David I. Backer

After studying philosophy of mathematics and logic as an undergraduate, Dr. Backer taught high school for five years in Washington, DC and Quito, Ecuador. He completed his dissertation at Teachers College, Columbia University, focusing on ideology and classroom pedagogy. After a project reassessing Louis Althusser's theory of education and co-translating Enrique Dussel's Pedagogics of Liberation from Spanish to English, Dr. Backer's research now focuses on the ideology of school finance, with a focus on school facilities and climate change. He teaches courses in social and ethical foundations of education, educational policy and politics, and education law in the Doctorate of Education in Policy, Planning and Administration, where he also advises doctoral student research. In addition, he teaches a finance course in the Transformative Principalship program.