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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
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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)
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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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The dolphin, who knew now where he was, began to rise to the
surface. A few hours later he had reached the place Tursio had
spoken about.
“Here we are at last!” he cried.
“Here? Why, where is the ship?”
“There,” answered Marsovino,
pointing to a great black mass which
showed through the water.
“That! Why look how it is trimmed!”
And he was indeed right. The
inhabitants of the sea had taken
possession of everything. The keel of
the ship was overgrown with beautiful
slender seaweeds. The decks were
covered with sponges. The stairs had
disappeared under the work of polyps.
On the lookout bridge hundreds of anemones raised their brightly
colored corollas. The needles of sea urchins threatened passers-by
from the portholes. Silvery fishes and starfishes were seen all over.
Everything was living on the dead ship.
“Now let us hasten,” said Marsovino.
“Very well,” answered Pinocchio.
“We have been so long in coming that now we must be quick,”
continued the dolphin.
“Father must be worried. Let us look for the treasure, and then we
can begin our return journey to-night.”
“Very well,” again assented Pinocchio.
“Make haste, then. Get into that ship. Don’t lose any more time.”
“Come, let us go.”
“Let us go! How can I go? Don’t you see how small the doors are?
You must go alone!”
Pinocchio did not like the idea. He stood still and thought. His
courage utterly failed him. To go alone into that great black ship!
Why, how could he do such a thing?
“Well, what are you thinking of?” asked Marsovino, who had dropped
Pinocchio at the door of the stairs.
“I haven’t made up my mind yet. I don’t like the idea of going in there
very much.”
“But you must. I can’t go, and we must have the gold. Will you
decide? I thought you had offered to help Mr. Tursio.”
When he heard that, Pinocchio finally made up his mind. He opened
the door and went down a few steps. Then he stopped.
“Must I really go?” he asked.
Marsovino began to lose his patience.
“If you do not make haste getting into that ship, I shall return without
you,” he could not help saying.
“Very well. Here I go.”
“You remember Tursio’s instructions, don’t you? At the bottom of the
stairs there is a large room. At one end a door leads into the
captain’s room. In a corner of the captain’s room, you will find two
boxes. They contain the treasure. Good-by and good luck.”
Very slowly Pinocchio went down. Luckily for him a few sunfishes
were floating around, giving some light.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he saw in front of him a
large square room. In the walls were long narrow holes, like the
shelves of a pantry. These had probably been the sailors’ bunks. But
to Pinocchio they were puzzles.
The roof, which was very high, was of glass. This made the room
lighter than the stairs, and so Pinocchio took courage.
At one end of the room there was a small narrow door. Pinocchio
walked to it and tried to open it. Still, though the door was not locked,
it would not open. It seemed as if some one were holding it closed
from the inside. The marionette pushed it, kicked it, struggled with it,
and finally he succeeded in opening it. He was able to put just the tip
of his nose in the crack.
He had no sooner done this, though, than it was held as in a vise.
Pinocchio felt something pulling and pulling.
“My nose will surely come off,” he thought; but after trying and trying
he was at last free again.
“I wonder what that was? What can be behind
that door? In any case it may be better to
have some weapon of defense,” and thinking
this, Pinocchio looked around.
“Those shelves may hold something useful.”
But when he came near them, what did he
see? A mattress, pillows, sheets!
“What could this have been? A hospital?”
Poor Pinocchio! He was most certainly a
dunce!
On the floor in a corner he found a pair of
large boots.
“These will do,” he thought.
Again he pushed the door. This time he was
able to open it wide. As soon as he had done
so, he threw a large boot in blindly. Had he never done so, it would
have been better! In a second the room became as black as pitch.
“Marsovino! Oh! Oh! Oh! Marsovino!” screamed the poor boy,
thinking himself blinded.
The dolphin, waiting for Pinocchio at the head of the stairs, became
frightened at this appeal. He thought something serious had
happened. He swam to the top of the deck and broke several panes
of glass. Looking into the room he called: “What is the matter? I am
here.”
Pinocchio felt a little better when he saw Marsovino.
“Oh, Marsovino!” he cried.
“What has happened, my poor Pinocchio?”
“I have found a bottle of ink.”
“A bottle of what?”
“Of ink. I threw a boot at something, and now the room is full of ink.”
“Oh, now I understand. You have to deal with an octopus.”
“What’s that?”
“A mollusk.”
“Oh, if that’s what it is, I’m not afraid. I know them well.”
“‘Marsovino! Oh! Oh! Oh!’”
“Yes, but not this one. This is the greatest mollusk known. It is a near
relation of the calamary, but much larger. There are some even five
or six yards long.”
“Oh!” shivered Pinocchio, looking around.
“The one in the captain’s room must be a small one, though. If I were
with you, I should free you in a second. There is nothing a dolphin
likes better than an octopus or a calamary.”
“But the ink?”
“The ink is the means of defense of these mollusks. When pursued
or in danger, this animal ejects this inky liquid. In that way, it forms a
cloud in the water and is able to escape.”
“Shall I be killed?”
“If you keep out of reach of its long arms, you will be all right.”
“Oh, now I see what got hold of my poor nose. It is aching yet. Now
tell me, Marsovino, if this animal is guarding the treasure, how shall I
possibly get at it? We might as well give it up,” and Pinocchio started
towards the stairs.
“How very courageous you are! After trying so hard, are you going to
give up at the last minute?”
Pinocchio did not answer, but very
slowly he retraced his steps. Going
over to the bunks, he took a large
mattress. Holding it in front of him, he
moved toward the door, which was
still ajar.
The water from the captain’s room
had mixed with the water of the large
room, and now it was not so dark.
Very cautiously, the marionette
peeked over the mattress.
In a corner of the room lay the poulpe
or octopus. As Marsovino had said, it
was not very large. Still it was very
ugly.
Think of a large head, soft and jellylike, with two great eyes staring at
you. Think of that head and eight long thick arms around it. No
wonder Pinocchio felt like turning back.
The monster moved restlessly about, stretching and twisting its
arms. In one of them it held Pinocchio’s boot. Every minute its huge
body changed color. At first it was white, then gray, then brown, then
spotted with purple. Pinocchio hardly knew what to think of it.
“You are certainly very ugly, my dear bottle of ink,” he thought.
“Well, why am I standing here? I might as well try to kill him. Hurrah!
Here comes the brave marionette!”
Very slowly Pinocchio walked up to the octopus, but not near enough
to be in reach of those arms. Then with a quick move he threw the
mattress over the struggling mass. Pressing it down tightly, he held it
there.
For a long time the arms twitched nervously about, but at last they
stopped moving. The boy waited a few minutes longer, and then,
thinking the creature dead, he stood up.
The mattress, however, he left on top of the poulpe. Not only that,
but running back, he took another and put it on top of the first. He
wanted to be sure the octopus would not move. At last he breathed
easily and set to work to get the boxes.
Yes, think of it! That lazy marionette really set to work. He dragged
the boxes one after the other into the large room, and then he called
Marsovino.
“Here is the treasure, Marsovino. Now how am I to carry these heavy
boxes upstairs?”
Marsovino then lowered a stout rope which he had carried with him.
Pinocchio tied the boxes to it, one after the other, and the dolphin
pulled them up.
“Throw the rope down again, Marsovino!”
“What for? Are there three treasure boxes?”
“You will see.”
As soon as the end of the rope touched the floor of the room,
Pinocchio tied it around his waist. “Now pull!” he called.
Marsovino pulled, and in a second
Pinocchio stood on the bridge.
“I really had no wish to return by those
dark dusty stairs,” he laughed, seeing
Marsovino’s look of wonder.
CHAPTER XV
At last the two had done their duty. The treasure
was theirs. All that remained now was to go back to
Tursio with it.
“Let us start this minute,” said Marsovino, who was
anxious to see his father again.
“Yes, but first please give me something to eat.”
“Should you like to have some grapes?” said Marsovino, kindly.
“I don’t see the use of making my mouth water needlessly,”
answered Pinocchio.
“But I mean what I’m saying. Should you like some grapes?”
“Show them to me first. Then I’ll answer you.”
“Come here then, unbeliever.” As he spoke, Marsovino led Pinocchio
to a mast, which, strange to say, had not been touched by the
polyps. Hanging from a slender thread was a bunch of what looked
like red grapes.
“What are they?” Pinocchio could only ask.
“Don’t you see? They are sea grapes. Eat them.”
“But first I want you to tell me what they are.”
“They are the eggs of the calamary, a near relation of the octopus
you had to deal with to-day.”
“Very well, then. I’m willing to destroy all sign of those horrible
beings.” In a short time Pinocchio had made a good luncheon out of
them.
“‘What are They?’”
Luncheon finished, Marsovino gave Pinocchio the box of pearls

which he was holding for the marionette. Then the dolphin tied the
treasure boxes on his back, and the two friends were ready to start.
They again passed the beach where the seals had had their battle.
Now it was full of men. Some were skinning the poor animals. Others
were pressing out the oil from their bodies. Still others were
spreading the skins out on the sand to dry.
Again the two travelers came into the polar seas. Here they found a
great change. Icebergs had melted, and the sea was full of floating
ice.
At last, without meeting any mishaps, the two again entered the
warmer ocean. They had gone only a few miles when Pinocchio
heard a great noise behind him. Both friends turned. On the calm
surface of the sea rose two high columns of water.
“The whale!” exclaimed Marsovino.
“Nonsense, whale!” answered Pinocchio, who now and then still
forgot how little he knew. “Don’t you see it’s a fountain? How could
an animal send the water so high?”
“Still it is the whale. You are just seeing a cetacean breathe.”
“You are a cetacean, too. But I see only one hole in your head, and
the jet of water you throw is very low.”
“Yes, we are cetaceans, but we are not whales. The whale proper
has two breathing holes.”
“Mercy! what a noise that monster does make!” breathed Pinocchio.
“Now, if she comes near us, we’ll disappear.”
“Have no fear, Pinocchio. The whale, although such a large animal,
is quiet and harmless if you let her alone. She is even timid. And
don’t think that because her mouth is large she can eat large
animals.”
“Her mouth may be large, but her throat is so small that she can
swallow only very small fishes. If we had met the cachalot, or sperm
whale, we should have reason to be frightened.”
“And what is that?”
“It’s an immense cetacean. You can tell it from the common whale,
not only by its one breathing hole, but also by its size. The head
alone is enormous, and its mouth is frightful with its many large
sharp teeth.”
“Hasn’t this whale teeth?”
“No. But instead of teeth, its upper jaw is lined with at least seven
hundred plates of a thick horny substance. These plates are often
twelve and fifteen feet long.”
“When the whale wants to eat it opens its huge mouth, and then
closes it full of water. This water is then strained through the plates,
and hundreds of small fishes are caught in them. The whale can
then swallow her dinner at her leisure.”
“What a dinner!” exclaimed Pinocchio. “Now tell me this. Why is it
that so many whales are captured by whalers? You say that they are
harmless. Why, then, should they be killed?”
“They are caught because of their value. Those horny plates I spoke
of are what is called whalebone. The large tongue of the whale
contains many barrels of oil. From the body of the whale great
quantities of fat may be had. All these things are of great use in the
world.”
“What about that other whale you
spoke of? The one with the terrible
teeth.”
“The sperm whale? Oh! that one is a
dreadful being. With its great mouth
and sharp teeth it can eat anything.
Seals, dolphins, and even the terrible
squaloids are lost, if they come near
him. He is very ferocious.”
While Marsovino and Pinocchio were
talking, the whale had come nearer.
The marionette saw a small dark
object climb on her back.
“What is that?” he asked.
“That’s a baby whale. Whales are very affectionate mothers. The
baby whale is tired, so the mother is going to carry it.”
Suddenly a dark head and body rose out of the water. Like an arrow
it threw itself on the poor whale. With its large mouth it tore a great
piece of flesh from the cetacean’s side and then disappeared into the
waves.
“Mercy! The sea wolf!” cried Marsovino, looking around for some
place to hide.
“What is the sea wolf? The name does not sound terrible.”
“It is the most dangerous and fierce squaloid. It is even worse than
the hammer! Let us run!” said Marsovino, breathlessly.
“But if we run the wolf will run after us.”
“You are right. Where shall we hide? Oh, here! Let us try to get
among these weeds.”
Near them was a large plant. Its leaves would make a very safe
hiding place. Pinocchio stood on Marsovino’s back and pushed the
leaves aside. In a short time the two were so well hidden that no
eyes could see them.
“Here we are safe,” and the dolphin
gave a sigh of relief.
“And how well we can see.”
Pinocchio, like the boy he was,
wanted to see the fight.
In fact, a short distance away, a terrific
fight was in progress. The wolf had
now attacked the baby whale. This
made the mother furious. She tried to
hit the shark with her tail, but he was
too quick for her. The poor cetacean
was getting the worst of it. The wolf’s
mouth, provided with four hundred
sharp teeth, was tearing the whale’s
side to pieces. Blood was pouring from them both, and it seemed as
if the whale could not hold out much longer.
A second dark body now made its appearance. It was as long as the
whale, but much larger. Its head was enormous, and from the top of
it rose a single high column of water.
“The sperm whale! The cachalot!” breathed Marsovino, and it
seemed to Pinocchio that the dolphin turned pale.
It was not to be mistaken! It was the terrible whale! And he seemed
not at all frightened by the sight of the fighters. Instead, opening wide
his mouth—and such a mouth—he threw himself on them. With a
snap of the great jaws the sea wolf’s tail disappeared.
And then, as if the battle were not fierce enough, a long bladelike
object appeared on the scene. The sides of the blade were provided
with sharp teeth. Behind the blade was a dark head. The new arrival
was the sawfish, coming to see what the matter was. Without much
ado it started to deal blows, first on this side, then on that.
Not even the sperm whale escaped the terrible saw. Long ragged
tears were soon seen on its body. Cries of pain were heard on all
sides. The sea was a sea of blood.
Finally the whale, seeing that she was lost if she stayed there long,
tried to escape. As swiftly as she could, she swam away with her
baby.
Though the whale was gone, the fight
still raged. The wolf and the saw,
although both of the same family, are
sworn enemies. Not paying much
attention to the sperm whale, they
started to battle with each other. But the
wolf was so exhausted by the loss of
blood that it could not do much. The
cachalot, seeing himself overlooked,
threw himself on the sawfish. But as
quick as a flash the sawfish dived and
came up on the other side of the giant. Angrier than ever, the whale
now turned to the wolf and in an instant snapped his head off.
The whale was satisfied. Pouring blood from twenty wounds, he left
the field of battle. The sawfish was left alone in all his glory. He was
hurt but little. Very calmly he started to make a dinner of the sea
wolf, or at least of what was left of him.
The dolphin now thought it safe to try to escape. Once out of the
weeds, he fled as fast as he could.
Poor Pinocchio could only sit still and look around. He feared any
minute to see a hammerhead or a wolf or a whale appear before
him.
“Oh! how horrible, how awful is the sea!” he thought.
CHAPTER XVI
After racing along madly for a while, Marsovino
became so tired that he had to stop.
“I must rest,” he said to Pinocchio.
“Very well, I’m willing,” answered the marionette.
In front of them the two friends could see a dark
mass. Seen from the sea, it looked like a strip of
land. But on approaching, one could see that it was
nothing but a high rock.
This strip was separated from the shore of a small island by a long
narrow channel of water. Marsovino swam a few yards up the
channel, and then stopped to let Pinocchio jump on land.
“That battle in the sea has upset me greatly,” said Pinocchio to his
friend. “I must strengthen myself with some food. But I don’t see
anything around. What shall I eat?”
The last words were interrupted by a soft whistle from the channel. A
second whistle was heard, then a third, then a fourth. Our two friends
turned. Large, clumsy, black bodies were coming out of the water.
They were trying very hard to get to shore.
Pinocchio knew them at once. They were sea tortoises, and it was
they who had made those strange sounds. After dragging
themselves to the shore, they stood on the sand, moving their heads
and blinking up at the sun.
“You said you wanted something to eat, Pinocchio. Well, do you see
those large holes on the sand there? Look in them. You will surely
find some tortoise eggs in them. They will make a delicious dinner
for you.”
Pinocchio did not have to be told twice. In a moment he was gone. In
a short time he returned with two large eggs in his hands.
“Make haste, now, eat them. We must
continue our journey, and we have no
time to lose.”
“You are going to wait, my dear
Marsovino. I really do not see why you
should be in such a hurry.”
“Because father told me never to stop
needlessly. That’s why.”
“Yes, I know; but you shall wait now.
Since I have been with you I have eaten
nothing but raw fish. Fish and mollusks,
mollusks and fish, and I’m getting tired
of it. To-day I am going to eat boiled
eggs.”
“Boiled eggs! How, pray, and in what are
you going to boil them?”
“Ha, ha! That’s my secret. That day in the ship I found an iron box
with the word matches written on it. I kept it, but I never opened it.
Here it is.” And Pinocchio showed the dolphin a small black box
firmly closed.
“Now I’m going to use the matches. Do you want to see me build a
fire and cook my eggs?”
“Very well, have your own way. But make haste, you disobedient
boy.”
In no time Pinocchio had a good fire started.
“Now in what shall I put the water to boil?” he thought.
He looked around, and not very far away he saw a huge empty
tortoise shell.
“Marsovino!” he called. “Come here! Will you please blow on this fire
for me? I don’t want it to go out, and I want to get that tortoise shell
and some water.”
“But I can’t move out of the water,” answered Marsovino.
“Oh, yes, you can. Come! Drag yourself as near as possible to the
water. You amphibians can live out of the water for a while. So make
haste!”
“But Mr. Tursio told me never to leave the water.”
“Well, just for once.”
Marsovino finally gave in. There was no great harm in just one little
disobedience, he thought.
Pinocchio hastened away, and soon he was back with the shell full of
fresh water.
“Oh, how good that spring water was,” he said to his friend, who was
busily blowing the fire. “Now for a good dinner!”
The eggs were soon cooked, and Pinocchio certainly enjoyed them.
“I feel so well after that dinner I could travel to the end of the world,”
he said when he had finished.
The two travelers then turned toward the sea. But Marsovino gave a
cry of horror. In the channel hardly any water was left. The pebbly
bottom could be seen, and beyond that the steep rock.
“The tide!” cried Marsovino. “I forgot the tide! Poor me! I am lost!”
“What is the matter?”
“Don’t you see the water is gone? The tide has gone out, and now
how am I to get back to the sea? Before the tide comes in again I
shall be dead. Oh, oh, I shall never see dear father again.” And as
he talked poor Marsovino was beginning to breathe with difficulty,
and to suffer greatly.
Pinocchio understood little about tides, but he knew what Marsovino
meant by dying.
“And it is all my fault,” he cried, pulling at his hair. “If he dies, poor
me, what shall happen to me? I must find some way of saving him.”
Marsovino was now giving little sign of life. He lay on the sand, with
eyes closed, and breathing heavily.
With two bounds, Pinocchio was on top of the rocky ledge. Before
him was the sea.
“If only it were possible to break a hole in this rock,” he thought.
As if in answer, a strange object made its appearance in front of him.
It was a white spiral pole about two yards long. Behind the pole
Pinocchio saw a round gray head spotted with black. Against the
rocks the animal came with such force that they trembled. Suddenly
an idea struck our hero.
“Pardon me,” he called, “but will you allow me to speak with you a
moment?”
The immense animal, about six yards long, looked the boy over.
“What do you want, you small piece of humanity?” he asked proudly.
Pinocchio very humbly and very quickly told him the story of the poor
dolphin.
“And as it is my fault that he is in this condition, I want to try to save
him!” he exclaimed. “You seem so strong, will you please give this
rock a few knocks with that tooth of yours? I know you’ll be able to
break it.”
At this earnest supplication the narwhal, for that is what the animal
was, was highly pleased. He looked at Pinocchio in a tolerant way.
“First of all,” he answered, “before I do anything for you, let me ask
you a question.”
“Yes, sir, but please make haste, or Marsovino will die.”
“Do not interrupt me again, boy. First of all, what are you willing to
give me in return for this favor?”
“I have nothing, sir. I would give you anything I have—I wish I had
something—but I have nothing.”
“I do nothing for nothing. Good-by, then,” the narwhal replied. “But
answer me this. What have you in that box in your hands? That box

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Neoliberal Education and the

Redefinition of Democratic Practice in

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

Luncheon finished, Marsovino gave Pinocchio the box of pearls

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1.2 The Failure of Neoliberal Education Reform

1.3 The Rise of Bizzaro Democracy