J Educ Change (2007) 8:185188

DOI 10.1007/s10833-007-9020-3
BOOK REVIEW

Learning PowerBook review

Molly Reilly

Received: 11 January 2007 / Accepted: 11 January 2007 / Published online: 25 April 2007
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

Learning Power tells the story of how low-income students and parents of color in Los
Angeles are challenging the unequal distribution of power that creates and reinforces
educational inequities in the United States. As educational activists, Jeannie Oakes and
John Rogers do this by researching problems, generating inspiration, learning new skills,
designing solutions, and influencing political decisions about schools. Their story includes
rich and productive processes of inquiry focused on a crucial question: what does it take to
build powerful social movements capable of realizing justice for all in our public schools?
In their search for answers, Oakes and Rogers revisit past history and approaches,
including the thinking and practice of educational philosopher John Dewey and civil rights
era popular educators Septima Clark and Ella Baker. They examine these precedents in
light of recent, real-life experiences of educational activists today. These reflections produce important insights about the nature of power and change, and generate new possibilities for revitalizing peoples democratic participation in decisions that impact their
lives.
Along with a network of other non-governmental organizations, my organization, Just
Associates, is exploring possibilities for connecting US organizing and activism to international social change movements. In particular, we have been assessing the potential for
re-energizing US education organizing and activism through building deeper relationships
with counterparts involved with similar economic, social and cultural rights struggles in the
global South (Reilly & Marphatia, 2006). In spite of huge challenges, emerging movements for education and other basic rights are building citizenship power for positive
change around the globe. In this regard, Oakes and Rogers offer lessons and innovations
with potentially universal applicability. The following comments aim to connect key insights from Learning Power with strategies that are emerging from rights-based popular
struggles for justice and dignity in the global South.
Experiences from outside the US shed light on educational organizing and illuminate
how organizing can begin to redefine the frames which influence public understanding of

M. Reilly (&)
Just Associates, Washington, DC, USA
e-mail: mer@justassociates.org

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J Educ Change (2007) 8:185188

the problems in our education systems and shape the menu of possible solutions. Social
scientists can easily focus on the most visible aspects of powerthe formal rules, laws,
budgets, policies and decision-making procedures and institutionsdespite the reality that
transforming inequitable education systems requires strategies that address power
dynamics so deeply embedded in culture and thinking as to be almost invisible. This aspect
of power plays a foundational role in shaping peoples expectations and understanding of
what is possible. Working through values and ideologies around race and class, and around
public institutions and resources, deep-seated power dynamics influence possibilities for
change, although organizing strategies rarely explicitly target them.
The invisible power dynamic that Oakes and Rogers refer to as the logic of scarcity
relates to a broad shift in how education is framed and understoodmoving away from the
idea of education as a public good and toward market-oriented models, resulting in
shrunken government capacity, an expanding role for the private sector, and minimal
public expenditures. This trend is impacting how people understand the purposes of
education and is emphasizing individualism, competition and economic returns, as Oakes
and Rogers note in their analysis of how the anxieties of middle-class parents blocked
equity reforms at one high school. The new discourses around merit and competition
are displacing notions of mutual responsibility and community solidarity, and downplaying
the idea of education as a fundamental right. In the process, public responsibility and
accountability for equity are vanishing, fundamentally reshaping the social contract
wherein public education is, in the words of the United States Supreme Court in Brown v.
Board of Education, perhaps the most important function of state and local governments.
Organizing processes in many developed nationsmost noticeably the US and the
UKare just beginning to move beyond the Sisyphean task of struggling with the budget
cuts and other immediate impacts of neo-liberalism. Achieving transformational goals is
complicated by the fact that myths about the power of markets to solve public problems
have radically narrowed the menu of policy and budget options on the table. While the
closure of the policy arena might at first look like an insurmountable challenge to transforming schools, and is indeed causing many groups to reduce their vision to fit current
realities in the name of being pragmatic, it is likely to be a dead end only if strategies
focus exclusively on the legal and policy dimensions of injustice and inequality.
Social justice movements in indebted countries have wrestled with similar challenges
for the past twenty years, as the decision-making authority of their own governments and
the scope for expanding funding for education have been nullified by the macro-economic
policy mandates of powerful international institutions such as the World Bank the International Monetary Fund (Tomasevski, 2006). These movements are responding by complementing efforts targeting the international policy arena with organizing and education
strategies that build power by surfacing and challenging the underlying neoliberal
worldview that limits policy and budget choices. The Global Campaign for Education
(GCE), for example, is a network of national coalitions of teachers unions and education
rights groups in over 150 countries. GCEs 2003 week of action involved 100,000
people in Brazil, 325,000 in Senegal, and 300,000 in over 100 urban and rural districts in
India. The research and outreach programs of GCE and other significant actors in the
international education arena are increasingly focused on challenging the ideologies and
macro-economic frameworks that cast education as a commodity rather than a human
right.
Organizing around common values and worldviews connects to Oakes and Rogers
work in that it involves creating new spaces for inclusive, empowering community

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reflection on whats going on and whywith a long-term vision of building a movement of

active, informed citizens with the power and organization needed to reclaim the policy
desert and transform it into fertile soil for policies that will really make a difference. Oakes
and Rogers revive in their work the kinds of participatory methodologies which have fallen
out of fashion among policymakers but hold the potential to build a sense of active
citizenship among new leaders and constituencies. These methods are common practice
among resistance movements in the global South. Citizen budget initiatives in rural Indian
villages, for example, routinely engage hundreds of often illiterate villagers in analyzing
village development budgets to counter corruption and misuse, accessing funds for urgent
health, water and education needs. Learning Power suggests that there is much to be
gained through expanded efforts to engage new voices from marginalized communities in a
fresh conversation that seeks to name and learn more about the social forces that are
shrinking public investment and accountability, promoting false solutions, and limiting
resources and policy options.
Quoting W.E.B. Du Bois reaction to the Brown ruling striking down de jure racial
segregation in the American public schools, Oakes and Rogers recognize that there are
many and long steps on the road to achieving justice and equity in schools and society.
On that road, how will we know that we are headed in the right direction and making good
progress toward our goals?
Organizing success is conventionally understood in terms of numbers of people
mobilized, number and quality of media hits and wins, meaning changes in policy or
practice that result in tangible improvements. While all of these are critical ingredients of
organizing success, they do not reflect the gains of alternative strategies that emphasize
new relationships, new leadership and voices, understanding and challenging values and
worldviews that threaten equityto say nothing of intangibles like hope, confidence and a
sense of active citizenship needed to revitalize peoples democratic participation in decisions that impact their lives. What elements, then, might be included in a framework for
assessing the impact of alternative organizing strategies? In addition to policy, practice and
budget gains, alternative strategies can be evaluated on the extent to which they challenge
the logics or worldviews that threaten equity in schools. We should keep our eye on
emerging Southern assessment and learning practices, documented and disseminated by
groups like the Global Campaign for Education, that offer additional ideas for assessing
how strategies contribute to stronger movements and renewed democracy in public decision processes (Chapman & Wameyo, 2001; Miller, 1994).
Looking beyond numbers, one measure of movement-building impact could be the
creation of new relationships and the depth of trust in those relationships. Oakes and
Rogers re-define the role of academics and people with expert technical knowledge. The
old paradigm where experts develop the policy agenda around which organizers then
mobilize people is at odds with an organizing strategy that emphasizes participatory,
empowering processes that promote new leadership by affirming peoples knowledge of
their own reality and by engaging them in analyzing and addressing the political situation
for themselves. Other organizing outcomes that help to assess a strategys contribution to
producing stronger movements include: the depth of commitment and understanding
among leaders and constituencies; linkages with like-minded coalitions and networks at
state, national and international levels; and new insights, learning and knowledge about
how to facilitate processes of equitable change. Learning Power reaffirms lessons from
political contexts around the globe where democracy remains a fragile work-in-progress,
reminding us that organizing success includes creating new legitimacy for constituencies

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and concerns at the margins of power, thereby forcing public institutions and structures to
operate in more responsive and accountable ways.
References
Chapman, J., & Wameyo, A. (2001). Monitoring and evaluation advocacy: A scoping study. London: Action
Aid, www.preval.org/documentos/00545.pdf.
Miller, V. (1994). NGO and grassroots policy experience: What is success? IDR Report 11(5), Boston.
Reilly, M., & Marphatia, A. (2006). Forging a global movement: New education tights strategies for the US
and the world. Action Aid and Just Associates. www.justassociates.org.
Tomasevski, K. (2006). The state of the right to education worldwide. Free or fee: 2006 global report.
Copenhagen, August 2006, http://www.katarinatomasevski.com/images/Global_Report.pdf.

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