Cathy Davidson’s The New Education provides interesting insights on how to better the current university machinery in the era of homo economicus and neoliberal rationality. Her proposal relies on an ethical assemblage of all the gears involved, achieved by interdisciplinary approaches and alliances with state-of-the-art educational technology. Her book showcases examples of engaging professors who motivate students for thinking outside the box, becoming leaders, and pursuing their own educational paths in spite of the constrictions of the institution. “We need to revolutionize our universities”, Davidson notes on page 254; but, after reading her book, how can we elevate this educational claim to the political question that somehow lies underneath? This shift is a necessary step to align this conversation with our debates about decolonial theories and practices.
Perhaps we have to begin by redefining the differences between public and private education, emphasizing that similarities derive from the fact that both systems are run as corporations regardless where the money comes from. Perhaps we want to point to the question of the rationalization of every aspect of education both in public and private systems. As Davidson remarks, education is majorly –if not exclusively—regarded through the lens of economics: society ought to create innovative resources for improving students-assets that would integrate better in the highly demanding globalized market; universities have to do that in a context of scarcity. What if we divest from economic rationality and conceive education institutions outside profitability? From this perspective, students and professors should not be responsible for internalizing the logic of the market. Conversely, they should denounce it. That was the main claim of the “Wages for Students” pamphlet and subsequent campaign in 1975. At that time, demanding a salary underlined universities’ capitalist logic, which were profiting off of the work of students and participating in the disciplinary enterprise of creating docile individuals for Capital. This idea segwayed to the campaign “Wages for house workers” whose purpose was to visibilize unpaid labor as an essential condition for Capital to thrive. Many things have changed since 1975, but students are more tied up than ever to the university’s capitalist machine through the mechanism of debt. It seems to me that student’s debts due to the unreachably high costs of tuition and boarding should be central to the debate.
Since Davidson centers most of her debate on CUNY, perhaps it is pertinent to ask the question of why following the approval of open admissions, which allowed many Black and Latinx students from deprived areas of the city to pursue high education, tuition was put in place resulting in ending free education (this historical account can be accessed through the CUNY Digital History Archive: cdha.cuny.edu). Investigating this coincidence is a relevant point of entry for introducing race into the debate of public education. Bluntly put, there is more than a temporal connection here; it looks like legislators are more prone to fully fund education for white people.
Scrutinizing the past looking for answers is always useful to understand the present situation. In this respect, the idea of rebundling, proposed by Davidson, might seem promising. We have to ask what to rebundle and what is the use of it, though. Are the proposed measures colorful sprinkles on top of a faulty system or do they connect to the remnants of what once was a true structure of public education?
Davidson, Cathy N.. The New Education. United States of America: Basic Books, 2017. Print.