It means far less than it sounds likes.
The writers, like most manifesto writers, have a serious ego problem. It basically says, "We are all important: We are the Great Social Engineers and responsible for all the world's evils." The problem is that's not the case, and by making self-important claims we educators allow everybody else to chime in and say, "Yes, it is entirely your responsibility, so leave us out of it."
Some of the claims and calls are also just pomo ludicrous. Including a broader definition of evidence, for instance. Or making sure that we teach what students say they need. (Keeping in mind that the narrower standard for evidence said that people ignorant of a discipline really have no way of judging what's necessary for that discipline. But in an age where we spend time accommodating every opinion, however senseless, as long as its ideologically appropriate and then complain that we don't have enough resources ... What else can be expected?)
Other calls and claims focus so much on outcomes that they ignore inputs. That's always a recipe for disaster.
And others are so busy accommodating various opinions that they overlook that they'd very likely perpetuate cycles of what they'd call discrimination and oppression if proposed by those not ideologically like-minded. Vocational programs typically serve not the students of college-educated prosperous families but children of lower-class, less educated parents. While I think vocational programs are the way to go for many kids, I can't help but note this irritating little fact: It provides a means for social mobility from the bottom 20% to the second or third 20% from the bottom, but doesn't affect that stat that everybody obsesses about--the social mobility from the bottom to the top 5% or top 10%. (Of course, we only obsess about that fact when it's convenient. To be honest, I'd be happy as punch to see more kids move from the bottom 10% to the 30-40% interval ... Even though that means more kids would move from the lower-mid levels down to that bottom 10%. Sort of the dirty secret about that bottom 10%: There's always going to be one. It's like the #2 in Al-Qa'ida in Iraq--there's always going to be a #2 if there's a #1 and a #3).
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