Chapter 3: Beyond Knowing Your History: Multicultural and Citizenship Education as Necessities for Democracy

When examining the success or failure of educational institutions, one has to deal with the age-old question—What is the goal of education? Education has certainly been misused and abused, producing outcomes that are contrary to the ostensibly virtuous goals, particularly for children in the margins. In schools across the United States, we see children of color disproportionately placed in special education classes, while being underrepresented in gifted education. We see evidence of the school to prison pipeline, and we also see the persistent and pervasive gap in achievement between the rich and poor and between students of color and their White and Asian counterparts. When examining the outcomes of our current educational system, we have to ask what are the goals of state sponsored education for “other people’s children.”