Kathryn McDermott, associate professor of education and public policy, will discuss “Diversity, Race-Neutrality, and Austerity: The Changing Politics of Urban Education” on Monday, October 4, at 12 p.m. in Thompson 620. The talk is part of the Center for Public Policy and Administration’s Fall 2010 Faculty Colloquium.
Professor McDermott’s research concerns political debates around school diversity and how these debates have been shaped in recent years by the emphasis on school performance and the financial crisis of 2008.
McDermott’s analysis draws on case material from school districts in Boston, MA, Raleigh, NC, and Louisville, KY. Her findings suggest that racial and socioeconomic diversity have become less and less part of public debates about urban schools, and that concerns about enhancing racial and socioeconomic diversity have become increasingly disconnected from strategies for improving school performance.
She also will describe how recent race-neutral policies governing school assignment generate different political dynamics from previous generations of race-conscious policies.
McDermott is the author of Controlling Public Education: Localism Versus Equity, and the forthcoming book, High Stakes Reform: The Politics of Educational Accountability. She is a specialist on state-level educational policies and has led a comprehensive study of Massachusetts’ capacity to implement educational reform. As an expert on policies to achieve educational equity, she also has examined the role of public policy in providing better access to higher education in New England. McDermott has been at UMass Amherst since 1999 and holds a doctorate in political science from Yale University.
This talk is free and open to the public. Brownbag lunches are welcome. For additional information, go to www.masspolicy.org or contact Kathy Colón (kcolon@pubpol.umass.edu).