CFP: Education Reform: Past, Present, and Future

CALL FOR PAPERS
The Councilor: A Journal of the Social Studies
Special Issue on Education Reform: Past, Present, and Future
Edited by Andrew Hartman (Illinois State University) and Jeff Manuel (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville)

Fundamental questions have roiled the American educational system in recent years. Critics suggest that public education is failing its students and the nation, pinning the blame on teachers' unions, curriculum, and educational bureaucracy, among other culprits. Skeptics, on the other hand, note that critiques of today's educational system are motivated by get-rich-quick privatization schemes or simply find educational reform to be the latest cause de jour. Teachers themselves often feel that their professionalism, their care for children as well as test scores, and their collective bargaining rights vis-a-vis administrators are threatened by possible reforms.

As the journal of record for the Illinois Council for the Social Studies, The Councilor will publish a special issue on the topic of educational reform. We seek academic articles and shorter reflective essays on topics related to educational reform in its current guise, but also its past iterations and possible future trajectories. Possible topics may include:

• Teachers’ firsthand experiences with new testing and accountability regimes
• Lessons from previous reform movements that might inform the current situation
• Discussion of how Illinois teachers and schools have responded to the challenges of education reform

For consideration, please submit an abstract of approximately 200 words to the editors by October 15, 2012. The editors will review all submissions and then invite authors to submit full articles to the journal in early 2013. Abstracts should be emailed to Andrew Hartman (ahartma@ilstu.edu) and Jeff Manuel (jemanue@siue.edu).

The Councilor is the peer-reviewed journal of the Illinois Council for the Social Studies. Since 1939, The Councilor has published articles that incorporate pedagogical innovation and practice into all disciplines of the social studies. The Councilor also provides a forum for scholars to publish articles that explore the ways in which they integrate research into the classroom.