual school closings in Chicago, something revealing happened. Two
men reported to the Chicago Sun-Times that they had, at separate times
and in separate instances, been paid to protest in support of school clos-
ings in the Englewood neighborhood, a poor and predominately African
American community on the South Side of Chicago. Both men had
approached HOPE Organization, a nonprofit community organization
run by a collection of ministers, for assistance with their utility bills. In
both instances the men were offered remuneration for speaking at edu-
cation rallies. One was not told what the rally was for until he arrived
and was given a list of prepared remarks in favor of closing a neighbor-
hood high school. The other was told he was attending a rally in sup-
port of a longer school day, one of the new Mayor’s pet projects for the
school district, only to learn upon arriving that he was there to support
closing the elementary school which he had attended as a child. Both
men felt tricked and were accordingly horrified. “They thought that for
a few dollars they could get us to say whatever they want”, said one of
the men. “We were preyed upon” (Rossi 2012). For their part, the min-
isters in charge of HOPE Organization and the recruitment for the ral-
lies argue that the money was for training purposes and did not come
© The Author(s) 2018 27

K. A. Taylor, Neoliberal Education and the Redefinition
of Democratic Practice in Chicago, New Frontiers
in Education, Culture, and Politics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98950-1_2
28 K. A. TAYLOR
from their churches or from HOPE Organization. “This is money from

clergy. Clergy have money. We used private money”, one of the minis-
ters reported (Rossi 2012). In the end, nothing came from this mini-
scandal. No more instances of payment for protesting were reported and
the story faded from public consciousness.
Although the story faded quickly, it is still a newsworthy moment
because it so obviously offends many of our founding ontological beliefs
about democracy. It speaks against our belief in democracy as an equal-
izing force in society and as a just and equitable arbiter in societal dis-
putes. Offering payment for protesting submerges democratic action in
the logic of exchange and locates considerations of the public good in
the realm of individual gain. Beyond the obvious payment for protest-
ing, the story points to a deeper disconnect with democracy. The defense
presented by the ministers at HOPE Organization focused on the money
and its origins. Their assumptions seem to be that if the money did not
come from their organization, then they were simply private citizens
using their money to promote policies which met with their approval.
At no time did they address the larger issue of speech being bought and
paid for or what this means in a society which calls itself democratic.
Theirs is a technocratic defense, focused on a legalistic understanding of
democracy. In this they are indicative of a larger ideological shift wherein
democracy is assessed at the beginning of a process rather than at the
end. That is to say, practices are judged to be democratic if they follow
a strict legalistic set of rules regardless of the outcomes of practices and
policies.
In this chapter, I argue that the neoliberal rationalities have operated
to redirect the focus of democracy on the institutional inputs rather than
on the outcomes of democratic practices as experienced by citizens. This
focus on the institutional practices of democracy has served to leverage
an inherent contradiction within democracy as it has historically been
understood, bringing to the fore technocratic understanding which both
individualizes instances in which democratic processes are called for and
dislocates these processes from their outcomes. I begin by parsing what
we mean when we speak of democracy, outlining a distinction between
a focus on ideals and institutional mechanisms. Following this, I locate
democracy in the history of Liberalism and detail shifts over time, plac-
ing into relief disconnects between our conceptual ideals and our insti-
tutional expectations. I introduce the idea of accountable democracy as
juxtaposition against earlier concepts of democracy. Lastly, I take a look
2 SHIFTING RATIONALITIES AND MULTIPLE DEMOCRACIES … 29
at school closing policy in Chicago to examine how differing understand-

ings of democracy have stood in contrast to one another and to highlight
the ways in which democratic processes have been subsumed under the
current neoliberal rationality. I finish with a brief discussion of what this
means for the future of democratic education in the United States.
2.2 Parsing Democracy

When speaking of democracy, we are really talking about two separate
but related concepts. On the one hand is the normative ideal of a dem-
ocratic society. As an ideal, democracy does not have a specific definition
but rather is seen as something “which could never be achieved but is
only an (unreachable) aim, a continuous political project; democratiza-
tion commits its signatories to sharing in the powers that make, order,
and govern them, but is perpetually unfinished” (Brown [2009] 2011,
p. 53). This political project argues for ever more inclusionary processes,
thus expanding the rights and freedoms associated with democracy. In
its celebration of particularity, it fosters an equality based not on a nar-
row and homogenizing framework, such as exchange value, but rather
on our innate differences and the possibilities they hold. It calls to mind
Dewey’s definition of democracy as facilitating growth through free-
dom of association (Dewey 1916, [1909] 1999) or Ranciere’s a priori
assumption of radical equality (Ranciere 2010). As such, democracy
signals an ever-growing expansion of spatial and social values based on
use as well as the social organization necessary for the political project’s
continuation.
On the other hand, are the institutional mechanisms of democracy.
These include majority rule, the rule of law, free and frequent elections,
and universal suffrage. There is nothing, however, innately democratic
about them. As Dewey reminds us, “The forms to which we are accus-
tomed in democratic governments represent the cumulative effect of a
multitude of events, unpremeditated as far as political effects were con-
cerned and having unpredictable consequences… These things evolved
in the direction of its impulsion a minimum of departure from ante-
cedent custom or law” (Dewey [1909] 1999, p. 19; see also Kingdon
1984). While these are the mechanisms through which we legally inter-
act with the state and press our claims for equality this does not make
them ipso facto democratic. To understand them thus is to make a tel-
eological fallacy. This fallacy is based, in part, on a misunderstanding of
30 K. A. TAYLOR
how democracy is used as a strategic intervention into social and power

relations (see below). It is not a case of the normative ideal of democracy
being the true and pure form of democracy and the institutional mech-
anistic form is somehow simply a democratic simulacrum. Rather, each
form is embedded deeply in relations of power and supports, scaffolds,
and serves different interests.
This is a technocratic understanding which reduces democracy to
a series of formal procedures. In essence, it removes any necessity to
assess the democratic impact of policy decisions because the procedures
(voting, elected representatives making decisions, community meet-
ings, public hearings, etc.) are assumed to safeguard a normatively dem-
ocratic outcome. This has two main effects on the meanings we assign
to democracy. First, democracy is temporalized, reducing it to a series
of single, self-contained episodes. It relegates democracy to a technical
problem of immediate resource management and population placa-
tion. Each instance of democratic procedure is divorced from the other
such that the power of accumulated policy is obscured, making invisible
the historical foundations of our society today. Second, and related, it
absolves policymakers from their responsibility in the production of anti-
democratic spaces. It allows them to speak from a democratic standpoint
while, at the same time, pursuing policies which only accelerate the prev-
alence of Bizarro Democracy.1
Democratic mechanisms must be understood and operationalized,
then, as complementary to the normative ideal of democracy for them
to be associated with one another. In other words, the mechanisms of
democracy are only democratic insofar as they aid in the production of
democratic space and are antidemocratic insofar as they hinder this pro-
duction. Under the current neoliberal rationality, however, these two
forms of democracy are becoming increasingly separate.
This is not to say, however, that there is a pure form of democracy
and a less pure, technocratic form. Rather, as mentioned above, these
forms are part of inherent contradictions found within the strategic
uses of democracy in the relations of power. Democracy itself, then,
should be understood as a somewhat fluid concept, changing over time,
and according to circumstances. The particular relations and the struc-
ture they take are based on the evolution of governmental rationalities.
Taking a closer look at the rationalities of Liberalism will allow us to map
this distinction more clearly.
2.3 Shifting Rationalities, Shifting Democracies

An examination of the current governmental rationalities needs to be
grounded historically in the rise of Liberalism. Foucault’s work on gov-
ernmentality provides a powerful framework for understanding this
history and its effect on the current moment. Governmentality can be
broken into two related concepts. The first is the relationship between
governance and thought in general. The focus here is on the power of
discourse as it produces both “truth” and “knowledge” (see Chapter 1).
It is through discourse that ideas are legitimated, that regulatory projects
are encapsulated through bio-power, and that discipline is positioned on
the individual as a self-replicating system of control. In this sense, the
first part of governmentality forms the structures through which we, as
a population, understand the limits of government and our roles within
this structure.
The second way in which governmentality can be understood is a
specific genealogical project undertaken by Foucault tracing the emer-
gence of a “new art of government”. Foucault argues that during the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, several changes took place that altered
the numerous prevailing governmental rationalities, moving them from
a focus on the security and power of the sovereign to a singular one,
liberalism, based in natural rights and targeted toward the security and
continuation of the state itself.
While the scope of Foucault’s project is much too large to give a
detailed account in this chapter, a few salient points can be made.2 The
first point is that liberalism represents a radical break from previous
rationalities. Classical liberalism puts forward a doctrine of limitation on
the acts of government and seeks to determine “how government is pos-
sible, what it can do, and what ambitions it must renounce to be able to
accomplish what lies within its powers” (Gordon 1991, p. 15). The lim-
itations inherent in liberalism find their boundaries in natural laws which
presuppose some contexts as being outside of the purview of govern-
ment, such as the markets and civil society (Gordon 1991; Olssen et al.
2004; Rose 1999). This leads to a somewhat paradoxical consequence in
which the government must foster the self-organizing and autonomous
features of society and the market while staying within the boundaries
natural law provides (Burchell 1996). Liberal governance requires the
indirect use of bio-political methods to nurture this autonomy. This is
the introduction of political economy (Gordon 1991) into the lexicon
32 K. A. TAYLOR
of governance. To utilize political economy as a rationality of govern-

ance is to organize rather than overtly control the population in order
to attain certain ends. The natural laws governing autonomous indi-
viduals can be known through science; so too can the proper ways of
organizing human conduct be known. In this manner, positive uses of
knowledge are deeply tied to the liberal governmental rationality (Dean
2010). Here, government is in a sense turned in on itself in a situa-
tion whereby the ends of government also become the means (Burchell
1996). Individual autonomy is at the same time the precondition upon
which liberal rationality is formed and the goal of liberal governance.
In this sense, liberty under liberal rule should be seen as the outcome
of a series of interventions in social life. Under the liberal mode of gov-
ernment, then, liberty is the insurance of state security (Gordon 1991;
Hindess 1996).
The second point to be made is that this shift in rationalities did
not come out of thin air, but was formed and understood as critiques
of previous rationalities. In other words, there is a conceptual relation-
ship between the different periods of governmental rationality. Nor did
these changes take place overnight. They were the result of a multitude
of small-scale critiques, interventions in local practice, and particularized
problems specific to particular locations. Over time, the weight of the
multitude of critiques and interventions merge across locales and scales
to form a coherent conceptual landscape and a new rationality is born
(Rose 1999). Also of importance is that the breaks between rationalities
are not complete. Foucault’s use of the word critique implies response
and rearticulation rather than a complete rejection. Elements of previous
governmental rationalities continue to be represented in new rationali-
ties, although in altered ways.
The third and final point is that this critique has continued through-
out the liberal period and has produced pronounced shifts in the work-
ings of and conceptual understandings of what it is that government can
and should do. In particular, there is an inherent contradiction between
the ideals of liberty and the market freedoms that are seen to be nec-
essary for their working. Natural laws of autonomy and liberty can be
undermined by the excesses of the free market even as the market is pro-
moted as a source of stability for the proliferation of liberty. This in par-
ticular has been important in the history of liberalism and its relationship
with democracy.
Each of these points is clear in the shifting history of the concept

of liberty in US history. Liberalism can be broken into three periods
(classical, modern, and neo-), each of which is framed by issues of eco-
nomic and personal liberty. Classical liberalism, focused as it was on
solidifying the tenets of liberalism over the previous rationalities, con-
tained a laser-like focus on negative freedoms. The natural limits of
government were being codified and streamlined at this time through
founding documents and the creation of legal precedent. The central
tenets of these limits centered on a laissez faire economic policy and a
sense of personal liberty based on the negation of governmental powers.
While the discourse of negative freedom did serve to cement liberalism as
the prevailing rationality in the United States, over time the unfettered
market and limited institutional protection for women, the working class,
and the African American and immigrant populations led to crises which
could not be ignored.
The modern liberal period, roughly from the interwar period to the
1970s, witnessed an evolutionary shift in the limits of government as the
rationality was altered due to a series of crises which struck at the heart
of classical liberalism. The economic crises of increasing economic ine-
quality and the Great Depression highlighted the tensions between the
liberty of the market and the ability of the population to survive while
the inability of the state to prevent this tension led to a crisis in legit-
imacy for liberal democracy. The responses to these crises instituted
positive freedoms (the freedom to do and act) rather than an increase
in negative freedoms (the freedom from governmental intrusion),
although this institutionalization was designed foremost to ensure the
maintenance of capitalism. The New Deal, with its engineered employ-
ment programs, and the structured economy of the Keynesian Welfare
State, were interventions into the workings of capitalism, limiting them
in some respect so that the economic system could continue mostly
unmolested. Likewise, the War of Poverty was an intervention designed
to legitimate a governance structure which had allowed the inequality to
come about in the first place. During this time, the institutional mech-
anisms of democracy (the vote, legal precedent, etc.) disenfranchised
entire portions of the population such that their connection to the lib-
erty promised under liberalism was but an illusion. Individual claims for
liberty increasingly gave way to community claims based on the sexual
identity, gender, class, race, disability, and language usage (see, for exam-
ple, Kymlicka 1995). This period of liberalism saw the natural limits of
34 K. A. TAYLOR
government expanded as the discourse slowly shifted to one of the pos-

itive freedoms founded on the belief that the state must intervene and
provide the structure and protections necessary to engage in the free-
doms which liberalism has promised.
Once again, crisis reared its head and beginning in the 1970s, modern
liberalism began to evolve into neoliberalism. In short, neoliberalism sig-
nals a shift from the Keynesian focus on levels of collection consumption
toward one focused on unfettered and ever-increasing capital accumu-
lation and economic growth (Hackworth 2007; Harvey 2011) through
the removal of social welfare policies and barriers to trade (Brenner and
Theodore 2002; Harvey 2003, 2005; Peck and Tickell 2002; Smith
2002). Culturally, neoliberal rationality reimagines the natural sources
of the autonomy, interests, and liberty of individuals which have formed
a centerpiece of liberal thought. Instead, neoliberalism understands that
interests are not naturally occurring instances but rather are formed
through the “interplay of particular institutional, cultural or economic
conditions” (Dean 2010, p. 185). This implies that interests are an arti-
fact of governmental intervention and that the limitations of govern-
ment are now bounded not by natural laws but the artificial creation of
“the free, entrepreneurial and competitive conduct of economic-rational
actors” (Burchell 1996, pp. 23–24). Economic rationality is opera-
tionalized as the logic through which all social actions are undertaken
and understood (Gordon 1991; Bourdieu 1998, 2001; Brown 2005;
Burchell 1996) and as such provide a bio-political, normative, and dis-
ciplinary framework for the construction of an understanding of society
(Brown 2005). Individuals are prompted to use the cost–benefit analyses
of economics to make decisions which leads to responsibility for social
provision shifting away from the government and onto the population.
In essence, individuals begin to see themselves, and indeed are seen by
the government, as self-contractors, charged with increasing their eco-
nomic value through their social conduct.
The liberty afforded by neoliberalism is an accountable freedom.
Rather than the negative liberty of classical liberalism, which sees free-
dom as being the outcome of governmental limitations, or the positive
liberty of modern liberalism, which locates the provision of freedoms in
the benevolent intervention of government, accountable freedom is pro-
visional. The opportunity to experience liberty is provided by economic
frameworks and it is up to the individual to capitalize on this opportu-
nity. The onus of liberty is firmly placed on the individual rather than on
natural laws or the state as in previous iterations of liberalism. In other

words, all the state has to do is provide “opportunity for liberty” and it is
up to the population to take advantage of the opportunity.
Returning briefly to the differences between normative democracy
and technocratic democracy, we can see the beginnings of this split in the
rise of neoliberalism. When we think of the normative ideals of democ-
racy, we are referencing the positive freedoms of the modern liberal era.
We are calling back to the great inclusionary projects of the period in
which success was assessed through outcomes. Freedom is gained when,
and only when, freedom is possessed. The accountable liberty of neo-
liberalism turns this on its head. Here, freedom is gained when, and
only when, the state, through its support and structuring of the market,
grants the opportunity for citizens to pursue liberty. Put more accurately,
under accountable liberty, it is the market rather than the state that
directly provides freedom. Whether or not they actually succeed in capi-
talizing on the possibilities for freedom is beside the point. A brief exam-
ination of the school closing process, a neoliberal education policy par
excellence, will illustrate these processes clearly.
2.4 Closing Down Schools, Closing Down Democracy

Returning to the mini-scandal above, the Chicago Sun-Times reports
the story as a breach of democratic procedure. The main accusation is
twofold. First, the men who came to HOPE Organization in search of
assistance were only given help on condition that they attend and speak
at education reform rallies. This renders public critique susceptible to
exchange mechanisms, thus negating the power of voice and, at the same
time, negates free will through the use of coercive practices. Second, the
men were deceived as to the nature of the rallies they were being coerced
to attend, which offends our belief in accountability and transparency.
The defense provided by the clergy at HOPE Organization also relies on
the mechanisms of democracy. They claim the money used was their own
which posed no conflict of interest. They were not beholden to explain
how and why they used their money because they are privately held eco-
nomic assets. The responses of the clergy are not entirely adequate to
the accusations, but this is not the main issue with the reporting. In the
parlance of journalism, the Sun-Times buried the lede. The real story is
the loosening of the already tenuous connections between normative and
institutional democracy in the form of school closings which forms the
36 K. A. TAYLOR
backdrop of the news story. In other words, the clergy’s actions make
sense under neoliberal rationality and this is why the story did not gain
traction. The real story is the school closing policy itself and what it says
about the state of democracy in the current moment.
Closing schools as a matter of policy hews closely to neoliberal logic
which sees education simultaneously as a strategic node for capital accu-
mulation, urban development, economic accountability, and social
control. Schools are closed for reasons of creative destruction (Harvey
2005). The school closing policy in Chicago has its roots in the may-
oral takeover of schools in 1995. Then Mayor Daley brought in corpo-
rate hatchet man Paul Vallas to shock the schools into progress following
what the Mayor and business groups saw as limited gains following
previous reform efforts. Vallas closed the first schools under his tenure,
but presented the policy as an action of last resort only after multiple
interventions failed to raise test scores and graduation rates. The school
closing policy came into its own following the implementation in 2004
of “Renaissance 2010” under Vallas successor Arne Duncan. The policy
initiative is designed to shutter 60 “failing” schools and open 100 new,
mostly charter schools. Note that the closing of schools is no longer a
last resort option here but is rather a strategic and integral part of the
policy. As such, school closings work to facilitate urban development and
capital accumulation strategies for the city.
Chicago is undertaking a “class conquest” (Smith 1996) approach to
urban development, directing its policies toward recreating the city as
a playground for high-knowledge workers and the businesses in which
they are employed (Lipman 2011; Lipman and Haines 2007). School
closings are central to this effort. The discourse of failure here is essen-
tially one of obsolescence. As Weber writes, “Obsolescence has become a
neoliberal alibi for creative destruction and therefore an important com-
ponent in contemporary processes of spatialized capital accumulation”
(Weber 2002, p. 185). Labeling schools as failures argues that schools
are obsolete in their mission, that their use value is gone. By replac-
ing them, the city implies a renewal of use value, but also the addition
of exchange value for schools. The value of schools is redefined such
that they signal the city’s friendliness to business interests through the
replacement of closed schools primarily with privately managed charter
schools and serve as lubrication for gentrification strategies designed to
attract business.
The schools being closed in Chicago, and the concomitant charter

schools which are being opened, are overwhelmingly in poor communi-
ties of color with a history of disinvestment and malignant neglect by the
city. This highlights the fiercely racialized logic behind the school clos-
ing policies in Chicago. The racial targeting of school closing policy is
not new to Chicago. Prior to the Renaissance 2010 policy being imple-
mented, Lipman traced the creation of new school programs across the
city (2004). She found that school programs classified as positive, such as
IB programs, magnet schools, and the like, were focused in middle-class
areas of the city. In contrast, programs classified as negative, such as the
implementation of scripted curriculum or zero-tolerance discipline poli-
cies, were targeted in largely African American communities. Renaissance
2010, and the school closing policy in general, follows this logic.
Mapping the schools closed under Renaissance 2010 shows them to be
overwhelmingly concentrated in the historically Black neighborhoods
of Chicago. In essence, the class conquest of the city, and the school
closings upon which it is dependent, is grounded on the political, eco-
nomic, and educational sacrifice of the African American communities of
Chicago (see Chapter 3 for a discussion of racialized urban development
in Chicago and Chapter 5 on sacrifice and trust within neoliberal urban
policy). In this way, the charter schools represent not only an avenue of
capital accumulation as public monies are diverted into private manage-
ment organizations but also a bio-political technology to bring order and
control to segments of the population3 which have been deemed obso-
lete due to their inability to succeed under neoliberal policies (Peck and
Tickell 2002).4
Of course, other than in closed rooms, the city does not justify its
policy in this way. Instead, justifications for closing schools fall into two
categories. First, schools are said to be closed because they are under-
stood to be failing either because of test scores, graduation rates or safety
records. Discursively, this is presented to the public in terms of education
equality and salvation for students in these schools. Mayor Emmanuel,
for example, speaking to reporters about the political backlash against
the current spate of school closings, remarked, “…the anguish and the
pain that comes from making the change is less amenable, in my view,
or pales compared to the anguish that comes by trapping children in
schools that are not succeeding, and trapping children in schools that
don’t give them the opportunities that will open doors to the future”
(Sfondeles 2013). The use of key phrases, such as “equality”, “trapped”,
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“Get it yourself,” the hobo flung back.
The right fist of the ranchman lifted swiftly. It did not move far, but it
carried great power back of it. The tramp’s head snapped backward.
His shoulders hit the sand. He had been caught on the point of the
jaw by a knock-out punch.
Tug came back to consciousness under the impression that he was
drowning in deep waters. Cig was dipping a can in the creek and
sousing its contents over his head. He sat up dizzily. His uncertain
gaze fell on some one who had arrived since his exit from activity.
She was a young woman on horseback. He noticed that she was
slender and had a good seat. Her dark eyes watched him.
Who was she? What the dickens was she doing here? Where was
he anyhow?
His glance swept the scene. York was stamping out the last embers
of the fire. There was a bruise on Cig’s cheek and one of his eyes
was rapidly closing. From the fact that Forbes was examining
abraded knuckles it was an easy guess that he had been in action.
The rancher, hands in coat pockets, relieved his mind in regard to
the youth he had knocked out. “You’re a good-for-nothing loafer, not
fit to live in a country that treats you too well. If I had charge of
wastrels like you, I’d put you on the rock-pile and work you to a
frazzle. What use are you, to yourself or any one else? When you
were needed to fill a uniform, I’ll bet a dollar you were a slacker. You
still are. A worthless, rotten-to-the-core hobo. Now get up and get off
my land or I’ll give you that thrashing you need.”
Tug got up, swayed unsteadily on his feet, and lurched forward. In
his eyes, still dull and glazed from the shock his nervous system had
endured, a gleam of anger came to life. He was a slacker, was he?
All right. He would show this arrogant slave-driver that he could
stand up and take all he had to give.
His rush was a poor leaden-footed shuffle, for he was shaky at the
knees and weights dragged at his feet. The blow he aimed at Reed
missed the brown face half a foot. It was badly timed and placed.
The ranchman’s counter caught him flush on the cheekbone and
flung him back.
Again he gathered himself and plunged forward. Clinton Reed
belonged to the old fighting West. He had passed through the rip-
roaring days of Leadville’s prime and later had been a part of Cripple
Creek’s turbid life. Always he had been a man of his hands. He
punished his dazed opponent with clean hard blows, most of them
started at short range to save his own fists from the chance of
broken or dislocated bones.
The tramp fell into a clinch to get time for recovery. Reed jolted him
out of it with a short arm left below the chin and followed with two
slashing rights to the face.
The hobo was in a bad way. In ring parlance, he was what is known
as groggy. His arms moved slowly and without force back of the
blows. His knees sagged. There was a ringing in his head. He did
not seem able to think clearly.
But the will in him functioned to push him to more punishment. He
attacked feebly. Through a weak defense the ranchman’s driving
arms tore cruelly.
Tug went down again. He tried to rise, but in spite of the best he
could do was unable to get up. The muscles of the legs would not
coöperate with the will.
Some one in khaki riding-breeches flashed past him. “That’s enough,
Dad. I don’t care if he was impudent. You’ve hurt him enough. Let
him go now.”
The figure was the boyish one of the equestrienne, but the high
indignant voice was feminine enough.
“S’pose you try minding your own business, Bess,” her father said
quietly.
“Now, Dad,” she expostulated. “We don’t want any trouble, do we?
Make ’em move on, and that’s enough.”
“Tha’s what we’re doin’, Betty,” explained the foreman. “It ain’t our
fault if there’s a rookus. We told ’em to light out, an’ they got sassy.”
Tug rose with difficulty. He was a badly hammered hobo. Out of
swollen and discolored eyes he looked at the ranchman.
“You quite through with me?” he snarled.
It was a last growl of defiance. His companions were already
clambering with their packs out of the wash to the bank above.
“Not quite.” Clint Reed took his daughter by the shoulders and spun
her out of the way when she tried to stop him. “Be fresh if you want
to, my young wobbly. I reckon I can stand it if you can.” He whirled
the tramp round and kicked him away.
“Oh, Dad! Fighting with a tramp,” the girl wailed.
Tug swung round unsteadily, eyes blazing. He took a step toward the
rancher. His glance fell on the girl who had just called him a tramp,
and in saying it had chosen the last word of scorn. Her troubled,
disdainful gaze met his fully. The effect on him was odd. It paralyzed
action. He stopped, breathing hard.
She had called him a tramp, as one who belongs to another world
might do—a world that holds to self-respect and decency. He had
read in her voice utter and complete contempt for the thing he was. It
was a bitter moment. For him it stamped the low-water mark of his
degradation. He felt beneath her eyes a thing unclean.
What she had said was true. He was a tramp. He had ridden the
rods, asked for hand-outs, rough-housed with hoboes, slept with
them. He had just been thoroughly thrashed and kicked before her.
What was the use of resenting it? He had become declassed. Why
should he not be kicked and beaten? That was the customary way to
treat his kind of cattle.
Tug swung heavily on a heel and followed his companions into the
willows.
CHAPTER III
ONE OF THE LOST LEGION
Among the lost legion are two kinds of men. There are those who
have killed or buried so deep the divine fire of their manhood that for
them there seems no chance of recovery in this world. There are
those in whom still burns somewhere a faint candle that may yet
flame to a dynamic glow of self-respect.
The young tramp slouching along the bank of Willow Creek drank
deep of the waters of despair. The rancher had called him a slacker,
rotten to the core. It was a true bill. He was a man spoiled and
ruined. He had thrown away his life in handfuls. Down and dragging,
that’s what he was, with this damned vice a ball and chain on his
feet.
There was in him some strain of ignoble weakness. There must be,
he reasoned. Otherwise he would have fought and conquered the
cursed thing. Instead, he had fought and lost. He could make
excuses. Oh, plenty of them. The pain—the horrible, intolerable pain!
The way the craving had fastened on him before he knew it while he
was still in the hospital! But that was piffling twaddle, rank self-
deception. A man had to fight, to stand the gaff, to flog his evil
yearnings back to kennel like yelping dogs.
His declension had been swift. It was in his temperament to go fast,
to be heady. Once he let go of himself, it had been a matter of
months rather than of years. Of late he had dulled the edge of his
despair. The opiates were doing their work. He had found it easier to
live in the squalid present, to forget the pleasant past and the
purposeful future he had planned.
But now this girl, slim, clean, high-headed, with that searing
contempt for him in her clear eyes, had stirred up again the devils of
remorse. What business had he to companion with these
offscourings of the earth? Why had he given up like a quitter the
effort to beat back?
In the cold waters of the creek he washed his swollen and
bloodstained face. The cold water, fresh from the mountain snows,
was soothing to the hot bruised flesh even though it made the
wounds smart. He looked down into the pool and saw reflected there
the image of himself. Beneath the eyes pouches were beginning to
form. Soon now he would be a typical dope fiend.
He was still weak from the manhandling that had been given him.
Into an inside coat pocket his fingers groped. They brought out with
them a small package wrapped in cotton cloth. With trembling hands
he made his preparations, bared an arm, and plunged the
hypodermic needle into the flesh.
When he took the trail again after his companions, Tug’s eyes were
large and luminous. He walked with a firmer step. New life seemed
to be flowing into his arteries.
Where the dusty road cut the creek he found the other tramps
waiting for him. Their heads had been together in whispered talk.
They drew apart as he approached.
Taking note of Cig’s purple eye and bruised face, Tug asked a
question. “Was it the big foreman beat you up?”
“You done said it, ’bo,” the crook answered out of the side of his
mouth.
“I reckon you got off easy at that,” Tug said bitterly. “The boss bully
didn’t do a thing to me but chew me up and spit me out.”
“Wotcha gonna do about it?” Cig growled significantly.
The young fellow’s glance was as much a question as his words.
“What can I do but take it?” he asked sullenly.
Cig’s eyes narrowed venomously. He lifted his upper lip in an ugly
sneer. “Watch my smoke. No roughneck can abuse me an’ get away
with it. I’ll say he can’t.”
“Meaning?”
“I’m gonna fix him.”
Tug’s laughter barked. “Did you fix him when you had a chance?” he
asked ironically.
“Call that a chance? An’ the big stiff wide as a door. ’F I’d had a gun
I’d ’a’ croaked him.”
“Oh, if!”
“De bulls frisked me gun in Denver. But I’ll get me a gat
somewheres. An’ when I do—” The sentence choked out in a snarl
more threatening than words.
“Sounds reasonable,” Tug jeered.
“Listen, ’bo.” Cig laid a hand on the sleeve of the young fellow’s coat.
“Listen. Are youse game to take a chance?”
Eyes filled with an expression of sullen distaste of Cig looked at him
from a bruised and livid face. “Maybe I am. Maybe I ain’t. What’s on
your mind?”
“I’m gonna get that bird. See?”
“How?”
“Stick around an’ gun him. Then hop a freight for ’Frisco.”
There was in the lopsided face a certain dreadful eagerness that was
appalling. Was this mere idle boasting? Or would the gangster go as
far as murder for his revenge? Tug did not know. But his gorge rose
at the fellow’s assumption that he would join him as a partner in
crime.
“Kill him without giving him a chance?” he asked.
Again there was a sound like the growl of a wild beast in the throat of
the Bowery tough. “Wotcha givin’ me! A heluva chance them guys
give us when they jumped us. I’ll learn ’em to keep their hands off
Cig.” He added, with a crackle of oaths, “The big stiffs!”
“No!” exploded Tug with a surge of anger. “I’ll have nothing to do with
it—or with you. I’m through. You go one way. I’ll go another. Right
here I quit.”
The former convict’s eyes narrowed. “I getcha. Streak of yellow a
foot wide. No more nerve than a rabbit. All right. Beat it. I can’t lose
you none too soon to suit me.”
The two glared at each other angrily.
York the peacemaker threw oil on the ruffled waters. “’S all right,
’boes. No use gettin’ sore. Tug he goes one way, we hit the grit
another. Ev’rybody satisfied.”
Tug swung his roll of blankets across a shoulder and turned away.
CHAPTER IV
BETTY RIDES
Betty Reed had watched unhappily the young tramp shuffle into the
willows and disappear. She felt depressed by a complex she could
not analyze. In part it was shame, for her father, for this tramp who
looked as though he were made for better things, for the whole
squalid episode; in part pity, not wholly divorced from admiration at
the boy’s insolence and courage. He might be a wastrel, as her
father had said. He might be a ne’er-do-well. But by some sure
instinct she knew that there had been a time when he fronted with
high hope to the future. That momentary meeting of the eyes had
told her as much.
Something had killed him as surely as a bullet fired through the
heart. The boy he had been was dead.
Lon Forbes chuckled. “They’ll keep going, I reckon, now they’ve
found out this ain’t no Hotel de Gink. You certainly handed that
youngest bum his hat, Clint. I’ll say you did.”
Now that it was over Reed was not very well satisfied with his
conduct. The hobo had brought the punishment on himself. Still—
there was something morally degrading about such an affray. One
can’t touch pitch without paying the penalty.
“We’ll begin cutting this field to-morrow, Lon,” he said shortly. “Hustle
the boys up so’s to finish the mesa to-day.” Across his shoulder he
flung a question at the girl. “You going to town, Bess?”
“In an hour or so. Want me to do something?” she asked.
“Call at Farrell’s and see if he’s got in those bolts I ordered.”
The ranchman strode to the car followed by Forbes. The foreman
was troubled by no doubts. His mind functioned elementally. If
hoboes camped on the Diamond Bar K and made themselves a
danger to the crops, they had to be hustled on their way. When they
became insolent, it was necessary to treat them rough. That was all
there was to it.
Betty swung to the saddle and rode back to the house. She was
returning from an inspection of a bunch of two-year-olds that were
her own private property. She was rather well off in her own right, as
the ranch country counts wealth. The death of her uncle a year
before had left her financially independent.
As Betty cantered into the open square in front of the house, her
father and the foreman were getting out of the car. A chubby, flaxen-
haired little lass came flying down the porch steps a-quiver with
excited delight.
“Oh, Daddy, Daddy, what d’you fink? I went out to the barn an’—
an’—an’ I fink Fifi’s got puppies, ’cause she—she—”
“Thought I told you to stay away from the barn,” the ranchman
chided.
His harsh voice dried up the springs of the child’s enthusiasm. She
drew back as though she had been struck. From the winsome, wee
face the eager, bubbling delight vanished, the enchanting dimples
fled. The blue eyes became wells of woe. A small finger found the
corner of the Cupid’s-bow mouth.
Clint Reed, ashamed and angry at himself, turned away abruptly.
Little Ruth was the sunshine of his life, the last pledge of his dead
wife’s love, and he had deliberately and cruelly wounded her.
Swinging from the saddle, Betty ran to the porch. Her arms enfolded
the child and drew her tenderly close. “Ruthie, tell big sister all about
it,” she whispered gently.
“D-d-d-daddy—” the sobbing little girl began, and choked up.
“Daddy’s worried, dear. He didn’t mean to hurt your precious little
feelings. Tell Betty about Fifi’s puppies, darling.”
Through her tears and between sobs Ruth told her great news.
Presently she forgot to weep and was led to the scene of Fifi’s
amazing and unique triumph. She gave little squeals of delight when
Betty handed her a blind little creature to cuddle in spite of the
indignant mother’s protesting growls. The child held the warm white-
and-brown puppy close to her bosom and adored it with her eyes.
With reluctance she returned it at last.
Ruth’s happiness was quite restored after her sister had given her a
glass of milk and a cookie and sent her out to play.
The young woman waved her a smiling good-bye and went to work.
She had some business letters to write and she went to the room
that served her as a library and office. The sound of the typewriter
keys drifted out of the open window for an hour or more.
The girl worked swiftly. She had a direct mind that found fluent
expression through the finger-tips. When she knew what she wanted
to say, it was never any trouble for Betty Reed to say it. A small pile
of addressed and sealed letters lay in the rack on the desk before
she covered the machine.
These she took with her.
Clint Reed she found tinkering with a reaper that had gone
temporarily out of service.
“Want anything more, Dad? I’m going now,” she said.
“You’ve got that list I left on the desk. That’s all, except the bolts.”
The sky was a vault of blue. Not even a thin, long-drawn skein of
cloud floated above. A hot sun baked down on the dusty road over
which Betty traveled. Heat waves danced in front of her. There was
no faintest breath of breeze stirring.
The gold of autumn was creeping over the hills. Here and there was
a crimson splash of sumac or of maple against the almost universal
yellow toning. It seemed that the whole landscape had drunk in the
summer sunshine and was giving it out now in a glow of warm
wealth.
The girl took a short cut over the hills. The trail led by way of draw,
gulch, and open slope to the valley in which Wild Horse lay. She
rode through the small business street of the village to the post-
office. Here she bought supplies of the storekeeper, who was also
post-master.
Battell was his name. He was an amiable and harmless gossip. Wild
Horse did not need a newspaper as long as he was there to hand
tobacco and local information across the counter. An old maid in
breeches, Lon Forbes had once called him, and the description
serves well enough. He was a whole village sewing circle in himself.
At a hint of slander his small bright eyes would twinkle and his
shrunken little body seem to wriggle like that of a pleased pup. Any
news was good news to him.
“Mo’ning, Miss Betty. Right hot, I’ll tell the world. Ninety-nine in the
shade this very minute. Bart Logan was in to get Doc Caldwell for his
boy Tom. He done bust his laig fallin’ from the roof of the root house.
Well, Bart was sayin’ your paw needs help right bad to harvest his
wheat. Seems like if the gov’ment would send out some of these
here unemployed to work on the ranches it would be a good idee.
Sometimes Congress acts like it ain’t got a lick o’ sense.”
Betty ordered coffee, sugar, tobacco, and other supplies. While he
waited upon her Battell made comment pertinent and impertinent.
“That Mecca brand o’ coffee seems to be right popular. Three
pounds for a dollar. O’ course, if it’s for the bunkhouse— Oh, want it
sent out to the Quarter Circle D E. How’re you makin’ it on your own
ranch, Miss Betty? Some one was sayin’ you would clean up quite a
bit from your beef herd this year, mebbe twelve or fifteen thousand. I
reckon it was Bart Logan.”
“Is Bart keeping my books for me?” the girl asked dryly.
The storekeeper cackled. “Folks will gossip.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “How much is that corn meal a hundred?”
“Cost you ten cents more’n the last. Folks talk about cost of livin’
coming down. Well, mebbe ’tis an’ mebbe ’tain’t. I told Bart I wouldn’t
believe you’d cleared any twelve or fifteen thousand till I heard you
say so. That’s a lot of money, if any one asks you.”
Apparently Betty misunderstood him. “Yes, you’re high, but I’ll take
two sacks. Send it to the Quarter Circle and charge it to me.”
Betty stopped at the railroad station to ask the agent about a
shipment of goods her father was expecting, and from there went to
Farrell’s to find out about the bolts.
It was well on toward noon when she took the road for home. At
Four-Mile Crossing it intersected the railroad track. A man with a
pack on his back was plodding along the ties in the direction of Wild
Horse. The instant her eyes fell on him, the girl recognized the tramp
her father had beaten. The pallid face was covered with wheals and
bruises. Both of the sullen eyes were ringed with purple and black.
They met face to face. Full into hers his dogged gaze challenged.
Without a word they passed.
Betty crossed the grade and followed a descent to a small grove of
pines close to the road. The sun was so hot that she decided to
dismount and give the pony a breathing spell.
From the saddle she swung, then trailed the reins and loosened the
cinch.
A sound brought her head round sharply. Two men had come over
the brow of a little hill silently. One of them was almost at her elbow.
A twisted, malevolent grin was on his lips. He was the hobo Lon
Forbes had thrashed two or three hours ago.
“Welcome to our city, goil,” he jeered in choice Boweryese. “Honest
to Gawd, you knock me dead. Surest thing you know. We’ll treat you
fine, not like your dad an’ that other big stiff did us. We’ll not tell
youse to move on, m’ dearie. Nothin’ like that.”
The girl’s heart felt as though drenched in ice-cold water. She had
not brought with her the small revolver she sometimes carried for
rattlesnakes. Both instinct and observation told her this man was vile
and dangerous. She was in his power and he would make her pay
for what her father had done.
She trod down the fear that surged up in her bosom. Not for nothing
had she been all her life a daughter of the sun and the wind and
wide outdoor spaces.
“I stopped to rest my pony from the heat of the sun,” she explained.
“You stopped to see old Cig,” he corrected. “An’ now you’re here it’ll
be him an’ you for a while. The hop-nut don’t belong to de same
push as us no longer. I shook him. An’ York don’t count. He’s no
lady’s man, York ain’t.”
The slim girl in the riding-suit could not quite keep the panic out of
her eyes. None of the motives that swayed the men she knew would
have weight with him. He was both base and bold, and he had lived
among those who had small respect for a woman.
Betty’s glance moved to York. It found no comfort there. The gross
hobo was soft as putty. He did not count, as his companion had
openly sneered.
“No. I won’t stop,” she said, and made as though to tighten the
loosened cinch.
“Won’cha? Think again, miss. Old Cig ain’t seen a skirt since he left
li’l’ old New York. Sure as youse is a foot high he’s hungry for a
sweetie of his own.”
He put his hand on her arm. At the touch her self-control vanished.
She screamed.
The man’s fingers slid down to the wrist and tightened. His other
hand clamped over her mouth and cut off the cry.
She writhed, twisting to free herself. In spite of her slenderness she
was strong. From her lips she tore his hand and again called for help
in an ecstasy of terror.
The crook of his arm garroted her throat and cut off the air from her
lungs. He bent her body back across his hip. Still struggling, she
strangled helplessly.
“Youse would, eh?” His voice, his narrowed eyes, exulted. “Forget it,
miss. Cig’s an A1 tamer of Janes. That’s de li’l’ old thing he’s de
champeen of de world at.”
He drew her closer to him.
There came a soft sound of feet thudding across the grass. The arm
about Betty’s throat relaxed. She heard a startled oath, found herself
flung aside. Her eyes opened.
Instantly she knew why Cig had released her. The man stood
crouched, snarling, his eyes fixed on an approaching runner, one
who moved with the swift precision of a half-back carrying a ball
down a whitewashed gridiron.
The runner was the tramp whose face her father had battered to a
pulp. He asked for no explanations and made no comment. Straight
for the released convict he drove.
Cig had not a chance. The bad air and food of the slums, late hours,
dissipation, had robbed him of both strength and endurance. He held
up his fists and squared off, for he was game enough. But Tug’s fist
smashed through the defense as though it had been built of paper.
The second-story man staggered back, presently went down before
a rain of blows against which he could find no protection.
Tug dragged him to his feet, cuffed him hard with his half-closed fist
again and again, then flung him a second time to the ground. He
stood over the fellow, his eyes blazing, his face colorless.
“Get up, you hound!” he ordered in a low voice trembling with anger.
“Get up and take it! I’ll teach you to lay hands on a woman!”
Cig did not accept this invitation. He rolled away, caught up York’s
heavy tramping stick, and stood like a wolf at bay, the lips lifted from
his stained yellow teeth.
“Touch me again an’ I’ll knock your block off,” he growled,
interlarding the threat with oaths and foul language.
“Don’t!” the girl begged of her champion. “Please don’t. Let’s go.
Right away.”
“Yes,” agreed the young fellow, white to the lips.
York flat-footed forward a step or two. “No use havin’ no trouble. Cig
he didn’t mean nothin’ but a bit of fun, Tug. Old Cig wouldn’t do no
lady any harm.” The tramp’s voice had taken on the professional
whine.
Tug fastened the girth, his fingers trembling so that he could hardly
slip the leather through to make the cinch. Even in the reaction from
fear Betty found time to wonder at this. He was not afraid. He had
turned his back squarely on the furious gangster from the slums to
tighten the surcingle. Why should he be shaking like a man in a chill?
The girl watched Cig while the saddle was being made ready. The
eyes in the twisted face of the convict were venomous. If thoughts
could have killed, Tug would have been a dead man. She had been
brought up in a clean world, and she did not know people could hate
in such a soul-and-body blasting way. It chilled the blood only to look
at him.
The girl’s rescuer turned to help her into the saddle. He gave her the
lift as one does who is used to helping a woman mount.
From the seat she stooped and said in a low voice, “I want you to go
with me.”
He nodded. Beside the horse he walked as far as the road. “My
pack’s back there on the track,” he said, and stopped, waiting for her
to ride away.
Betty looked down at him, a troubled frown on her face. “Where are
you going?”
A bitter, sardonic smile twitched the muscles of the bruised face. He
shrugged his shoulders.
“Looking for work?” she asked.
“Maybe I am,” he answered sullenly.
“We need men on the Diamond Bar K to help with the harvest.”
“The ranch where I was kicked off?”
“Father’s quick-tempered, but he’s square. I’ll talk with him about you
—”
“Why waste your time?” he mocked mordantly. “I’ll not impose on
him a good-for-nothing loafer, a worthless rotten-to-the-core hobo, a
slacker, a wastrel who ought to be on a rock-pile.”
“Dad didn’t mean all that. He was angry. But if you don’t want to work
for him, perhaps you’d work for me. I own a ranch, too.”
He looked up the road into the dancing heat waves. She was
wasting pity on him, was she? No doubt she would like to reform
him. A dull resentment burned in him. His sulky eyes looked into
hers.
“No,” he said shortly.
“But if you’re looking for work,” she persisted.
“I’m particular about who I work for,” he told her brutally.
She winced, but the soft dark eyes were still maternally tender for
him. He had fought for her, had saved her from a situation that held
at least degradation and perhaps horrible despair. Moreover, young
though he was, she knew that life had mauled him fearfully.
“I need men. I thought perhaps—”
“You thought wrong.”
“I’m sorry—about Father. You wouldn’t need to see him if you didn’t
want to. The Quarter Circle D E is four miles from the Diamond Bar
K.”
“I don’t care if it’s forty,” he said bluntly.
Her good intentions were at an impasse. The road was blocked. But
she could not find it in her heart to give up yet, to let him turn himself
adrift again upon a callous world. He needed help—needed it
desperately, if she were any judge. It was written on his face that he
was sailing stormy seas and that his life barque was drifting toward
the rocks. What help she could give she must press upon him.
“I’m asking you to be generous and forget what—what we did to
you,” she pleaded, leaning down impulsively and putting a hand on
his shoulder. “You saved me from that awful creature. Isn’t it your
turn now to let me help you if I can?”
“You can’t help me.”
“But why not? You’re looking for work. I need men. Wouldn’t it be
reasonable for us to get together on terms?” Her smile was very
sweet and just a little wistful, her voice vivid as the sudden song of a
meadow-lark.
Under the warmth of her kindness his churlishness melted.
“Good of you,” he said. “I’m much obliged. But it’s no use. Your
father had the right of it. I’m not any good.”
“I don’t believe it. Your life’s got twisted somehow. But you can
straighten it. Let me help. Won’t you? Because of what you did for
me just now.”
Her hand moved toward him in a tentative offer of friendship.
Automatically his eyes recorded that she wore a diamond ring on the
third finger. Some lucky fellow, probably some clean young man who
had given no hostages to vice, had won her sweet and gallant heart.
She was all eager desire and sympathy. For a moment, as he looked
into the dusky, mobile face that expressed a fine and gallant
personality, it seemed possible for him to trample down the vice that
was destroying him. But he pushed this aside as idle sentiment. His
way was chosen for him and he could not go back.
He shook his head and turned away. The bitter, sardonic smile again
rested like a shadow of evil on his good-looking face.
CHAPTER V
TUG IS “COLLECTED”
Tug followed the rails toward Wild Horse.

He groped in an abyss of humiliation and self-disgust. Slacker! The
cattleman’s scornful word had cut to the quick. The taste of it was
bitter. For he had not always been one. In war days he had done his
share.
How was it McCrae’s poem ran?
“We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
“Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.”
Yes, he had kept the faith in France, but he was not keeping it now.
The obligation was as binding on him in peace as on the battle-field.
He knew that. He recognized it fully. But when the pain in his head
began, his mind always flew to the only relief he knew. The drug had
become a necessity to him. If the doctors had only let him fight it out
from the beginning without help, he would not have become
accustomed to the accursed stuff.
But what was the use of going over that again and again? He was
done for. Why send his thoughts forever over the same treadmill?
The flaming sun poured down into the bowl of the valley and baked
its contents. He moved from the track to the shade of a cottonwood
and lay down. His racing thoughts grew more vague, for the hot sun
had made him sleepy. Presently his eyes closed drowsily. They
flickered open and slowly shut a second time. He began to breathe
deeply and regularly.
The sun passed the zenith and began to slide down toward the
western hills. Still Tug slept.
He dreamed. The colonel was talking to him. “Over the top, Hollister,
at three o’clock. Ten minutes now.” He shook himself out of sleep. It
was time to get busy.
Slowly he came back blinking to a world of sunshine. Two men stood
over him, both armed.
“Must be one of ’em,” the shorter of the two said.
“Sure thing. See his outfit. All rags. We’ll collect him an’ take him
back to the ranch.”
They were cowboys or farmhands, Tug was not sure which. He knew
at once, however, that their intentions were not friendly.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“You,” the short, stocky one answered curtly. He wore a big broad-
rimmed hat that was both ancient and dusty.
“Interesting. You a sheriff? Got a warrant for me?”
The little man raised the point of his thirty-eight significantly. “Ain’t
this warrant enough?”
“What’s the trouble? What d’you want me for?”
“Tell him, Dusty,” the lank cowboy said.
“All right, Burt.” To the tramp he said roughly: “We’ll learn you how to
treat a lady. Get up. You’re gonna trail back to the Diamond Bar K
with us.”
“You’ve got the wrong man,” explained Tug.
“Sure. You’re jus’ travelin’ through the country lookin’ for work,”
Dusty jeered. “We’ve heard that li’l’ spiel before. Why, you chump,
the ol’ man’s autograph is writ on yore face right now.”
Tug opened his mouth to expostulate, but changed his mind. What
was the use? He had no evidence. They would not let him go.
“I guess you hold the aces.” He rose, stiffly, remarking to the world at
large, “I’ve read about those three-gallon hats with a half-pint of
brains in them.”
Dusty bridled. “Don’t get gay with me, young feller. I’ll not stand for
it.”
“No?” murmured the hobo, and he somehow contrived to make of
the monosyllable a taunt.
“Just for that I’ll drag you back with a rope.”
Dusty handed his weapon to the other cowboy, stepped to his horse,
and brought back a rope. He uncoiled it and dropped the noose over
the tramp’s head, tightening it around his waist.
The riders swung to their saddles.
“Get a move on you,” Dusty ordered, giving the rope a tug. The other
end of it he had fastened to the horn of the saddle.
Tug walked ahead of the horses through the sand. It was a long hot
tramp, and Dusty took pains to make it as unpleasant as possible. If
the prisoner lagged, he dragged him on the ground, gibing at him,
and asking him whether he would insult another woman next time he
got a chance.
The cowpuncher found small satisfaction in the behavior of the man
at the other end of the rope. The ragged tramp neither answered his
sneers nor begged for mercy. He took what was coming to him
silently, teeth clamped tight.
At last Burt interfered. “That’ll be about enough, Dusty. The old
man’s gonna settle with him. It’s his say-so about what he wants
done to this guy.” He added, a moment later: “I ain’t so darned sure

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Neoliberal Education and the

Redefinition of Democratic Practice in

Feeling Academic in the Neoliberal University: Feminist

Neoliberal Urban Governance. Spaces, Culture and

Corporatizing Rural Education: Neoliberal Globalization

African Democratic Citizenship Education Revisited 1st

Practice-Focused Research in Further Adult and

Public Opinion: Democratic Ideals, Democratic Practice

Democratic Representation in Plurinational States: The

University Education, Controversy and Democratic

More information about this series at

New Frontiers in Education, Culture, and Politics

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018952638

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

Cover image: © Martin Shields/Alamy Stock Photo

1 Democracy and the Doubling-Down of Neoliberal

2 Shifting Rationalities and Multiple Democracies:

3 Differential Citizenship in Neoliberal Chicago: School

3.3 Urban Spatiality and Neoliberal Citizenship in Chicago 54

4 A Strike by Any Other Name…: Democratic Education

5 The Dissolution of Trust: Coercion and Chicago’s

6 The Antidemocratic Dialectic: Democratic Practices

7 Coda: DeVos and the Future of Neoliberal Education

7.3 The Emancipatory Rhetoric of DeVos 140

Democracy and the Doubling-Down

© The Author(s) 2018 1

1.2 The Failure of Neoliberal Education Reform

on structural rather than pedagogic issues. In short, they reposition the

schooling. The inevitable effect of this exclusion is populations with less

of disinvestment (economic, social, and cultural) that neoliberal reform

1.3 The Rise of Bizzaro Democracy

of an antiunion movement in Chicago. In addition, Renaissance 2010

It is important to recognize that democratic ideals are being sutured

influence. The introduction of scientific technologies, such as sociol-

therefore no surprise that the outcomes of the policies he proposes do

instance of practice involving the production and interpretation of the

struggled over within particular governmental logics. In other words,

instances in which democratic processes are called for and dislocates

government’s reach, including the field of education. Trump’s elec-

which neoliberal education reform both exacerbates difference and in fact

Ball, S. J. (1994). Education reform: A critical and post-structural approach.

Fairclough, N. (2010). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language

Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. Oxford: Blackwell.

Ontario. Available at www.yorku.ca/raps1/events/pdf/Smith_Carrier_

Shifting Rationalities and Multiple

© The Author(s) 2018 27

from their churches or from HOPE Organization. “This is money from

at school closing policy in Chicago to examine how differing understand-

2.2 Parsing Democracy

how democracy is used as a strategic intervention into social and power

2.3 Shifting Rationalities, Shifting Democracies

of governance. To utilize political economy as a rationality of govern-

Each of these points is clear in the shifting history of the concept

government expanded as the discourse slowly shifted to one of the pos-

natural laws or the state as in previous iterations of liberalism. In other

2.4 Closing Down Schools, Closing Down Democracy

The schools being closed in Chicago, and the concomitant charter

Tug followed the rails toward Wild Horse.

1.2 The Failure of Neoliberal Education Reform

1.3 The Rise of Bizzaro Democracy