NEPC Topic Experts on Progressive Education

Michael W. Apple is the John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.  He also holds Distinguished Professor appointments at the University of Manchester and Northeast Normal University in China.  A former elementary and secondary school teacher and past-president of a teachers union, he has worked with educational systems, governments, universities, unions, and activist and dissident groups throughout the world to democratize educational research, policy, and practice.

Professor Apple has written extensively on the politics of educational reform, on the relationship between culture and power, and on education for social justice.  Among his recent books are: The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Education; The Routledge International Handbook of Sociology of Education; Global Crises, Social Justice, and Education; and most recently Knowledge, Power, and Education; and Can Education Change Society?  His books and articles have won numerous awards and have been translated into many languages.

Professor Apple has been selected as one of the fifty most important educational scholars in the 20th Century.  His books Ideology and Curriculum and Official Knowledge were also selected as two of the most significant books on education in the 20th Century.

He has been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Educational Research Association, the UCLA Medal for "Outstanding Academic Achievement," and a number of honorary doctorates by universities throughout the world.

Email Michael W. Apple at: apple@education.wisc.edu

Arnold Danzig runs the doctoral program in educational leadership and is a professor at San Jose State University. He was previously professor of leadership and policy studies and the associate director of the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University, and served as the director of the Division of Advanced Studies in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in the Mary Lou Fulton Institute and Graduate School of Education at ASU.  He has authored or co-authored numerous articles, books, and reports on administrative leadership and education policy.  He is an editor of the Review of Research in Education sponsored by the American Educational Research Association.

Email Arnold Danzig at Arnold.danzig@sjsu.edu

Kenneth Saltman is a Professor of Educational Policy Studies at University of Illinois at Chicago. His interests include the political economy and cultural politics of public school privatization. His work also explains how the privatization movement in education is part of the broader movement to undermine public democratic power and expand global corporate power.

He is the author and editor of numerous books on educational policy and politics including Capitalizing on Disaster: Taking and Breaking Public Schools, The Gift of Education: Public Education and Venture Philanthropy, The Edison Schools, Education as Enforcement: the Militarization and Corporatization of Schools, The Failure of Corporate School Reform, The Politics of Education: A Critical Introduction, and Toward a New Common School Movement.  His most recent book (2016) is Scripted Bodies: Corporate Power, Smart Technologies, and the Undoing of Public Education.

Email Kenneth Saltman at: ksaltman@uic.edu 

Katherine Schultz is Dean and Professor of Education at the University of Colorado, Boulder School of Education. Prior to this appointment, she was Dean of the School of Education at Mills College. She served as professor and director of the teacher education program at the University of Pennsylvania from 1997-2010 where she founded and directed the Center for Collaborative Research and Practice in Teacher Education. From 2008-2010, she was a member of a three-person empowerment (school) board of the Chester Upland School District, a high poverty school district outside of Philadelphia. During this time, she was also the faculty director of the Philadelphia Writing Project. Her three-year term as Vice President of Division K (Teaching and Teacher Education of the American Education Research Association began in April 2016. She served as President of the Council on Anthropology and Education from 2010-2011. Her goal as scholar, researcher, and practitioner has been to understand how to prepare and support teachers to enter and remain in challenging urban contexts. In particular, her work has focused on the research, development, and dissemination of pedagogical practices that support new and veteran teachers working with marginalized populations in high poverty areas. Her two recent books address these issues. In Listening: A framework for teaching across differences, she elaborated a framework for conceptualizing teaching as fundamentally based on listening to students. Rethinking classroom participation: Listening to silent voices adds to this work through an exploration of the meanings and uses of silence in teaching and learning. Her current research projects analyze new teachers’ perspectives on learning to teach across multiple pathways. Related to this work is an interest in professional development that supports and sustains teachers in urban settings in the U.S. and across the world. She is currently working on a book on the role of distrust in educational reform drawing on her work in Oakland and as a school board member and leader of professional development in international settings. As Dean of Mills College School of Education, she was actively engaged in the Oakland community, establishing the Center for Urban Schools and Partnerships, co-chairing the Oakland Education Cabinet with the mayor and superintendent, and serving on several advisory committees including the leadership team for full service community schools. A co-founder of the Urban Teacher Educators Consortium and Deans for Justice and Equity, she is committed to the preparation and ongoing support of teacher educators through thoughtful research and practice.

Email Katherine Schultz at: Katherine.Schultz@colorado.edu

Gregory A. Smith is emeritus professor of education from the Lewis & Clark College Graduate School of Education and Counseling in Portland, Oregon. His work focuses on ways educators can contribute to the regeneration of social and biotic communities.

Email Gregory A. Smith at: gasmith@lclark.edu

Mary Lee Smith is a Regents' Professor Emeritus of education policy and measurement, statistics, and research methodology at Arizona State University. Dr. Smith's research focuses on school policies, identification of learning disabilities, effects of grade retention, and consequences of high-stakes achievement testing. She received her doctorate at the University of Colorado and is the author of Political Spectacle and the Fate of American Schools (RoutledgeFalmer, 2004).

Email Mary Lee Smith at: MLSmith@asu.edu

Paul Thomas, Professor of Education, taught high school English in rural South Carolina before moving to teacher education. Recent books include Parental Choice?: A Critical Reconsideration of Choice and the Debate about Choice (Information Age Publishing, 2010) and 21st Century Literacy: If We Are Scripted, Are We Literate? (Springer, 2009) co-authored with Renita Schmidt. He maintains a blog addressing the role of poverty in education: http://livinglearninginpoverty.blogspot.com/. His teaching and scholarship focus on literacy and the impact of poverty on education, as well as confronting the political dynamics influencing public education in the U.S. His work can be followed at http://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com.

Email Paul Thomas at: paul.thomas@furman.edu