Instructor

Teachers College, Columbia University - New York, NY

American Politics & Education - GR Seminar (Summer 2024)

Politics is often defined as “who gets what, when, and how.” In this course, we will apply this definition to educational opportunity to explore the political environment in which many educational decisions are made. This course serves as an introduction to American politics of education, and provides students with an understanding of the political forces that shape educational policies, with an emphasis on governance structures, stakeholders, public engagement, and partisan interests in education. Specific topics include school governance, school funding, desegregation, and civic education, though students will be able to select additional topics to be discussed.

Politics of Centralization & Decentralization - GR Seminar (Spring 2023; Spring 2024)

This course analyzes the political underpinnings and consequences of centralization versus decentralization at various levels of governance with special but not exclusive attention to educational decision-making. What accounts for the emergence and evolution of the U.S. federal system, and what difference does it make how we allocate authority among nation, state, and local governments? How does the multiplicity of local governments promote or constrain responsiveness to citizen needs and demands, and what are the prospects for regional governance in metropolitan areas? What have been the causes and results of various efforts to decentralize to neighborhoods or individual schools?

Politics & Public Policy - GR Seminar (Fall 2022; Fall 2023)

What are the various stages of the policy process, from the recognition of certain problems as public issues to the adoption of policies to address those problems and the implementation and evaluation of those policies? This course touches on all these stages but focuses on policy origins: problem recognition and agenda setting, consideration of possible policy solutions, and policy adoption. The course examines policy origins through the lenses of various theoretical perspectives drawn from political science, sociology, economics, and law, including policy entrepreneurship theory, the advocacy coalition framework, punctuated equilibrium theory, diffusion theory, institutional theory, and the theory of the state. These perspectives are grounded by looking at the origins of particular policies concerning early childhood, K-12, and higher education.

The College of Idaho - Caldwell, ID

Politics of Education - UG Lecture (Spring 2021, Winter 2022)

Harold Lasswell famously defined, “Politics is who gets what, when, and how.” In this course, this definition will be applied to the context of education, as many individuals take for granted the complex, political environment in which many educational decisions are made. This course serves as an introduction to the increasingly complex intersection of politics and education. The purpose of this course is to provide students with an understanding of the forces that shape educational policy, with an emphasis on governance structures, stakeholders, public engagement, and contemporary, political issues/discussions in education. The first part of this course will focus on a broad overview of the politics of K-12 education in the United States, paying particular emphasis to governance, funding systems, and the politicization of education. The second part of this course will critically apply the framework of the U.S. Education system to other countries’ education systems, focusing on what works and what does not. The course will conclude with a student-led, normative discussion of how education should be. 

First Year Seminar: Political Ideologies & Arguments - UG Seminar (Fall 2020, Spring 2021)

Political ideologies are often compared to pairs of glasses: they can help us see and clarify different aspects of the world around us. Each allows us to understand different aspects of politics, philosophy, and economics while valuing different priorities. Because individuals are information misers, ideologies also act as heuristics that allow us to sort our own beliefs and preferences without much effort. For example, I should feel this way about topic X, because I feel this way about topic Y. Consequently, the American political environment is often consolidated (for better or worse) into a simple left-right spectrum, with Democrats on the left and Republicans on the right. While the United States is a two-party system, the political parties do not always capture the diversity of our individual or collective priorities. Better understanding modern political ideologies helps us understand this dissonance. In this class, we survey liberalism, conservatism, and radicalism by critically examining writings by prominent ideological authors and orators.