Erika Shaker

Erika Shaker is director of education and outreach for the National office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in Ottawa. She researches, speaks, comments, and writes on a wide range of education-related issues from early childhood education, to K-12, to post-secondary. Areas of interest include corporatization, privatization and commercialism; standardization and authentic assessment; funding equity; intergenerational inequality; and community engagement. She also edits the popular education journal Our Schools/Our Selves, which has recently gone digital.

Prior to joining the CCPA, she worked in Washington DC, monitoring the corporatization of childhood, and eventually co-founded the now-defunct Center for Commercial-free Public Education (formerly based on Oakland, CA). Erika has two kids currently in the public education system after having benefited from an excellent community-based co-operatively run neighbourhood daycare. She spends far too much time on social media posting about politics, pop culture, and sarcasm, and is also increasingly worried about the death of irony.