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David Hursh

David Hursh

Professor of Education
Teaching & Curriculum

LeChase Hall 452
Office Phone: (585) 275-3947
Fax: 486-1159
dhursh@warner.rochester.edu

Education:

PhD, University of Wisconsin - Madison (curriculum theory and research)
MS, Kansas State University (family and child development)
BS, Kansas State University (social science)
David Hursh’s teaching and research aims to improve education by analyzing current educational policies and practices and engaging in projects to transform schooling. His current educational reform projects focus on education for environmental sustainability and teaching history to young children (through two Teaching American History grants). He also problematizes his own and others' reform efforts in the context of broader social policies that situate schooling within neoliberal government policies emphasizing free markets, privatization, and quantitative accountability.
 
Most of his research and publications focus on the rise and consequences of neoliberal policies in education. His article, “Raising the Stakes: High-stakes Testing and the Attack on Public Education in New York,” was recently published digitally in in the Journal of Education Policy (available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/KpTYTRvCIzAbQQ566qqv/full). Two other recently published analyses include “Analyzing Education Policy During Neoliberal Times” in the journal Educational Studies and an essay review of two books: Globalizing Education Policy, by Fazal Rizvi and Bob Lingard, and Cosmopolitanism and the Geographies of Freedom, by David Harvey. He is one of five members of the international reference group for the RAINS project (Research, Analysis, and Insight into National Standards) at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. This four-year project is examining the impact national standards has on teaching and curriculum in New Zealand’s Schools.
 
During the 2011-12 academic year, Hursh was at Columbia University where he was a visiting research scholar at the Earth Institute and an associate adjunct professor in the School for International and Public Affairs. Besides teaching, his efforts focused on The Millennium Village project, which encompasses 14 villages in 10 sub-Saharan countries and aims to achieve the United Nations' Millennium Development goals by 2015. Given the need to create sustainable reforms, he developed a model action research collaborative between universities in Uganda and Kenya and secondary schools in rural villages.
 
His experience at the Earth Institute built on Hursh’s previous work in Kampala, Uganda, where he taught primary school students about environmental sustainability (energy) and, along with two University of Rochester medical students, environmental health (air and water pollution). Earth Institute and current projects also build on his research on teaching environmental health and justice, some of which is reflected in his book Teaching Environmental Health to Children: An Interdisciplinary Approach (2011), co-authored with Camille Martina. In 2012 he presented on teaching about environmental sustainability at the United Nations and gave a keynote presentation at a regional United Nations conference held in Atlanta on water and sanitation.
 
In some of his recent writing, Hursh describes the connection between current environmental crises (global warming, resource depletion, and toxins in our environment), with economic and educational policies. In forthcoming articles, he will examine ways in which neoliberal ideologies affect how we think about and conduct environmental education and research. He is currently editing (with one his doctoral students, Joseph Henderson, and colleague, David Greenwood) a special issue of Environmental Education Research, which focuses on the nexus between neoliberalism and environmental education and research.and is forthcoming in print. Two other recently published analyses include “Analyzing Education Policy During Neoliberal Times” in the journal Educational Studies and an essay review of two books: Globalizing Education Policy, by Fazal Rizvi and Bob Lingard, and Cosmopolitanism and the Geographies of Freedom, by David Harvey. He is one of five members of the international reference group for the RAINS project (Research, Analysis, and Insight into National Standards) at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. This four-year project is examining the impact national standards has on teaching and curriculum in New Zealand’s Schools.
 


Publications Available on the Web

The Crisis in Urban Education: Resisting Neoliberal Policies and Forging Democratic Possibilities (Book review for the Educational Researcher)

Undermining democratic education in the USA: The consequences of global capitalism and neo-liberal policies for education policies at the local, state, and federal levels

Neoliberalism and schooling in the U.S.: How state and federal government education policies perpetuate inequality

We all live downstream: Transforming knowledge and thinking through teaching and learning about the relationship between the environment and human health

Neoliberalism, markets, and accountability: Transforming education and undermining democracy in the United States and England


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Courses

ED404 Teaching, Curriculum, and Change
EDF408 Student Teaching in Elementary Schools B
EDF409 Student Teaching in Inclusive Elementary School Settings B
EDU428 Theory and Practice in Teaching and Learning Social Studies in Elementary School
EDU442 Race, Class, Gender, and Disability in American Education
ED532 Action Research Methods (1 credit)
ED551A Teaching & Curriculum Doctoral Cohort Seminar 1A
ED551B Teaching & Curriculum Doctoral Cohort Seminar 1B
ED551C Teaching & Curriculum Doctoral Cohort Seminar 1C
ED552A Teaching & Curriculum Doctoral Cohort Seminar 2A
ED552B Teaching & Curriculum Doctoral Cohort Seminar 2B
ED552C Teaching & Curriculum Doctoral Cohort Seminar 2C
ED553 Teaching & Curriculum Dissertation Proposal Seminar
ED554 Action Research Dissertation Seminar I
ED555 Action Research Dissertation Seminar II



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