Reimagining Education for the Common Good: Interrogating the Braiding of Key Factors in the Pursuit of a Twenty-First Century Praxis

Beginning from the position that all previous attempts to reform schools to provide equity in both student achievement and social mobility have been less than successful, the argument is advanced for the urgent need for a radical reformulation of what constitutes school reform. Using the metaphor of braiding hair, reform is described as weaving together five strands of hair that have been regarded, to date, as distinct: merit and meritocracy, credentialism, in-school reforms, workplace reforms, and socio-economic factors. Placing the school at the center of a reconceptalized reform strategy, grounded in the generation of both Communicative Competence and the ideals of the Common Good, provides the basis for the engagement of multiple stakeholders in a broad-based dialogue and subsequent praxis that ends with the successful reform of both schools and society.