On February 17, 2015,  Michael W. Apple presented "Are Dominant Educational Reforms Really Democratic?" as a part of the University of Iowa College of Education’s Distinguished Speaker Series.

Michael W. Apple is the John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He also holds Distinguished Professor appointments at the University of Manchester and Northeast Normal University in China.

A former elementary and secondary school teacher and past-president of a teachers union, he has worked with educational systems, governments, universities, and activist and dissident groups throughout the world to democratize educational research, policy, and practice.

Professor Apple has written extensively on the politics of educational reform and on the relationship between culture and power. Among his recent books are The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Education (2009); Global Crises, Social Justice, and Education (2010); Knowledge, Power, and Education: The Selected works of Michael W. Apple (2013); and Can Education Change Society? (2013). His books and articles have won numerous awards and have been translated into many languages.

Professor Apple has been selected as one of the fifty most important educational scholars in the 20th Century. His books Ideology and Curriculum and Official Knowledge were also selected as two of the most significant books on education in the 20th Century. He has been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Educational Research Association, the UCLA Medal for "Outstanding Academic Achievement," and a number of honorary doctorates by universities throughout the world. Professor Apple has worked on educational reform, lectured, and taught in a considerable number of countries throughout the world, where his material has been very influential in the development of more critically democratic educational policies and practices.