ABOUT TAP
Background
The Alternatives Project was initiated in August 2019 by a group of 20 progressive academics, union leaders, and other civil society activists who are frustrated by decades of neoliberal education reform and the complete abandonment of education as the basis for just and democratic societies. The initial impetus for TAP came from a series of conversations that began at the Comparative and International Education Society conference in San Francisco in 2019 and continued thereafter. As a still nascent special interest group we formed the “21st Century Socialism and Education: Global Alternatives to Patriarchy, Racial Capitalism, and Climate Change” track with 19 panels and about 80 presentations for the annual conference in Miami in March 2020. Unfortunately, the pandemic intervened, and the in-person conference was cancelled and a small virtual conference was held instead. While this conference planning was going on, a small group of us met to consider doing something much broader and long-term. Out of that meeting, drawing on and adding to the initial group, The Alternatives Project was born.
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Amplify Social Transformation
We felt it was important to seize this unique historical moment and be part of struggles and efforts that are ongoing in different parts of the world that seek to reconceptualize and radically change public education as an entry point to deeper societal transformation, and find ways to amplify these. In short, we began planning for a radical rethinking of education and building on advocacy campaigns that place sustainable ecosystems and climate justice at the top, and social justice at the core of radically redesigning education, economic, and political systems. We felt an urgent need to seek alternatives and take inspiration and learn from the many examples of transformative practices that were designed to overcome structural inequalities and discriminations based on race, gender, income, geographic location, disability, migration, sexual identity, among others, and together find ways to amplify them.
Changing the Discourse
Witnessing the many failures of international development efforts and neoliberal education reforms, we recognized that simply calling for increased funding for education and returning to business as usual would not do. Current education policies take our economic, social, and political systems as a given and thus can do little to bring us to a more equitable, saner, world. Even in the midst of a pandemic, the reform narrative is dominated by narrow corporate driven solutionist thinking that does nothing to reconstruct education that can effectively aid in addressing the very real economic, social, political, and climate crisis that confronts us today. We felt we needed to reimagine and reconstruct education in radically new ways in order to to survive on this planet in sustainable and humane ways.
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Who We Are
The Alternatives Project (TAP) is an international and geographically diverse network of progressive academics, union members, civil society activists, and social movement participants concerned with building a global collective critical voice oriented towards education and societal transformation.
Across the globe today there is a re-birth of radical democracy, often led by women or by youth, whose energies 'for life' combine with social movements for the liberation of species, genders, castes, and oppressed class groupings. Global teacher strikes and education campaigns around the world have taken action against the austerity measures mandated by global policymakers and financial institutions as well as against the proliferation of market-based reforms, such as charters, low-fee private schools, and assessment packages. From Argentina to Zimbabwe, educators and advocates are taking on their own governments and the international financial institutions for their efforts to divert public funds to the private sector and away from public education.
Initial Organizers (positions in 2020) :
Frank Adamson - Assistant Professor, California State University, Sacramento
David Archer - Head of Public Services, Action Aid International
Sylvain Aubry - Senior Legal and Research Advisor, Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Maria Ron Balsera - Research and Advocacy Coordinator, Action Aid International
Katie Malouf Bous - Senior Policy Advisor, Oxfam International
Will Brehm - Lecturer, University College London
Delphine Dorsi - Director, Right to Education Initiative
Brent Edwards - Associate Professor, University of Hawaii
David Edwards - General Secretary, Education International
Gustavo Fischman - Professor, Arizona State University
Michael Gibbons - Scholar in Residence, American University
Mark Ginsburg - Visiting Scholar, University of Maryland
Martin Henry - Research Coordinator, Education International
Sangeeta Kamat - Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Steve Klees - Professor, University of Maryland
Hang Minh Le - PhD student, University of Maryland
Carol Anne Spreen - Associate Professor, New York University
Becky Tarlau - Assistant Professor, Pennsylvania State University
Jennifer Ulrick - Programme Officer, Education International
Salim Vally - Professor, University of Johannesburg
Antonia Wulf - Coordinator, Education International
Our Goals
To build a movement that will offer a collective challenge to dominant ideas and policies on education and development, through grassroots struggles and campaigns.
To be an intense space for progressive analysis and alternative ideas that are linked to a wide range of progressive and radical organizations and movements.
To provide a place for the enhancement of a collective critical global voice for education and social transformation.
To be a force for equitable learning opportunities and outcomes, democracy, and economic and social justice in a more sustainable world.
