1. Politics of Education
1.1. Schools systematically lowered academic standards and reduced educational quality--this is called the Decline of Standards.
1.2. In the concept of multicultural education, schools watered down the traditional curriculum and weakened the school's ability to pass on the heritage of American and Western Civilizations to children--this is called the Decline of Literacy.
1.3. The Decline of Values or of Civilization in the conservative perspective, schools lost their traditional role of teaching moral standards and values.
1.4. Schools eventually lost their traditional disciplinary function and often became chaotic becoming known as the Decline of Authority.
1.5. The traditional visions tend to view the schools as necessary to the transmission of the traditional values of U.S. society, such as hard work, family unity, individual initiative, and so on.
1.6. The traditionalists also believe that schools should pass on the best of what was and what is.
2. History of U.S. Education
2.1. Most influential event: Brown vs. The Topeka Board of Education in 1954.
2.2. U.S. Supreme Court ruled that separate but equal schools for black and white children is unconstitutional.
2.3. This single case included many cases in four different states.
2.4. This law eventually gave blacks the equality they deserved in towns and schools.
2.5. No Child Left Behind, 2001
2.5.1. This was a reform that has had the most influence on schools, either positive or negative; it was implemented by President George W. Bush in 2001.
2.5.2. The main goal was to further equity and excellence in education, but it was not clear how effective that it has actually been in our school systems.
2.5.3. It has always been a topic of discussion in the education field for the past 14 years and that in itself, makes it very influential.
3. Sociological Perspectives
3.1. Theory-an integration of all known principles, laws, and information pertaining to a specific area of study.
3.2. Theoretical pictures of society are created by human beings and interpreted by them.
3.3. Theory is one of the best conceptual guides to understanding the relation between school and society because it gives one the intellectual scaffolding from which to hang empirical findings.
3.4. Functional sociologists begin with a picture of society that stresses the interdependence of the social system.
3.5. Functionalists view society as a kind of machine.
3.6. Emile Durkheim invented the sociology of education.
3.7. Functionalists tend to assume that consensus is the normal state in society and that conflict represents a breakdown of shared values.
3.8. Schools socialize students into the appropriate values, and sort and select students according to ability.
3.9. Conflict sociologists emphasize struggle.
3.10. Karl Marx believed that the class system, which separated owners from workers and works from the benefit of their own labor, made class struggle inevitable.
3.11. Two effects of schooling that have an impact on students: Knowledge and Attitudes, and Employment.
3.12. Knowledge and Attitudes: 1. Found that the higher the social class background of the student, the higher his or her achievement level. 2. Schools research demonstrates that academically oriented schools do product higher rates of learning. 3. Schools where students are compelled to take academic subjects and where there is consistent discipline, student achievement levels go up. 4. The more education individuals receive, the more likely they are to read newspaper, books, and magazines, and to take part in politics and public affairs.
3.13. Employment: 1. Research has shown that large organizations, such as corporations, require high levels of education for white-collar, managerial, or administrative jobs. 2. The amount of education is only weakly related to job performance. 3. It seems clear that schools act as gatekeepers in determining who will be employed in high-status occupations, but schools do not provide significant job skills for their graduates.
4. Philosophy of Education
4.1. Philosophy of education differs from philosophy in that the philosophy of education is firmly rooted in practice, whereas philosophy, as a discipline, stands on its own with no specific end in mind.
4.2. Pragmatism
4.2.1. Generic Notation: proposed that educators should start with the interests and needs of the students instead of what society wants.
4.2.2. Key Researchers: John Dewey 1859-1910
4.2.3. Goal of Education: According to Dewey, the goal of education is growth. Growth should never reach a stopping point, but should continue on to more growth.
4.2.4. Role of the Teacher: The teacher is not lecturing behind a podium all day. The teacher should be a facilitator of learning. They should offer suggestions, questions, and guide the students to be productive.
4.3. Method of Instruction: Dewey suggested that children should learn individually and in groups. Children should be able to transition often in the classroom. Teachers must be able to make this a smooth transition.
4.4. Curriculum: Teachers usually follow Dewey's version of curriculum, which includes integrated curriculum. This is having a particular subject under investigation by students, such as whales, would yield problems to be solved using math, science, history, reading, writing, music, art, wood or metal making, cooking, and sewing.
5. Schools as Organizations
5.1. State Senators: Richard C. Shelby, Jeff Sessions
5.2. House of Representatives from my area: Marcel Black
5.3. State Superintendent: Tommy Bice
5.4. Representative from our area on the State School Board: Jeffery Newman
5.5. Local Superintendent: Brian Lindsey
5.6. Local School Board Members: 1. Terri Snipes 2. Clayton Wood 3. Farrell Southern 4. Willis Thompson 5. Celia Rudloph
5.7. Germany's educational system is significantly different than the United States in that Germany selects children that are ready to be in school, and will send them to a place called the "Gymnasium." They have three different levels of education. The "Hauptshule" is for those who are more than likely be blue-collar workers or lower-level service positions. The "Realschule" is for the lower-level, white-collar, and technical positions. The "Gymnasium" is for the academically advanced children and will prepare them for university, intellectual, and management positions. It is the complete opposite of the U.S. system. The Germans select and sort students for a highly stratified and tracked secondary system, marked by a rigorous university preparatory track and two vocational and technical tracks, with a State-supported apprenticeship system.
6. Educational Inequality
6.1. Unequal Educational Achievement
6.1.1. Interactionism suggests that one must understand how people within institutions such as families and schools interact on a daily basis in order to comprehend the factors explaining academic success or failure.
6.1.2. Look into the lives and worlds of families and schools in order to understand why it happens. A lot of the research done of educational inequality use the interactionist approach based on fieldwork that way they can examine what goes on in families and schools.
6.2. School-Centered Explanations
6.2.1. Public schools are financed through a combinations of revenues from local, state, and federal sources. The majority of funds come from state and local taxes with local property taxes as a significant source.
6.2.2. Property taxes are based on the value of property in local communities and therefore is a proportional tax. Since property values are significantly higher in more affluent communities, these communities are able to raise significantly more money for schools through this form of taxation than poorer communities with lower property values.
6.2.3. In communities with families who have higher incomes, they pay proportionately less of their incomes for their higher school taxes.
7. Educational Reform
7.1. School-based Reform
7.1.1. By 1986, five major reports outline major problems in teacher education and the professional lives of teachers, and proposed a large-scale overhaul of the system that prepares teachers. The debate revolved around 3 major points: 1. The perceived lack of rigor and intellectual demands in teacher education programs. 2. The need to attract and retain competent teacher candidates. 3. The necessity to reorganize the academic and professional components of teacher education programs at both the baccalaureate and post-baccalaureate levels.
7.1.2. The Carnegie Report stressed the centrality of better prepared teachers to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.
7.1.3. Carnegie and Holmes Reports focus on the same outcomes: 1. They agree that overall problems in education cannot be solved without corresponding changes in teacher education. 2. Teacher education programs must be upgraded in terms of their intellectual rigor and focus, their need to emphasize the liberal arts, their need to eliminate undergraduate teacher education programs, and like other professions, move professional training and certification to the graduate level. 3. Rigorous standards of entry into the profession must be implemented, and systematic examinations to monitor such entry must be developed. 4. University teacher education programs and schools must be connected in a more systematic and cooperative manner. 5. Career ladders that recognize differences in knowledge, skill, and commitment must be created for teachers. 6. Necessary changes must be made in the schools and professional lives of teachers in order to attract and retain the most competent candidates for the profession.
7.2. Economic Reform
7.2.1. School Finance Reform: In 1990, it was ruled that more funding was needed to serve the children in the poorer schools districts, In order to provide a "thorough and efficient education" in urban districts, funding was equalized between urban and suburban school districts. It was also determined that extra funding was to be distributed to provide additional programs in order to eliminate disadvantages within poorer school districts.
7.2.2. In 2009, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled as constitutional a new funding formula stated that this "money follows the child" approach would more equitable distribute funding to all "at-risk" children in the state, including in its rural and lower income urban rim districts.
7.2.3. Although all of these educational reforms have demonstrate the potential to improve schools for low-income and minority children, especially in urban areas, by themselves they are limited in reducing the achievement gaps.
8. Curriculum and Pedagogy
8.1. The Developmentalist curriculum is related to the needs and interests of the student and not of the society. It states that teaching should be student-centered and needs to be focused more on them. It has not yet been very influential in the U.S. public school systems, but it has been in the Teacher Education Programs, and been used as a great model in independent and alternative-schools. The teaching of reading and writing is developmental in it's approach because it relates literacy instruction to the experiences and developmental stages of children.
8.2. Hidden curriculum teaches the attitudes and behaviors in the workplace. Working-class children attend working-class schools where the values of conformity, punctuality, and obedience to authority are relayed through the hidden curriculum.
9. Equality of Opportunity
9.1. Attainment and Achievement Gaps: Females are usually higher than males in reading, but lower in math and science.
9.1.1. The field of special education has mirrored the debates about equality of educational opportunity and the concern with the appropriate placement of students with special educational needs.
9.1.2. EHA Laws 6 principles: the right of access to public education programs; the individualization of services; the principle of least restrictive environment; the scope of broadened services to be provided by the schools and a set of procedures for determining them; the general guidelines for identifying disability; and the principles of primary state and local responsibilities.
9.1.3. It is clear that far too many students have been labeled and placed into special education classes and that, for many, these classes have resulted in lifetime sentences that have limited their educational opportunities. However, it is not clear that all students with special needs will benefit from inclusion, nor that students in the mainstream will not be harmed academically from wholesale mainstreaming.