1. Chapter 2: The Politics of Education
1.1. The Four Purposes of Education
1.1.1. 1. intellectual
1.1.1.1. to teach students to think, and to impart certain knowledge, for example math, English, science, and social studies
1.1.2. 2. political
1.1.2.1. to instill patriotism, to meld many separate cultural groups into one political order and teach them the laws of the country
1.1.3. 3. social
1.1.3.1. to ensure the stability of society, to teach children how to solve social problems, and to teach them the roles and values found in society
1.1.4. 4. economic
1.1.4.1. to prepare and train students to enter the work force
1.2. Conservative Perspective
1.2.1. 1. The role of the school
1.2.1.1. provide necessary education and training to ensure the success of the most talented and hard-working individuals
1.2.1.2. socialize children into necessary adult roles to maintain social order
1.2.1.3. transmit cultural traditions
1.2.2. 2. Explanations of Unequal Performance
1.2.2.1. students rise and fall on their own intelligence, hard work, and initiative
1.2.3. 3. Definition of Educational Problems
1.2.3.1. 1. decline of standards
1.2.3.2. 2. decline of cultural literacy
1.2.3.3. 3. decline of values or of civilization
1.2.3.4. 4. decline of authority
1.2.3.5. 5. stifled by bureaucracy and inefficiency
2. Chapter 3: The History of Education
2.1. 1. Education for All: The Emergence of the Public High School
2.1.1. before 1875 fewer than 25,000 students were enrolled in public high schools, but by 1940 about 6.5 million students went to public high schools
2.1.2. high school became mandatory for those under 16 in all states by 1918
2.1.3. this evolution of the public high school resulted in a debate over the purpose of education
2.1.3.1. the tension between classical (Latin, Greek, etc.) subjects and modern subjects (Science, English, Foreign language, etc.)
2.1.3.2. meeting college entry requirements
2.1.3.3. should schools prepare students for life or focus on academics
2.1.3.4. should the course of study be standard or determined by interest and ability level
2.1.4. Committee of Ten
2.1.4.1. modern academic subjects get the same stature as traditional ones
2.1.4.2. classical and modern languages, English, mathematics, history, and science (basically the liberal arts)
2.1.4.3. all students should be taught in the same manner
2.1.4.4. silent on the subject of vocational education
2.1.5. the National Education Association's newly established committee on college entrance requirements and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching both reinforced the Committee of Ten's recommendations
2.1.6. in 1918 the NEA's Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Schools gave its own report which came to be known as the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education, it recommended a more utilitarian and less academically demanding curriculum
2.1.6.1. Health
2.1.6.2. Command of fundamental processes
2.1.6.3. Worthy home-membership
2.1.6.4. Vocation
2.1.6.5. Citizenship
2.1.6.6. Worthy use of leisure
2.1.6.7. Ethical character
2.1.7. The "Education for Life Adjustment" movement
2.1.7.1. practical concerns of daily living
2.1.7.2. for all high school students, not just those not bound for college
2.2. 2. Democratic-Liberal Interpretation
2.2.1. progressive evolution of a school system that, while flawed, is committed to providing equality of opportunity for all
2.2.2. reformers continually trying to expand educational opportunities to more groups
2.2.3. popularization and mutitudinousness
2.2.4. expansion of opportunity and purpose
2.2.5. social goals becoming more important over time
2.2.6. we must continue to move toward both equality and excellence
3. Chapter 4: The Sociology of Education
3.1. 1. define the theoretical perspective concerning the relationship between school and society
3.1.1. functionalism
3.1.1.1. interdependence of the social system
3.1.1.2. view society as a kind of machine, one part articulates with another to produce the energy society needs to work
3.1.1.3. education is important for creating the moral unity needed for social cohesion and harmony
3.1.1.4. consensus is the normal state of society and conflict is a breakdown of shared values
3.1.1.5. schools should socialize students into the appropriate values and sort and select them based on abilities
3.1.2. conflict theory
3.1.2.1. society is held together by the ability of the dominant group to impose their will on subordinate groups
3.1.2.2. the glue of society is economic, political, cultural, and military power
3.1.2.3. emphasize struggle
3.1.2.4. schools are like social battlefields, students struggle against teachers and teachers against administrators
3.1.2.5. authority and power of the school
3.1.2.6. achievement ideology
3.1.2.7. see schools as oppressive and emeaning
3.1.2.8. credentialism ensuring a place for the elite, status symbols not real indicators of achievement
3.1.3. interactionalism
3.1.3.1. examine the everyday interactions that take place in schools
3.2. 2. 5 effects of schooling on individuals
3.2.1. 1. Knowledge and Attitudes
3.2.1.1. research has shown that academically oriented schools produce more learning
3.2.1.2. schools were students are compelled to take academic subjects and that have consistent discipline have higher levels of achievement
3.2.2. 2. Teacher Behavior
3.2.2.1. It has been found that teacher expectations are directly linked to student outcomes, when teachers expect more from students they do better. It has also been found that teachers often expect less from working class and minority students.
3.2.3. 3. Student Peer Groups and Alienation
3.2.3.1. student culture often idealizes athletics, looks, and "coolness," this is in conflict with teacher culture. These conflicting cultures may add to rising amounts of violence in schools. Student culture remains important even after high school, college students can be sorted into four groups: careerists, intellectuals, strivers, and unconnected.
3.2.4. 4. Education and Inequality
3.2.4.1. the economy and social structures of the U.S. resembles a triangle with most of the people found at the base
3.2.4.2. if you know a family's class you probably know quite a bit about their life-style and chances
3.2.4.3. class influences what people think
3.2.4.4. mobility is blocked because of structural inequalities that often have little to do with an individuals' abilities
3.2.5. 5. Inadequate Schools
3.2.5.1. Many critics of contemporary schooling believe that children are not being prepared for fulfilling, productive lives and futures. On top of this Urban schools in particular are not doing a good job of preparing students. The differences between schools and school systems reinforce existing inequalities.
4. Chapter 5: The Philosophy of Education and Its Significance of Teachers
4.1. Pragmatism
4.1.1. generic notions
4.1.1.1. instrumentalism and experimentalism
4.1.1.1.1. behaviorism
4.1.1.2. theory of evolution
4.1.1.3. optimism and the belief in progress
4.1.1.4. the school became an "embryonic community"
4.1.1.5. learning experimentally and from books
4.1.1.6. start with what the children are interested in
4.1.1.7. use projects and groups
4.1.1.8. freedom and responsibility for students
4.1.1.9. schools should reflect the community
4.1.2. key researchers
4.1.2.1. George Sanders Peirce
4.1.2.2. William James
4.1.2.3. John Dewey
4.1.2.4. Frances Bacon
4.1.2.5. John Locke
4.1.2.6. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
4.1.3. goals of education
4.1.3.1. school should prepare students for life in a democratic society
4.1.3.2. school should be a place where ideas can be implemented, challenged, and restructured
4.1.3.3. students should learn how to improve the social order
4.1.3.4. schools should balance the needs of society and the needs of the individual
4.1.3.5. schools need to create cohesion and socialize a diverse group
4.1.3.6. cooperation and community
4.1.3.7. growth
4.1.3.8. "a lever of social reform"
4.1.4. role of the teacher
4.1.4.1. facilitator rather than authoritarian
4.1.4.2. encourages, suggests, questions, and helps plan
4.1.4.3. writes curriculum
4.1.5. method of instruction
4.1.5.1. individually and in groups
4.1.5.2. start by asking what you want to know
4.1.5.3. problem-solving or inquiry method
4.1.5.4. books written by students and teachers together
4.1.5.5. field trips and projects
4.1.5.6. formal instruction was abandoned
4.1.5.7. children could talk quietly, get up and stretch, and choice to work as a group or alone
4.1.5.8. individualized study, problem solving, and the project method
4.1.6. curriculum
4.1.6.1. an integrated curriculum
4.1.6.2. one subject being investigated would lead to something to learn in all academic and vocational disciplines
4.1.6.3. start with contemporary problems and work from the known to the unknown
4.1.6.4. a changing curriculum
5. Chapter 6: Schools as Organizations
5.1. Identify major stakeholders in your district by name
5.1.1. federal level (senators adn house of representatives)
5.1.1.1. Senator Doug Jones (Democrat)
5.1.1.2. Senator Richard Shelby (Republican)
5.1.1.3. Representative Mo Brooks (District 5 Republican)
5.1.2. local level (senators and house of representatives, state superintendent, representative on state school board, local superintendent, and all members of local school board)
5.1.2.1. Senator Doug Jones (Democrat)
5.1.2.2. Senator Richard Shelby (Republican)
5.1.2.3. Representative Mo Brooks (District 5 Republican)
5.1.2.4. State superintendent Michael Sentance
5.1.2.5. State School Board President Kay Ivey
5.1.2.6. State School Board Secretary and Executive Officer Ed Richardson
5.1.2.7. State School Board Jackie Zeigler District 01
5.1.2.8. State School Board Betty Peters District 02
5.1.2.9. State School Board Vice President, District 03 Stephanie Bell
5.1.2.10. State School Board Yvette M. Richardson, Ed.D. District 04
5.1.2.11. State School Board Ella B. Bell District 05
5.1.2.12. State School Board Cynthia Sanders McCarty, Ph.D. President Pro Tem, District 06
5.1.2.13. State School Board Jeffrey Newman District 07
5.1.2.14. State School Board Mary Scott Hunter District 08
5.1.2.15. Huntsville City Schools Superintendent Dr. Matt Akin
5.1.2.16. Huntsville City Schools Board Member Michelle Watkins District 1
5.1.2.17. Huntsville City Schools Board Member Beth Wilder District 2
5.1.2.18. Huntsville City Schools Board Member Elisa Ferrell District 3
5.1.2.19. Huntsville City Schools Board Member Walker McGinnis District 4
5.1.2.20. Huntsville City Schools Board Member Pam Hill District 5
5.2. Identify and describe the elements of change within school processes and school cultures
5.2.1. Conflict: Conflict is a necessary part of change, during change previously hidden problems, issues, and disagreements surface.
5.2.2. New behaviors: New behaviors must be learned during change. Change requires new relationships and new behaviors. Communication, trust, and enabling leadership and initiative is a must.
5.2.3. Team building: The entire school needs to be involved in team building. Working out and giving on-going attention to relationships while making shared decisions is important to avoid issues of exclusiveness and imagined elitism as well as a perceived "resistance to change."
5.2.4. Process and content are interrelated: How well a project goes often depends on the level of trust and openness between the team working on it. The usefulness and visibility of the project will in turn influence future commitments from those involved.
6. Chapter 7: Curriculum, Pedagogy, and the Transmission of Knowledge
6.1. 1. Explain a curriculum theory which you advocate (humanist, social efficiency, developmentalist, or social meliorist
6.1.1. Developmentalist curriculum: Developmentalist curriculum is more concerned with the needs and interests of the child than those of society. It is student centered, and is concerned with relating the curriculum to the needs and interests of the child at particular developmental stages. It stresses flexibility. There is an emphasis on the development of individual capacities. It also stresses the need to connect education to each child's life experiences. The teacher is viewed as a facilitator of student growth. This model has not been very influential in schools, but has been rather influential in teacher education programs. It has been more influential in the private sector than the public sector.
6.2. 2. Identify and describe the two dominant traditions of teaching.
6.2.1. 1. Mimetic: The idea that the purpose of education is to transmit specific knowledge to students. This used the didactic method, which relies on lectures or presentations as the main type of communication. The assumption is that the process of education is a transfer of information from the teacher to the student. There is a focus on rational sequencing and assessment.
6.2.2. 2. Transformative: The idea that the purpose of education is to change the student in a meaningful way. This involves a more multidimensional theory of teaching. There is a rejection of the authoritarian relationship between teacher and student. They argue that learning and teaching are connected, that it is not just a transfer of knowledge, but a conversation between teacher and student. The use of questioning is very important in this tradition. They believe that the active participation of the student is important.
7. Chapter 9:Explanations of Educational Inequality
7.1. Explain at least two types of cultural differences theory (424-427)
7.1.1. 1. Researchers like anthropologist John Ogbu believe that African American students preform worse in school because of the oppressive position they are in. Essentially the idea is that there is a "job ceiling" for African Americans, and they are raised to deal with their inferior chances instead of encouraged to reach for jobs (and therefore the values and skills needed for those jobs) that they are unlikely to attain.
7.1.2. 2. Another view point sees working-class and nonwhite students as resisting the dominant culture of the schools. In this view working-class students consciously reject middle class values and resist academic success.
7.2. Describe at least four school-centered (not student-centered) explanations for educational inequality
7.2.1. 1. School Financing: Affluent school districts receive more funding than poor school districts. The reason for this difference in funding stems from the source of the funding. Schools are funded through a combination of local, state, and federal sources, but most of the funding comes from state and local taxes. Since property taxes are higher in affluent areas affluent areas collect more money for schools through taxes.
7.2.2. 2. Effective School Research: There was an idea that before excepting the student-centered explanations for educational inequality we should first compare schools, not just lower socioeconomic communities to higher socioeconomic communities, but also lower socioeconomic schools to other lower socioeconomic schools, and if they find that they are the same then accept the student-centered explanation, but if their are significant differences between different lower income schools than there must be a school-based difference that effects students outcomes. This lead to a study of unusually effective schools which found some common characteristics between unusually effective schools: high expectations for students, strong leadership from the principal, accountability for students and teachers, monitoring of student learning, a lot of instructional time on task, and flexibility for teachers and administrators to experiment and adapt.
7.2.3. 3. Curriculum and Pedagogic Practices: There is evidence to suggest that schools in working-class neighborhoods are much more likely to have authoritarian and teacher-directed pedagogic practices, and to have a vocationally or social efficiency curriculum at the secondary level. On the other hand middle-class neighborhoods are more likely to have less authoritarian and more student-centered pedagogic practices and a humanistic liberal arts college preparatory curriculum at the secondary level. Upper-class students are more likely to attend private schools with authoritarian pedagogic practices and classical-humanistic college preparatory curriculum at the secondary level.
7.2.4. 4. Curriculum and Ability Grouping: The differences in educational achievement are not just between schools, but also within them. At the elementary level students are divided into reading groups and separate classes based on teacher recommendations and test scores, while these groups usually cover similar curriculum they may be taught it at different paces or with different expectations from the teacher. At the secondary level students are divided not just by ability, but also by curriculum, students in the same secondary school can receive very different educations. There is much debate about the tracking that occurs in schools, some believe it promotes continued inequity, some believe it is necessary to prepare the best and the brightest. Many teachers say that it is too difficult to teach to a heterogeneous group, that in this situation they end up teaching to the middle which loses those on the bottom and bores those on the top. Critics suggest that homogeneous groups result in unequal education for different groups.
8. Chapter 10: Educational Reform and School Improvement
8.1. Describe two school-based reforms (school-based, school-buisness partnerships, privatization, school-to-work programs, teacher education or teacher quality)
8.1.1. 1. School-Choice: School-choice reforms include ideas like offering choice using tuition vouchers. Vouchers fund families instead of funding schools, this lets parents have more choice, and rewards good schools, it lets market forces shape school policy instead of educational bureaucracy. Choice can be confusing, and there are several different kinds of choice plans. For example intersectional choice plans include both public and private schools. There is a potential constitutional issue with vouchers for private schools as many private schools are religiously affiliated. Intrascectional school choice policies only include public schools. The most common form of intrasectional policies are interdistrict, allowing urban students to attend suburban schools and vice versa. Intradistrict choice plans allow choice, but only within a single public school district, this may just be a choice of curriculum at a particular school, or is could be choice between any school in the district. Another important topic when discussing school-based reform is charter schools. Charter schools are public school that are free from many of the regulations applied to traditional public schools, but are held accountable for student performance.
8.1.2. 2. Privatization: Since the 1990s the line between public and private schools hasn't been as clear as it once was. For-profit companies have taken over failing schools and districts, and private companies are often involved in tutoring.
8.2. Describe at least two societal, economic, community, or political reforms.
8.2.1. 1. State Intervention: focused on accountability, and on rewards and sanctions. With system schools that preform well are rewarded, and those that preform poorly receive sanctions, often up to take over by the state as a last resort.
8.2.2. 2. Full Service and Community Schools: This concept is to educate and examine the whole community. The intention of these schools is to meet the educational, physical, psychological, and social needs of the students and their families.
9. Chapter 8: Equality of Opportunity and Educational Outcomes
9.1. Describe how class, race, and gender each impact educational outcomes. (342-343)
9.1.1. Class: School can be expensive, this obviously favors the upper class. In addition upper and middle class families are more likely to expect their children to finish school, lower and underclass families often have lower expectations for their children. Middle and upper class families are also more likely to own more books and speak "standard" English. There is a correlation between parent's income and children's scores on achievement tests.
9.1.2. Race: Our society is still highly stratified by race. More minority students drop out than white students, and more minority students are not reading at the intermediate level by age 17 than their white peers.
9.1.3. Gender: In the past gender was very closely related to educational attainment, and women weren't likely to attain the same level of education as men even though they are often rated as better students than men. Today female students are less likely to drop out and more likely to be more proficient readers and writers than their male peers. Males usually perform better in mathematics. Over the past 20 years the gender differences in educational attainment have been reduced.
9.2. What were the two responses to the Coleman Study from 1982?
9.2.1. 1. Jencks (1985), and Alexander and Pallas (1983, p. 122) viewed the differences found in Coleman's study to be much less significant that Coleman did. There conclusion was that private schools seem to do just a little bit better, but not enough that it would really matter.
9.2.2. 2. Several other researchers have had findings similar to Coleman's *Chubb & Moe, 1990; Bryk, Lee, & Holland, 1993), but much of the criticism Coleman received also applies to their studies.