I. Justice as Equality: The Question of Merit (3 Weeks)

Week 1:

Video: Secrets of the SAT, Frontline

Week 2:

Alan Ryan, "The Twisted Path to the Top," The New York Review of Books, Vol. XLVI, no. 18, November 18, 1999 (packet).

Anderew Sullivan, "None of the Above," The New York Times Book Review, October 24, 1999 (packet).

Kenneth R. Howe, Understanding Equal Opportunity, (Teachers College Press), chapters 1 and 2.

Week 3:

Will Kymlicka, "Utilitarianism," Contemporary Political Philosophy, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), ch. 2.

II. Justice and Community (4 Weeks)

Week 4: Communitarianism

Will Kymlicka, "Communitarianism," Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), ch. 6.

Week 5: Patriotism

Martha Nussbaum et al., For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism, ed. Joshua Cohen, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996).

David Archard, "Should We Teach Patriotism?" Studies in Philosophy and Education, Vol. 18, No. 3, 157-173 (packet).

Week 6: Community and Religion

Warren Nord, Religion and American Education: Rethinking a National Dilemma (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), chapters 10, 11, and 12 (packet).

Week 7: Community and Gender

Kenneth R. Howe, Understanding Equal Opportunity, (Teachers College Press), chapter 3.

Will Kymlicka, "Feminism," Contemporary Political Philosophy, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), ch. 7.

 III. Justice, Race and Culture: (4 Weeks)

Week 8:

Kenneth R. Howe, Understanding Equal Opportunity, (Teachers College Press), chapters 4 and 5.

Lawrence Blum, "Antiracist Civic Education in the California History-Social Science Framework," Public Education in a Multicultural Society, ed. R. Fullinwider (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Lawrence Blum, "Moral Asymmetries in Racism," Philosophy and Racism, ed. Susan Babbitt and Sue Campbell, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press) (packet).

Week 9:

Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools, (New York: HarperCollins, 1991).

Week 10:

Alex Kotlowitz, There are no Children Here (New York: Doubleday, 1991).

Week 11:

Barbara Applebaum and Dwight Boyd, "The Meaning of Dominance, the Dominance of Meaning, and the Morality of the Matter," (packet).

Dwight Boyd and Mary Louise Arnold, "Teachers’ Beliefs, Anti-Racism, and Moral Education: Problems of Intersection," Journal of Moral Education (in press) (packet).

IV. Justice and Choice (2 Weeks)

Week 12: (School Choice)

Will Kymlicka, "Libertarianism," Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), ch. 4 (up to page 125).

John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe, Politics, Markets and America's Schools, Chapter two, "An Institutional Perspective on Schools".

Week 13:

Kenneth R. Howe, Understanding Equal Opportunity, (Teachers College Press), chapter 7.

Dan D. Goldhaber, "School Choice: An Examination of the Empirical Evidence on Achievement, Parental Decision Making, and Equity" From Educational Researcher, Vol. 28, No. 9, Dec. 1999.

Week 14: (Choice and the issue of drugs and performance enhancement)

William Connolly, "Freelancing the Nation," Why I am not a Secularist, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999) (packet).

Claudia Mills, "One Pill Makes You Smarter: An Ethical Appraisal of the Rise of Ritalin," Report from the Institute for Philosophy and Public Affairs (packet).

Ronald Cole-Turner, "Do Means Matter? Evaluating Technologies of Human Enhancement," Report from the Institute for Philosophy and Public Affairs (packet).

V. Justice as Fairness (1 Week)

Week 15: Open discussion

Will Kymlicka, "Liberal Equality," Contemporary Political Philosophy," (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), chapter 3 (up to page 76).

Margaret Clements, "An Analysis of Federal Financial Aid Policy and the Distributive Effects of Education: Is There Justice?," Panel Discussion on the Topic of "Ethics of Access to Education Settings," at the Nov., 1999 Meeting of the Midwest Comparative International Education Society, Chicago, IL (packet).